Writing is an important issue in the UK today. While children's and young people's writing standards steadily improved until 2006, levels have not increased in recent years. Writing is much more than just an educational issue--it is an essential skill that allows people to participate fully in today's society and to contribute to the economy.…

The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of undergraduates' metacognitive beliefs about writing and knowledge, ways that those beliefs may change during the semester, and the relationship of beliefs to their persuasive writing. Scales assessing epistemological and writing beliefs were given to students in lower-division…

This article describes and analyses a specific mechanism, the writing consultation, designed to help academics to prioritise, reconceptualise and improve their writing practices. It makes the case for its potential to stimulate consideration of writing practices and motivations, a possible precondition for creating time for writing in academic…

In the county schools, students are assessed every nine weeks based on a writing prompt using a rubric supplied by the county, but the students are often taught using Writer's Workshop. This action research attempted to determine if Writer's Workshop and the use of writing prompts have different effects on first graders' writing ability and…

This mixed methods study combining a single-subject experimental design with an embedded case study focuses on the impact of a visual treatment on the handwritten and typed output of a struggling male writer during his 5th through 7th grades who has undergone a longitudinal remedial phase of two and a half years creating text-only material as well…

This study investigated writing apprehension, motivational levels, and writing performance of 68 undergraduates enrolled in four freshman composition courses during one semester. Participants in the treatment groups received relevance, confidence, or a combination of relevance and confidence motivational strategies based on Keller's ARCS model. In…

While participating in the Bilingual Teacher Research Forum (a teacher inquiry group), I decided to do research in my classroom to investigate the ways in which emergent bilinguals (EBs) expanded their appreciation and understanding of writing in English as a second language. The purpose of this study was to examine and describe first-grade EBs'…

Professional writing, like any skill, takes practice and patience. Directors of early childhood programs, like many professionals, underestimate the amount of time they dedicate to writing-related tasks. This article is part of an occasional series dedicated to highlighting directors' writing responsibilities. "Exchange's" Writing Project offers…

This report presents results of the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in writing at grades 8 and 12. In this new national writing assessment sample, 24,100 eighth-graders and 28,100 twelfth-graders engaged with writing tasks and composed their responses on computer. The assessment tasks reflected writing situations common to…

This quasi-experimental study was conducted to assess and address the instructional needs of students who use a nonstandard English dialect for subject-verb agreement in their writing. Fifty-four students of diverse ethnicities in remedial English courses were divided into control and experimental groups. The researchers used four different…

Teachers are held accountable for improving the literacy skills of PreK-12 pupils. However, the processes (or lack thereof) by which teachers at the various levels of schooling are deemed skilled and become actually prepared for such complex challenge have not been explored in depth. This article focuses on urban preservice teachers' beliefs…

This exploratory mixed methods design research report will investigate whether or not participating in literacy activities that are based on best practice will have a positive impact on the attitudes and behaviors of preservice teachers toward reading and writing for both professional practice and pleasure. In an effort to closely examine the…

Considering both current and historical perspectives, this article addresses conceptualisations of composing processes. Drawing on the findings of a recent research project, the article explores the significances of perspectives articulated by students in response to writing tasks and emphasises the multi-faceted nature of those perspectives. It…

In this study, we assessed small and large group discussions and repeated writing assignments with the intent to objectively measure the values of these learning pedagogies. We crafted a model where students researched a question, formulated a written answer, discussed it with their peers, and revised their answers. Then, we did it with repetition…

Time and opportunity to discover truths are essential in education. Discovery takes repetition and trial and error. Discovery crosses intellectual and disciplinary boundaries as well. What is learned through the diverse experiences of one's academic and individual lives will pollinate each other if there is room left for discovery. The tyranny of…