Professional writing, like any skill, takes practice and patience. Directors of early childhood programs, like many professionals, underestimate the amount of time they dedicate to writing-related tasks. This article is part of an occasional series dedicated to highlighting directors' writing responsibilities. "Exchange's" Writing Project offers…

Considers the transformation processes through which technological innovation has historically been associated with the transformation in writing. Discourses about writing in the 21st century. (PA)

The email received by a professor explained to him that it is worth it to praise students and encourage their best efforts to get them writing. He has decided that he will continue to praise somebody who looks uninspired.

Explains and anthropomorphizes each letter in the alphabet. Details the reasons why writers write. Notes that all writers live and struggle with this question. (PM)

Addresses the argument that private writing is not really private. Explores the role of empirical evidence. Offers arguments that acknowledge private writing as different from public or social writing. Discusses methods of researching private writing. (CR)

There is a conceptual world surrounding writing in schools, and we are conditioned to a particular language about composition and literacy. This study seeks to interrogate the terms composition and literacy at the level of the classroom: to ask what is meant when it is invoked and what it means to the teachers who teach it. The central question of…

Interest in social construction has coincided with a widespread movement to situate the composing process in a social-cognitive paradigm. Because social and emotional themes overlap, writing specialists assume that the emotional components of writing have been taken care of. However, by being absorbed into social themes, the emotional experience…

Offers a poet's reflections on writing and his schooling. (PRA)

This study examined student perspectives about writing by interviewing both typically developing and struggling writers in Grades 2 through 8. The findings revealed a progressive developmental pattern of writing knowledge in which novice writers place more emphasis on the physical product and local meaning, while more experienced writers focus on…

Asserts that composition studies should include the study of emotion. Focuses on the piece of social psychology from which "attitude" emerges as a core concept and came to share with "emotion" a common phenomenological base. Discusses the rise of social psychology and the construct of attitude, cognitive studies and social…

Presents an interview with Mike Rose. Explains the source of Rose's interest in the cognitive dimension of writing and how it affects his teaching particularly and classroom instruction generally. Discusses writer's block in terms of cognition. (NH)

Presents the author's (she is a well known poet, essayist, and fiction writer) 10 commandments of writing that portray writing as a moral force, an ethical practice, and also mundane plain and simple hard work. The commandments are in the form of quotes from famous writers. (SR)

Offers a dialog between two writers, showing the mutual struggle with writing issues, many of them distinct to women, concerning such things as bodies, definitions of revision, and exploring purpose. (TB)

Make writing less of a task and more of an adventure through this creative and imaginative collection of writing prompts, targeted at grade levels 2 to 5. It provides not only ideas and inspiration, but also motivation. This book includes: (1) Story Headers: single pictures with story titles that kids write about; (2) Every Picture Tells a Story:…

Notes scholars in composition studies have begun to question the issues of writing in academic discourse communities. Explains college students (particularly basic writers and English-as-a-second-language writers) are only beginning to find acceptable spaces for their alternative writing styles in academia. Concludes if hybrid discourse were…