Although widely adopted, the efficacy of the Six Traits Analytic Writing Model for raising student writing achievement is uncertain. This comparison group study investigated teachers' perceptions of the efficacy of professional development in the model and students' writing gains. Data included teacher surveys and writing samples of 4th-graders…

An integrated technical writing and design course has been developed at Rowan University. This course was developed using aspects of project-based learning and recent discussions about design education, as well as pedagogical approaches from the write-to-learn and the writing in the disciplines (WID) movements. The result is a course where the…

The purpose of this study was to investigate problems and potentials of new technologies in English writing education. The effectiveness of automated writing evaluation (AWE) ("MY Access") and of peer evaluation (PE) was compared. Twenty-two English as a foreign language (EFL) learners in Taiwan participated in this study. They submitted…

Contract grading has achieved some prominence in our field as a practice associated with critical pedagogy. In this context we describe a hybrid grading contract where students earn a course grade of B based not on our evaluation of their writing quality but solely on their completion of the specified activities. The contract lists activities…

Reflecting the digital turn in composition studies, multimedia writing courses have become commonplace in many writing programs. Yet these technology-rich courses take on new significance when located within a rhetorically based writing major, especially as a core course. This article explores a developing writing and rhetoric major through…

We compared 56 eighth-grade students who, 28 months previously, had received instruction in strategies for planning and revising their writing, with 21 students of similar academic ability from the same school who had not experienced the intervention. Both groups wrote an expository essay whilst logging their writing activities and completed…

The National Writing Project's (NWP's) latest brochure makes a case for devoting more attention to writing, and demonstrates through recent research results that the writing project has had a positive impact on teachers and students across the country. This publication draws on a number of studies: a 2005 national public opinion survey showing…

This article reviews research examining technical features of curriculum-based measurement (CBM) in written expression. Twenty-eight technical reports and published articles are included in this review. Studies examining the development and technical adequacy of measures of written expression are summarized, beginning with research conducted at…

Improving students' writing achievement begins by creating a community of writers among teachers. These practices help staff learn more deeply.

It has been almost 30 years since the last systematic look at writing instruction in middle schools and high schools in the United States (Applebee, Writing). Since that report, there have been a number of significant changes in the contexts in which teachers teach and in which their students learn to write. Stretching back to the 1969-70 school…

The effects of a secondary academic intervention, embedded in the context of a positive behavior support model, on the writing of second-grade students at risk for emotional and behavioral disorder and writing problems were examined in this study. Students were taught how to plan and draft a story using the self-regulated strategy development…

This study explored the extent to which the reading-to-write construct is the sum of one's reading and writing abilities or an independent construct. The investigation included an analysis of (a) test tasks, (b) the relationship of test task scores and scores on reading and writing measures, and (c) the effects of proficiency level and educational…

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, only about a quarter of the nation's middle and high school students are proficient in writing. Even among students who plan to go to college, roughly a third fall short of readiness benchmarks for college-level writing composition. Yet, the ability to write plays an increasingly…

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…

The purpose of this study was to learn whether there have been any changes in writing instruction across K-12 education in the past three years. A three-year time frame was chosen to structure the study as it included the time period subsequent to the College Board's first announcement of the SAT writing section (the 2002-03 academic year). The…