This dissertation examines the prevalence of school-induced literacy shaming in first-year college writers while examining how these experiences have shaped the students' attitudes towards writing in ways that impacted their academic trajectories. Using a qualitative approach, data was collected through surveys, narrative prompts, and…

Through the guidance of social presence theory, this study sought to understand how instructors' affirming messages and social presence behaviors affect students' writing apprehension in online business communication courses. The data were consistent with two models, both of which indicate that instructor affirming messages indirectly affect…

Anxiety (e.g., Dallos, 1976, 2006; Krashen, 2003, 2016) sometimes might be unavoidable in the learning process, because the cognitive and intellectual systems are usually connected with emotional factors. This empirical study was conducted in an English majors' advanced-level writing course to explore relevant explanations about why Taiwanese…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore 71 secondary preservice teachers' attitudes about and experiences with sharing their content area as well as recreational writing with teenage students. Methodology: Preservice teachers who were enrolled in a required secondary content area literacy course in a Midwest university, including 48 in a…

The purpose of this paper is to define writing apprehension, describe the writing apprehension of 91 secondary preservice teachers of diverse subject areas, in a required content area literacy course, and explain how their writing apprehension was reduced significantly by authoring a "how-to" book. The "how-to" book assignment is explained and…

Considers how students and teachers use Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) to respond to writing anxieties. Notes that experiences with TO have encouraged the continuation of experimentation with the theories and practices in and out of the classroom. Discusses how TO places instructors in creatively vulnerable and edifying positions.…

Identifies three types of writer's block. Suggests a model using peer tutors to help blocked students overcome the problem. Discusses diagnostic considerations, tutor qualifications, and the importance of clear communication among the student, teacher, and tutor. Emphasizes the importance of relaxed relations between student and tutor. (PAA)

Shares a conversation between a second-grade student and teacher during a prewriting conference. Emphasizes that, in order to become writers, students need to do their own writing. (MG)

Presents a nontraditional, naturalistic study of writing apprehension in the form of a dialogue between the subject of the case study and her teacher. Describes how the subject overcame a writing block (involving an undergraduate honors thesis) by writing about the block. Presents a sense of an individual writer and the social construction of her…

Argues that nontraditional students need special assistance in coming to believe that they have something valuable to say and in learning to express it with authority. Discusses the complicated nature and causes of the silences of nontraditional students, and describes numerous things that can be done to lessen fear and resistance in the writing…

Reports on a study of writing apprehension in writing center tutors, results of which indicated a strong correspondence between various dimensions of writing apprehension and specific teaching behaviors that do not aid the student in problem detection or writing improvement. (HTH)

Describes ways to help students of all ages with writing apprehension, including write more; discourage appropriation of voice; listen to fearful writers; find patterns in students' errors; conference during drafting stages; coach peers for effective response; encourage positive self-talk; be aware of possible gender differences; vary writing…

A recent trend in composition studies has been a call for the "feminization" of composition pedagogy. Collaborative learning pedagogues have sought to reconstruct the classroom as a site of social cooperation, connectedness, and nurturance and have re-envisioned composition as an act of understanding rather than of agonistics.…

The problems of writer's block and writing apprehension have just started to be examined in conjunction with modern rhetorical theories and practices. One of the variables that can make students more vulnerable to writer's block and writing apprehension is the degree of freedom the student is granted in the writing assignments. Two such freedoms…

Explores correlates of college writing students' use of instructor comments. Considers interrelationships among writing apprehension, writing outcomes expectations, writing self-efficacy beliefs, and students' use of global and local feedback from instructors when students revise first drafts of news stories. Finds that writing apprehension, the…