"Fresh, fearless, more or less brilliant stuff"--if you want to get hired. That sums up the importance of authentic assessment in writing and the unwitting harm caused by typically vapid writing prompts and rubrics, and rigid use of the so-called writing process. The point of writing is to have something to say and to make a difference in saying…

The author helps some kids make personal connections to what can seem irrelevant within the confines of classroom and curriculum. Interestingly, though, the most meaningful connections she has made with students have come not through quirky English teaching, but through her extracurricular interloping into the realm of social studies. The most…

With her recent book, "Paint the Wind" (2007), hitting the shelves this fall, author Pam Munoz Ryan delivers a welcome addition to the 25 plus books she has written for young people, including her award-winning novels "Esperanza Rising" (2000) and "Riding Freedom" (1998) and picture books "Amelia and Eleanor Go for a Ride" (1999) and "When Marian…

In this article, the authors comment on two key issues that emanate from Anders Ericcson and his colleagues' manuscript: (1) the audiences that the authors address; and (2) the implications of their work for policy. The authors argue that in the imperfect world of limited resources, domain-specific abilities in combination with psychosocial…

Discusses two senses of the word "community" (natural and elective) and how they influence writing. (MG)

Fifth grade teacher Molly Toussant realized with chagrin that she habitually mouthed her precepts about teaching writing in the same rote way she had recited the Apostles' Creed in Sunday school, and that her students had no idea why they had to write "like every day." So she wrote this explication in which she shows, with many examples, how her…

Argues that sports readers are no longer satisfied with statistics and scores. Finds that people want in-depth coverage of sports, as well as sports-related human interest stories. Cautions that if sports writers and editors do not modernize, they will be seen by readers as unnecessary, and could possibly be eliminated. (PA)

Explores the argumentation of critical rhetoric as a millennial appeal, a rhetorical device aimed at establishing a new world with subsequent need for a new critical orientation. Argues that the advocates of critical rhetoric characteristically use dissociation as their primary rhetorical strategy. Concludes that M. Bakhtin's concept of…

States that "gathering material" is what writers do when they are not writing and that writers are their own first audience, even as they write. Advocates active reading and book collecting as rewarding for writers. (PA)

Introduces illustrator Dennis Nolan. Explains his work routine, his storyteller philosophy, and his perception of audience. (RAE)

Lists nine assertions pertaining to the field of theatre for children and youth. Spurs questions and discussion that provides useful contextualization for all of the papers presented for a symposium--papers which ranged widely over diverging ideological subjects. (SG)

Presents an interview with Author/Screen Writer David Klass. Discusses his dual role as young adult author and Hollywood screenwriter. Illuminates important differences that Klass finds when working as writer of young adult books and as a screenwriter. (SG)

Discusses how reader response techniques, by bringing students together into interpretive communities, encourage students' real interactions with literary texts, and foster greater awareness of audience. (SR)

Challenges the prevailing view of publics as relative entities. Reviews the two primary schools of semiotics, Saussrean and Peircean, arguing for the utility of the latter. Concludes that a public can be best understood as an ongoing process of agreement upon an interpretation, and that the public may develop a more sophisticated, insightful…

States that training in legal writing is vital to a lawyer's education and is required by the successful practitioner. Suggests that learning to write as a lawyer is part of the process that creates lawyers. Argues that rhetoric is only effective for the audience and occasion it was written for. (PA)