Draws on data collected in an ethnographic project in an urban first grade to examine how media use informs child composing. Focuses on the influence of visual media involving animation. Concludes with a consideration of the teaching challenges posed, and opportunities offered, by the children's media use. (Author)

The article explores the use of hybrid linguistic texts in the writing classroom, both as articles of study and possible models of composition. Standard English linguistic supremacy prevents many students from using their full range of linguistic knowledge. The inclusion of hybrid texts in the writing classroom might help students, in particular…

At the beginning of the twentieth century about one in twenty American teenagers graduated from high school; by mid century over half of them did so; and today six of seven do. Along with this expansion in graduation, the experiences of high schooling became more significant. Though diversity existed at the school level, by the interwar period…

Unfortunately, students with emotional and psychological disorders are not uncommon on campuses anymore. In fact, along with the increase in the number of physically disabled students on campuses (now 6%), professors face new challenges, especially from those high-risk students suffering from hidden psychological disorders like schizophrenia,…

Using Ariadne's thread in the narrative of the labyrinth as a metaphor for the elusiveness of language, this paper explores the concept of "self" to prepare for the discussion of autobiography as a "tool" for teaching writing, and to create a connection between a politically enabled self, a private self, and critical theory.…

This paper examines the teacher's role in elementary and secondary school writing workshops--the teacher as Dostoevskian novelist creates a classroom novel and takes up relations with student-characters. The paper focuses on: the rejection of traditional relations among novelist and character, teacher and student, and the embrace of new ones; how…

Educators at all levels are increasingly being told that classrooms should be places where students are guided through processes of critical inquiry, work collaboratively, and use both written and oral languages as tools for learning. The value of a collaborative, language-centered approach to teaching and learning can be demonstrated by drawing…

To integrate second language writing with composition theories, a college writing instructor became a teacher-researcher in an ESL writing workshop course. Studying the writing experience of a Malaysian-American student in a process-oriented writing class helped to clarify what happens when non-native speakers begin to take on the identity of a…

Traditionally, it has been off-limits to talk about failures attributable to the ideology of democratic, student-centered classrooms. However, these classrooms fail for a particular kind of student--the male student who defines himself with a quasi-religious, extremely religious or political stance and who demonstrates strident rejection of…

Through focusing on the genre of informational reports, two dilemmas of genre teaching are explored: (1) a teaching dilemma about how to help students achieve flexible writing competencies through a combination of immersion in text exemplars and instruction in text features; and (2) a curriculum dilemma about how to combine the goals of…

Supporting the constructivist view of language learning, a study by a teacher-researcher analyzed the thematic patterns in the writing of her 31 first-grade students for a period of 3 months. In the natural setting of the classroom the children were studied in the context of their own learning. Writing was collected daily, and stories were sorted…

Based on an examination of the organizational features of editing during collaborative computer writing in a combined first and second grade classroom in a Catholic school during the 1985-86 school year, this paper argues that there is a fundamental difference between collaborative and solo computer writing, and that collaboration during computer…

A major problem in many composition classes is the unwillingness of the instructor to relinquish control in the classroom. Because students are excluded from having control in the classroom and control over their own writing, they become disenchanted with the processes of learning and discovery and the power those processes create. Students should…

Noting that the claim that writing is a way to learn underlies most writing across the curriculum programs, this paper provides an overview of recent research results supporting the claim and emphasizes the need for more research in this area. The paper first identifies three dominant interpretations in the writing across the curriculum…

One teacher's experience with changes in writing skills and attitudes while teaching writing led to studies of the experiences of three female graduate student writing tutors with widely varying backgrounds working in a university tutorial service. One was a student from a blue collar family who had entered college as a mature student; one had…