This article focuses on strategies in expository essay instruction. Detailed descriptions of instructional procedures in teaching students the recursive processes of planning, drafting, and revising expository essays are provided. Ways to foster students' self-regulation and motivation in writing are provided and potential problems in strategy…

Evaluated a Writing for Publication program aimed at enabling academic writers to improve their public output. Monitoring of individuals throughout the program provided evidence of success in terms of "hard" outcomes, such as journal publications and conference presentations, and "soft" outcomes, such as increased confidence and motivation,…

Draws on research in a fourth-grade classroom to show that teachers can teach composing strategies that encourage a variety of ways of interacting socially while writing. Shares various views of social interaction and student choice in writing classrooms as a way of establishing support for exploration of the social interactions that occurred in…

A reading specialist provides tips for developing a student publishing center aimed at improving writing skills and involving students in all publishing operations. Steps include assembling a planning team, considering various models, gaining financial assistance, furnishing the center, gathering needed supplies, and launching the program. (MLH)

Over 2,500 secondary students in the Torrance (California) Unified School District who read below the 30th percentile on state tests have access to a second-chance program. Participants engage in extensive recreational reading and vocabulary development, address comprehension on multiple levels, and use writing to assist comprehension. (MLH)

Suggests that texts invite readers to read in certain ways. Demonstrates in more detail how different strategies for reading with, across and against the invited reading of a base text are transferable to writing strategies that explore alternative and oppositional views, values, ideologies and discourses within a social justice framework. (RS)

Claims compositionists misrecognize stylistic and institutionalized conventions of academic discourse in their own rhetoric and in the evaluation of their students. Argues that students should be included in the practices by which compositionists "normalize" these conventions. Suggests how students might be included in the evaluative…

Many students with learning disabilities (LD) exhibit deficiencies in the writing process. In order to achieve an adequate level of writing competence, these students must apply strategies that enable them to effectively plan, organize, write, and revise a written product. Explicit strategy instruction involving a structured style of learning has…

One of the best ways for students to become involved in the classroom and engaged in their learning is to write. This article presents a rationale for the use of writing in any curriculum and offers suggestions about how to develop writing-to-learn assignments. Writing-to-learn assignments help students understand, reflect upon, and question…

This study investigated the presence and growth of kindergarten children's metacognition as they engaged in the writing process. The study was conducted in an environment that surrounded children with books, language, and print. Twice a month the teacher/researcher interviewed the children as they finished writing, asking questions designed to…

This article talks about situated writing lessons and describes how to use this strategy in disciplinary context. The concept of the situated writing lesson is similar to the concept of "strategy lessons" advocated by Nancie Atwell and other whole language teachers who discovered a need for short, context-specific teaching of language conventions.…

In this article, the author, a teacher at Gould School in North Caldwell, New Jersey, describes the five writing rules she employs in her classroom that can help make writing a priority for both students and teachers: (1) Put it in the plan book; (2) Write first, solve problems later; (3) Write with the students; (4) Write like the students; and…

There is considerable concern that the majority of adolescents do not develop the competence in writing they need to be successful in school, the workplace, or their personal lives. A common explanation for why youngsters do not write well is that schools do not do a good job of teaching this complex skill. In an effort to identify effective…

Writing is an integral part of science. The growth of scientific knowledge depends on scientists' ability to record their thoughts and discoveries for future scientists to build on. Everyday literacy is the basis of scientific literacy. In addition, writing about science helps students learn science. In order to transfer science concepts from what…

If writing matters, how can we improve it? This study investigated the nature of writing plan quality and its relationship to the ensuing writing scores. Data were drawn from the 1998 Provincial Learning Assessment Programme (PLAP) in Writing, which was administered to pupils in Grades 4, 7, and 10 across British Columbia, Canada. Common features…