This paper presents findings based on interviews with three employees of a university writing center about their experience tutoring foreign students. International students who are not native speakers of English but want to enroll in American universities must demonstrate a basic level of competence in English before they can participate in a…

This article describes an investigation with a class of seventh graders to determine what impact the study of traditional literature would have on their narrative writing. The classroom teacher emphasized the narrative structure of the traditional literature genre by prompting his students to respond both orally and in writing with their thoughts…

This study examines how young second language learners acquire academic language. Among the main language groups represented were Punjabi, Hindi, Tamil, Estonian, Serbian, Arabic as well as 23 other language groups. I monitored over 75 students, in grades 1, 2 and 4. I was interested in exploring what strategies best promoted coherence in…

English grammar, as a formal subject, distinct from other branches of instruction in the vernacular, made but sporadic appearances in the American schools before 1775. After the Revolution its rise was extremely rapid. English grammar gained momentum as the hold of Latin grammar weakened, and by the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth…

This article is a case study of two distance education graduate courses offered by means of computer-mediated communications at The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Topics discussed include adult learning; student interactions; teacher's roles; student achievement; student attitudes; small groups versus learning partners; and…

Reports on a study of the writing skills of 51 Italian fourth graders who used word processors for several months. Concludes that word processing can help motivate children and teachers to do more writing and that further improvement in writing skills would occur if the children received writing instruction. (CFR)

A composition instructor/biologist and a science librarian describe results of six years of experimentation with collaborative teaching of scientific writing to college undergraduates at both beginning and advanced levels. Their goal was to devise a two-course sequence for students interested in health and natural sciences, with emphasis on…

Reports on a study of a collaborative relationship between faculty at the University of Michigan and teachers and students at a comprehensive urban high school. The ethical and epistemological (validity) considerations have to do with using high school students as paid coresearchers. The study is illustrated with excerpts from student meetings and…

Analyzes unique within district variations in spending and achievement among urban public elementary schools (n=89). Reveals considerable disparities in spending linked to local patterns of racial and class stratification and concentration. Shows how these local driven inequalities have consequences for achievement in reading, writing,…

This study investigated the teacher expectancy effects (also called Pygmalion effects) on the grading of both fourth-grade spelling tests and eighth-grade essay tests by 19 teachers in central Virginia public schools. Spelling tests contained the same five misspellings, but differed in the legibility and gender of the sample. The essays varied…

Measuring students' progress toward higher achievement has been the purpose of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) since its inception in 1969. Students in public and nonpublic schools have been assessed in various subject areas on a regular basis, and the NAEP has also collected information about background variables that…

Pupils with Compensatory Educational Needs (PCEN) provides New York State funding for remediation in reading, writing, mathematics, science, and social studies for eligible high school students. During summer 1993, 30,195 students took PCEN-funded summer classes. About two percent were enrolled in Project Outreach, a program for high school…

While research on the composing process has revealed great variation among writers and among types of writers, research has largely ignored fluctuation in the writing behaviors of a single writer. A study contrasted both texts and behaviors of six graduate and undergraduate students of English as a Second Language (ESL) as they wrote a practice…

An evaluation of TICCIT (Time-shared Interactive, Computer-controlled, Information Television) involved over 5,000 community college students in introductory algebra and English composition courses. Comparisons between computer-assisted instruction and lecture-discussion sections of the same courses focused on four aspects of student performance:…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 29 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: alternative views of the English curriculum; development of curriculum theory and language arts; sentence combining; vocabulary development; the effect of music…