The question of whether written genres can be learned through explicit teaching or can only be acquired implicitly through writing in authentic contexts remains unanswered. The question is complicated by the different parameters associated with teaching genre to first- or second-language learners, to children or adults, in settings in which the…

This article examines the appropriation of academic biliteracy by three French-speaking students at an English-medium university in the Canadian province of Quebec. Drawing on Hornberger's continua model of biliteracy, Bourdieu's critical social theory, and philosophical hermeneutics, the author conceptualizes individual biliterate development as…

Students' experiences of gender critically influence their everyday lives, and introducing them to the presence of gender in language is essential if all students are to recognize and challenge stereotypes that portray people in limited, restrictive ways. For this reason, this article describes a workshop that draws from students' own knowledge of…

In teaching a course without a textbook, we introduce a project in which students develop their own text. Details of the project, student reactions, benefits to students, and more are discussed. (Contains 2 footnotes.)

This article continues the debate about the transition from school to university begun in the international forum in volume 2(1) of this journal and developed in the thoughtful response from Michael Marland in volume 2(2). It examines some of the many points made there in relation to students' own views. Interested colleagues at different…

For over a decade, practice-based research degrees in art and design have formed part of the United Kingdom research degree education portfolio, with a relatively rapid expansion in recent years. This route to the PhD still constitutes an innovative, and on occasion a disputed, form of research study and students embarking upon the practice-based…

This article describes steps taken to demystify the writing of chemistry as part of the development of a junior level writing course for chemistry majors at Northern Arizona University (NAU). Although the course is offered by the chemistry department, its conception, development, implementation, and assessment have been the result of an…

This paper reports on the synergisms that developed as the authors' university-wide Writing Enhanced Course (WEC) Program was implemented with their university's new core curriculum. The authors evaluate the Pilot Program model of their WEC Program and suggest the directions they plan to take now that the Program is firmly established within the…

Correspondence journals between adults and elementary-school students promote child-centered discussion and learning that is often squeezed out of the curricula. Through an extended example of an exchange of letters between a fifth-grade classroom, including several English-language learners and a university classroom of preservice teachers, the…

This article describes the possibilities offered by the online assessment system Etude to achieve the benefits of formative assessment. In order to find out the way this works in practice, we carried out an experiment with the use of Etude for formative assessment in the course on collaborative report writing. Results show that online formative…

Because the writing-process movement has been deemed our field's founding "paradigm"--at least since Hairston's 1982 essay declared it so--"process" has remained stuck in the philosophical and historical assumptions of a "paradigm." The paradigm theory, has, from its first associations with composition, offered a view of change wholly unsuited to…

This study, set in the teacher education program of a large, Midwestern public university, examines metaphors used by elementary pre-service teachers in writing about diversity and teaching in diverse settings with diverse populations. Using metaphor analysis methodology grounded in Lakoff and Johnson's work on conceptual metaphor and working…

This article used a writing sample that contained 27 sentence-level errors of the type found by corporate America to be annoying and bothersome. Five categories of errors were included in the sample: grammar, punctuation, spelling, writing style, and business communication concepts. Students in a written business communication course were asked…

Research into the behaviours manifested by the dyslexic condition has often focused upon younger dyslexic pupils and the lower-order skill difficulty in decoding and encoding. A surge in interest in the writing process has shifted the focus to higher-order skills, and a growing body of research is emerging within the higher education context…

In an environment, in which English is a second or other language for every student, fear and anxiety affect students' learning and engagement. Yet, in spite of these concerns, students welcomed the chance to practice their spoken English in cooperative structures while learning about and engaging in their composing processes. English language…