Presents an overview of third-grade bilingual students and their literacy curriculum. Discusses a series of instructional lessons ("strategy wall charts") developed to provide the students with various tools to work their way through literacy blocks as they read and wrote in English. Looks at patterns of internalization that occurred when the…

A process approach to writing instruction for students with learning disabilities is presented. The approach involves students sharing their work with each other, receiving frequent response to their writing, using word processing to support fluent text production and ease revision, conferencing with teachers to develop writing strategies, and…

This article presents a three-stage writing process designed to enhance the writing skills of gifted students, increase their engagement in the subject matter, and provide a greater degree of understanding of the content area. The stages are referred to as prewriting, writing, and rewriting. (JDD)

Asserts that role-playing peer-response groups provide effective feedback and help students develop a sense of the characteristics of a particular audience. Illustrates with a sample lesson (a college application essay) by outlining five steps of the process. Offers other uses of the role-playing peer-response groups method. (PRA)

Asserts that autobiographical writing empowers community college students to create public voices and meet personal and professional goals while enlightening instructors about the effectiveness of teaching methods. Discusses journal writing as self-teaching, student responses to existing autobiographical models, the influence of peer audience on…

Investigates the writing attitudes and text editing skills of students with considerable experience using word-processing systems toward word processing for different phases of the writing process. Finds the students are poor at text editing and typing. Finds that the students prefer paper and pencil for composing first drafts and prefer word…

A writing instructor describes her experience teaching 15 San Quentin Prison inmates how to write fiction, revise their work, and submit it for publication. Inmates were polite, demanded advice on mechanics, and avoided writing about reasons for life sentences. Insights later emerged in stories. (MLH)

Compares writing an article to the steps in a lesson plan, discussing 7 components of lesson plans and arguing that the same steps can be used to produce a well-written article. (SR)

Eighty-five preservice-education students observed a science experiment concerning either buoyancy or the forces acting on a stationary object, then wrote a series of explanations. Results suggest that students' use of rhetorical structures (explanation, comparison, argumentation, and summarization) stimulated construction of new knowledge, but…

Describes the benefits of technology in special education and the use of electronic mail as an instructional strategy. Highlights the use of electronic mail by a student with Down syndrome to learn communication, reading, and written expression skills. Recommendations for using technology in the classroom are provided. (CR)

A study involving 106 elementary and secondary students with learning disabilities and 97 typical peers found that students who used spelling and grammar checkers were more successful than transition group students in reducing mechanical errors, particularly non-real-word spelling errors, and in making positive changes from first to final drafts.…

Notes that joint composition at the computer is common in United Kingdom primary schools. Finds that even children as young as seven years can jointly plan a story at the computer. Uses examples of pupils' discourse while composing to illustrate the processes by which they produced written text. (RS)

States that theories of intellectual development offer writing teachers productive ways to analyze student writing; help students develop strategies for improving their writing processes; and consider the implications of writing assignments. Finds that frameworks posited by Jean Piaget and by others contribute useful ways of understanding why…

Discusses how both novels share key thematic elements pertaining to the experiences of migrants from rural Appalachia to multiethnic industrial centers of the urban north. Notes that a focus on the authors' handling of material culture helps to point one with increased clarity and precision to the writerly method by which Attaway and Arnow convey…

Presents tips for creating a successful schoolwide newsletter by using desktop publishing software applications. Provides examples of information to include in a library media center newsletter. Discusses readers' needs, layout and format, graphics, news leads and headlines, and visual images, as well as various newswriting and editing techniques.…