Examines African-American kindergartners' intrinsic motivation in the context of an emergent writing task in both autonomy-supportive and controlling interactions. Finds: (1) in the autonomy-supportive context, children demonstrated more interest in the letter writing task than in the controlling context; (2) the order of the interactions affected…

Offers an overview of changing attitudes towards the place of mechanics in writing instruction, as documented in "College Composition and Communication" over the 50 years of the journal's existence. Argues that the role of formal correctness within each instructor's teaching depends on the purposes, goals, and contexts of each writing…

Investigates whether business executives and business communication academics were bothered by examples of perceived errors in grammar or usage. Finds usage elements that troubled readers most were basic sentence-structure errors (run-ons, fragments, nonparallel structure, and danglers); several usage errors may be in transition to acceptability;…

A study investigated the writing motivation of 145 third- and fifth-grade students. Because self-perceived competence and task value interact in important ways to influence an individual's motivation, these two constructs were used as the basis for measuring children's motivation to write. Students responded to the Motivation to Write Scale (MWS),…

A study examined and described a program to improve writing skills and related attitudes of elementary school students. Targeted population consisted of second- and fifth-grade students in a stable, middle class suburban community, located 20 miles southwest of Chicago, Illinois. The problems of underdeveloped writing skills and lack of student…

A study investigated how future teachers viewed themselves as writers and writing teachers and how these identities were being addressed in teacher education programs. Subjects, 226 student teachers at Middle Tennessee State University, responded to a questionnaire designed to measure both writing apprehension and beliefs about the role and…

A study examined whether the adoption of an Afrocentric textbook at a historically Black university motivated freshman composition students to read, write, and think. Subjects, 911 out of 1,305 students who completed English 002 during the 1991-92 academic year at Howard University, completed surveys regarding the textbook "Revelations: An…

This study had three objectives: (1) to examine and describe factors that help to create a positive attitude toward learning; (2) to examine and describe factors that led to students' participation in the process-oriented approach; and (3) to examine and describe perceptions and experiences that students had involving the process-oriented…

An ongoing study evaluated the effectiveness of a writing across the curriculum (WAC) program at a small liberal arts college. Fifty-five out of 99 full-time faculty responded to a survey seeking to compare WAC faculty who had voluntarily participated in at least a 3-day workshop to faculty not involved in the WAC program. Pre- and post-workshop…

A case study of a senior in mechanical engineering was undertaken to test the hypothesis that rhetorical theory can help students make sense of specialized discourse. The essay the subject finally produced concerning the rhetorical features in a technical engineering paper extended the claim she made at the beginning of the study: the text of the…

Writing instructors and students alike need to cross the line between composition and creative writing far more often than they do. As students indicate in their essays, composition is often viewed as an unpleasant task, while creative writing is perceived as more enjoyable. Among teachers, creative writing instructors are phobic of critical…

This study describes strategies used to increase student confidence in their overall writing achievement. The targeted population consists of third and fifth grade students from the same district located in a northwest suburban area. This community is located near a large metropolitan city in a midwestern state. Lack of confidence in student…

This report describes a program for improving writing skills through choices of structured and unstructured writing process. The purpose of this program is to increase their ability to produce quality writing as measured by the district's fourth grade writing rubric. The targeted population consisted of an average fourth grade class, located in a…

A teacher in a rural high school in East Tennessee observed that her high school advanced English students would readily agree to writing journal entries as long as they were allowed to use word processing software. In the past, students had bemoaned the daily ritual of journal writing using pencil and paper. The teacher wanted to find out if…

A study analyzed 368 letters (179 children letters and 189 adult letters) in order to document children's thinking about the substance of the epistolary genre and to determine the influence of the adult pen pal letters on the children's letters. Students, 19 third graders and 19 college students, were randomly paired as pen pals. Establishing six…