Developed as a teaching aid for a General Educational Development (GED) preparation class, this essay writing guide gives students the tools they need to develop and organize ideas for writing an essay with confidence. By following a sequential procedure in this very structured approach, students learn to turn out a well-organized essay. The…

This book outlines the processes involved when children learn to write, and it shows how certain strategies can improve children's progress in writing. Dealing with the age range 3-13, the book addresses issues of the gender gap, children with English as an additional language, and left-handedness. It includes ideas for assessment of writing. It…

This guide to the Georgia Middle Grades Writing Assessment (MGWA) serves the purpose of improving writing and writing instruction. It includes a description of test administration conditions, a sample test booklet, and a structured overview of the writing assessment. Prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and proofreading are explained in the…

A case study investigated the writing strategies use by high ability seventh graders (n=4) responding to explanatory tasks from the Maryland Writing Test (MWT), a state-mandated writing assessment. Central questions were: (1) what are the writing strategies elicited by the MWT?; (2) what evidence is revealed of participants' self-monitoring…

This article presents a comprehensive model of daily, classroom informal writing assessment that is constantly linked to instruction and the characteristics of proficient writers. Methods for promoting teacher, student, and parent collaboration and their roles in dialoguing, conferencing, and reflection are discussed. Strategies for including…

An informal study explored the dynamics of the task of writing college application essays, which urge self-revelation but are judged by omnipotent admissions committees. Four students in the top 17% of their class of 194 in a predominantly white suburban school completed think-aloud protocols as they drafted a response to an application question…

Notes impact of high-stakes language arts assessments on teachers in Georgia rural districts. Provides additional support for what many English teachers already believe--that rich classroom discussion, reading from a variety of texts, student-centered writing assignments, and metacognitive awareness of one's reading and writing strategies…

The purpose of this guide is to assist teachers in preparing their students to write effectively, both on the Georgia Grade Three Writing Assessment and in other contexts. Using Quality Core Curriculum (QCC) writing objectives, teachers are encouraged to use the information in this guide to create transparencies and handouts for students. The…

Reports the findings of a small-scale study assessing whether students revise essays more effectively when given written diagnoses that identify textual flaws and prescriptive comments, compared with a group of control students who received only directions stating that flaws were present. Concludes that while both groups' revising skills improved…

Provides college instructors with questioning strategies that encourage students' awareness of writing as decision making, and understanding of themselves as writers and as members of a broader writing community. Presents questions relating to topic selection, composition strategies, revision, critiques of other students' work, self-critiquing and…

Due to existing demographic trends, language minority students comprise an increasing proportion of students in the Southwest and in urban areas. For these language minority students, the lack of strong writing skills impedes academic performance at the university level and then later in the workplace. To test writing attitudes, a study involved…

Reflecting new development in the field of rhetoric and composition, this textbook's third edition incorporates major changes which propose to turn theory into practical advice. These additions in the third edition draw on a new theoretical understanding of how writers operate within a discourse community, on a new research-based view of the…

To improve reading/writing skills in a target group of 10 first-grade students, an intensive writing curriculum was implemented over a period of 10 weeks. The program included numerous strategies to improve beginning skills: using concrete objects for classification; using comic strips to illustrate sequencing; daily practice on correct posture…

This book focuses on how to teach, analyze, and assess arguments. The book merges current thinking on argumentation from the fields of composition, rhetoric, speech, logic, and critical thinking. Noting that teaching students how to argue is largely the responsibility of writing and speech teachers, this book builds the case for teachers' learning…

This booklet, which concerns student writing on a social studies examination given to Alberta (Canada) students, addresses two major purposes. First, the booklet illustrates and compares two important levels of expectations, or standards, that have been set for student writing on this examination: satisfactory and excellent. Second, it provides…