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;…

This study investigates the approaches adopted by students to a university writing programme designed to help them learn first-year undergraduate science. The research design includes phenomenographic analyses of 19 interviews and 50 open-ended questionnaires, as well as quantitative analyses of the qualitative data. The main results of the study…

A study investigated the effectiveness of a program to improve writing performance across the curriculum. The targeted population consisted of students (n=73) from the elementary sector of a middle-class community in a south suburb of Chicago, Illinois. The problem of deficiencies in student writing throughout content areas was documented through…

Of poor academic skills, perhaps the most prevalent among at-risk students is the lack of ability to compose--to develop ideas in print. Providing opportunities to learn that skill opens a whole new world for young people who believe they are incapable of learning. This paper describes writing instruction that was provided over a 4-year period in…

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…

The English Department and the composition class are mired in the trappings of Romanticism. Romanticism ingratiates itself, mostly in infatuation with the writing process, but with some other fetishes as well. The "whitecentric" character of that Romanticism imbues instruction; it is not just innocuous and "old hat," but really damaging. Students…

When faced with the challenging idea that they too, must write as part of their job as teachers, most of the graduate students in an English education class voiced deep frustration about and resistance to such a request. They heatedly argued that their teaching and course loads allowed them little or no time to write, that it was unreasonable to…

Noting that educators need to capture the interest of primary students early on to make lifelong writers out of them, this paper discusses ways to encourage the writing process in the primary grades. The paper discusses the philosophy of the writing process, what experts say about writing, setting up the environment, writing with lower primary…

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…

Although faculty response to an introductory writing across the curriculum workshop at La Salle University (Pennsylvania) was almost uniformly positive, responses to an advanced workshop were mixed. La Salle's basic workshop is framed by the two dimensions which remain the major theoretical concerns of writing across the curriculum: the function…

This paper examines the ways kindergarten teachers can help improve the writing skills of their students who are hesitant to write. The paper describes a project that modified the physical classroom environment, nurtured the emotional climate, and used other strategies, such as allowing more time to write, modeling functional writing, and valuing…