Theoretically, reading and writing skills should be taught beginning in elementary school. As early as kindergarten teachers should be emphasizing reading and writing, teaching children how to read using phonics, and how to write things as simple as one-line sentences. This paper discusses the things that teachers can do to make sure that all…

This article uses two case studies of eighth grade students (one attending an Amish school and the other in a residential school for adjudicated juveniles) to illustrate the power of ethnography to contextualize literacy experiences. Five ethnographic questions are suggested for literacy assessment. (DB)

Focusing on writing as a way of learning subject matter, this paper describes two writing activities in an eighth grade social studies curriculum. First, the paper describes the use of the writing journal--its purposes, advantages, and format--and classroom activities in which students responded to such works as "Lord of the Flies" and…

Presents the Wilkinson Scales for writing assessment and shows how one eighth grade student's essay, using the scales, can be evaluated for grammatical and mechanical problems without devaluing the emotion that went into its composition. (JC)

The workplace research of Sylvia Scribner provides a model with which to study relationships between socially and institutionally organized practices and individual cognitive processes as well as to explore relationships between practices and processes in writing and the teaching of writing. Observations and conversations in one inner-city,…