Universities across Canada and elsewhere have a longstanding focus on improving students' writing skills, including for the purpose of fostering better learning. In this paper, we present findings from two sources of data--a discursive analysis and student survey--exploring the impact of writing instruction and support in the context of a required…

Newspaper op-eds, dedicated to commentary essays from outside of a newspaper, function as a platform for the public to exchange opinions. We designed an op-ed writing assignment as part of a semester-long course project in global supply chain management (SCM). Student teams conducted research on a SCM topic, presented their findings in the…

When writing an assignment, most students start by searching for information online, which they integrate in their writing and conclude by producing a bibliography for the sources used. They use their informational, writing and referencing skills to do this as well as refer to their plagiarism knowledge to make sure their text is exempt from…

Despite widely acknowledged benefits of integrating writing into economics courses, instructors' costs are often prohibitive. To reduce costs and make writing assignments more feasible, the authors describe multi-part, scaffolded writing assignments developed by an economist and a WAC (Writing Across the Curriculum) specialist, integrated into an…

The present study investigated how 6 Korean ESL graduate students in Canada used a suite of freely available reference resources, consisting of Web-based corpus tools, Google search engines, and dictionaries, for solving linguistic problems while completing an authentic academic writing assignment in English. Using a mixed methods design, the…

This study examines 143 graduate assignments across 12 faculties or schools in a Canadian university in order to identify types of writing tasks. Based on the descriptions provided by the instructors, we identified nine types of assignments, with scholarly essay being the most common, followed by summary and response, literature review, project,…

This article considers how instructors with larger classes can utilize Web 2.0 tools to help students develop as writers. Meeting the needs of readers defines strong writing, yet students need to interact with authentic audiences to learn to do this well. A growing body of educators is exploring how blogging can be used to enhance student…

Through a feminist content analysis of young women's writing and reflections, this study gives evidence of how a school-based new literacy project shared knowledge in a public voice about the irreducible and complex world of "becoming" a girl. This project, called "The Pink Voice," was conducted in a large urban centre on the…

This article reports comprehensive findings from a national study of the teaching and assessment of writing in classrooms across ten Canadian provinces and two of three territories. Through interviews with 216 grade 4-8 teachers and observations and interviews in 22 classrooms (1 to 3 classrooms in each province), we gathered information about…

This article reports the results of interview research examining writing instruction and assessment practices in 216 Grades 4-8 classrooms across the 10 Canadian provinces and 2 (of 3) territories. Researchers found that participating teachers scheduled daily time for writing, either in language arts classes or through integrating writing…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the challenges faced by first-year students as they negotiated the transition from the writing environment of high school to the writing environment of university. The research for the dissertation was undertaken using a mixed-method explanatory design. This yielded a description of students'…

Reflecting on the partnership that exists between teachers and students, this resource guide provides a glimpse into the experiences of educators who reflect on their own teaching and learning about writing. The resource guide is part of the "Student Expressions" series, whose aim is to provide a forum for celebrating the writing of…

A study of features of men's and women's English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) compositions (linguistic accuracy, readability, conformity to assignment guidelines) among a group of junior college students in Quebec found the two groups' writing of comparable linguistic quality. Superior marks received by women were found attributable to the way they…

A student-centered noncredit writing course for students of English as a second language, designed to alleviate the problems of diverse class membership, consists of a series of composition assignments with topics determined by class interests and composition length determined by the student. The entire class participates in prewriting activities;…

Focusing on the effects of three interventions on students' reading and writing of persuasive discourse, a study investigated (1) whether the writing of persuasive discourse can be improved by instruction, and (2) the effect of reading on writing and of writing on reading within the persuasive mode. Subjects, 100 Canadian sixth graders stratified…