A field project aimed to determine if the use of guided imagery affected low-achieving children's motivation in journal writing activities. Over a 4-week period, 2 weeks pre-intervention and 2 weeks post-intervention, researchers documented the number of off-task unrelated and related behaviors, fluency in the number of words written and attitudes…

Discusses a teacher's reactions when a student commented on the teacher's short story. Discusses dealing with feedback, the vulnerability of writers, and attitude changes. Claims that writing with students shifted the focus of the teacher's writing instruction and the focus of students' writing. (RS)

Discusses how a high school writing teacher became increasingly aware of her own writing processes and attitudes toward writing. Reflects on what makes writing worthwhile for her, what prompts her to write, and what part revision plays in her writing. Notes that becoming a reflective writer has changed the way she teaches writing. (RS)

Describes how, when a working writer visited a sixth-grade classroom on an ongoing basis to interact with students, the language and activities of the writing community changed in interesting and positive ways. (SR)

Describes a teacher-researcher project involving an after-school writing class composed of sixth graders. Discusses the children's participation in a session at a professional conference. Relates children's earlier nurturing episodes involving writing. Discusses the implications of the project on the author's "failure" in motivating two…

Describes a method by which teachers can introduce students to meaning and text through application of Mikhail Bakhtin's discourse theories. Explains that students are encouraged to reject common understandings of good writing. Identifies "daffy" definition exercises, newspaper editorial comparisons, and other activities that help…

Argues that faculty writing groups are the single most effective way to change faculty attitudes about writing and to build support for writing across the curriculum. Discusses challenges facing colleges or universities that decide to develop a writing program across the disciplines. (RS)

Describes the experiences of a writing teacher who learned to be a journalist. Discusses how his experiences affected his teaching. (PRA)

Discusses publishing on the Internet by young authors. Describes "fan-fiction" Web sites where fans write passages that link to characters in popular books, television shows, or movies; fan-fiction inspired by the Disney film "Newsies"; posting short stories on Web pages; poetry, book reviews, and other publications; the attraction of the Internet…

Describes some of the writing stimuli used to help middle school teacher candidates with their own un-learning as they gain more confidence and insight about authentic writing. Encourages teachers to trust the process and muster the courage they will eventually need to model literacy in their own classrooms. (SG)

This paper synopsizes the central findings of a 2-year empirical study into how the new rhetorical situations presented by hypertext affect the writing process and thus impact upon literacy and education. It theorizes a conceptual model based on these findings. New technologies are transforming literacy in general and writing in particular.…

Explains certain writing projects oriented toward real life situations (in this case a proposal to establish a museum display) can help college students bridge the perceived gap between academic writing and the kind of writing that will be asked of them in the professional world. Suggests that students' attitudes and writing improved as a result…

Describes using published journals and books written by adolescents to spark seventh graders' journal writing. (SR)

This article offers ways to understand how a fifth-grade resistant writer positioned himself socially and academically within classroom writing practices and how these positions influenced literacy learning. Classroom writing practices enabled the student to explore the possibilities of who he was as he determined what types of learning were…

Collaborative writing is a "messy" process which reveals much about the ways students struggle to write alone as well as with others. Two sections of an undergraduate college writing class were assigned a collaborative essay, to be written in small groups. In many groups, students could not negotiate or communicate with each other. The process…