The purpose of the study was to examine the effect of using Six Thinking Hats (STH) strategy on the development of writing skill and creativity of seventh grade EFL students. A pretest and posttest quasi-experimental research design was employed involving 65 (34 control, 31 experimental) seventh grade EFL students studying in one of the higher…

Writing standards and objectives outline complex skills for narrative essay writing at the secondary level. Students with disabilities often produce disorganized narratives with fewer narrative elements than their peers without disabilities. A multiple-probe design was used to examine effects of Self-Regulated Strategy Development for the Pick my…

The number of English language learners (ELLs) mainstreamed into regular classrooms continues to increase. Curricular writing standards required by the Common Core State Standards require students to write essays analytically in response to text(s). Many English Language Arts (ELA) teachers may worry about effectively delivering essay writing…

Seventh grade teachers at a Colombian public school chose cooperative learning as a strategy to improve student's social performance and as a tool to get learners to enrich their academic level. This article reports on an action research and innovation project focused on the results eight students obtained in their written performance in English…

If writing matters, how can we improve it? This study investigated the nature of writing plan quality and its relationship to the ensuing writing scores. Data were drawn from the 1998 Provincial Learning Assessment Programme (PLAP) in Writing, which was administered to pupils in Grades 4, 7, and 10 across British Columbia, Canada. Common features…

A study explored how students of differing writing abilities (high, middle or low) approached a revising task that called for both editing (surface level changes) and revising (meaning level changes) and the effect that marking error location had on students' ability to detect and correct the two kinds of errors. Subjects, 12 seventh graders, were…

Discusses several approaches to creating an effective text, envisioning a specific audience and determining how much detail is appropriate. Provides examples from seventh-grade English classes and a literacy methods course for middle-grade teachers. Considers some broader implications of the framework that educators are beginning to consider as…

The development of narrative competence is an important part of the English curriculum in the early secondary school years. A study examined how four seventh-grade girls (two novice and two expert writers) responded to computer-based metacognitive guidance in the form of procedural facilitations. The facilitations were designed to assist the…

Requiring and supporting the development of thinking skills, this paper presents Washington State's Essential Academic Learning Requirements for writing. It sees writing as an act of discovery, of communication, of joy, and as an essential part of a literate society. Four charts outline standards and benchmarks regarding: (1) writing clearly and…

Based on the 1998 Arkansas English Language Arts Curriculum Frameworks, this sample curriculum model for grade seven language arts is divided into sections focusing on writing; reading; and listening, speaking, and viewing. The writing section's stated goals are to help students employ a wide range of strategies as they write; use different…