The author of this article describes an upper-level economics course where students learn to write economic news articles, which improves communication and audience-targeting skills. The course was created in partnership with a media outlet and designed around authentic assessments to provide students with a genuine experience based on academic…

Courses: This semester-long assignment can be featured in undergraduate or graduate communication courses that include a major writing assignment such as research methods, capstone classes, senior thesis sections, or advanced courses on topics such as interpersonal, intercultural, and interracial communication. This assignment is suitable for…

Instructional tips help educators carry out recommendations contained in IES Educator's Practice Guides. The tips, based on a practice guide authored by Steve Graham, Alisha Bollinger, Carol Booth Olson, Catherine D'Aoust, Charles MacArthur, Deborah McCutchen, and Natalie Olinghouse, translate these recommendations into actionable approaches that…

The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) Practice Guide, "Teaching Elementary School Students to Be Effective Writers," offers educators four specific, evidence-based recommendations that address the challenge of teaching writing in elementary school. This summary focuses on the fourth of the four recommendations: Create an engaged community…

The book introduces readers in the often-overlooked math-related fields to the ideas of writing-to-learn (WTL) and writing in the disciplines (WID). It offers a guide to the pedagogy of writing in the mathematical sciences, and gives theoretically grounded means by which writing can be used to help undergraduate students to understand mathematical…

The kit is intended to help educators define their practice or model and describe it in ways that make sense to others. The procedure is explained in three steps: (1) identifying practices that can be replicated; (2) describing each practice and its essential elements (minimum standards for replication); and (3) writing a prospectus to present…

States that no matter how disparate the staff of a school publication, incorporating a theme can unify a staff as well as a magazine. Suggests ways to decide on a theme and ways to integrate the theme and design. (MG)

Describes how to start a student writing festival to motivate children to write, presenting the experiences of one elementary school where students published what they wrote, then attended a banquet where they read their works to the crowd and received a copy of the final publication. Suggestions for starting the festival, publishing student…

Tells how to develop ways for students to share writing with others both inside and outside the classroom. Discusses possibilities for publishing within the school and in the community, as well as how to submit entries to writing contests and national publications. Contains tips about submitting manuscripts. (EL)

Shares the author's experiences helping teenage students write for audiences beyond the teacher, the classroom, the school and the geographical community. Discusses issues of policies, procedures, and possibilities of online communities. Describes TEENLIT.COM, a website that fosters teens' writing and provides a community for adolescent writers.…

Describes how a teacher's contact with a published author, an interview and subsequent research into that author's work, stimulates students' interest in the author, provides crediblity for the teacher, and generates material for publication. (NH)

Presents an appreciation of "Charlotte's Web," a children's literary classic which portrays clearly and simply the themes of love, death, friendship, and salvation. Discusses E.B. White's life and background, his attention to writing style, and the beginnings of "Charlotte's Web." Provides a capsule of classic elements in the…

Explores the opportunities offered to children and adults in books with an island survival theme. Examines persistent questions about the nature of children's literature. (MG)

Discusses trends in writing and publishing of children's books during the 1980s. Explores issues of economic background, change in educational structure, racism and sexism in children's fiction, immediacy in fiction, multicultural writing, and the need to offer children a range of reading materials. (MG)

Interviews Nicholasa Mohr about her background, experiences, motives, and interests as they relate to the authoring of works of fiction featuring Puerto Rican-American children and adults. (MG)