Forty medical students were randomly assigned to write about personal traumatic events or control topics during the course of the program. Participants in the emotional expression group showed significantly higher antibody levels against hepatitis B at the four- and six-month follow-up. This finding provides further support for a link between…

Reports on a study that explored, first, how metadiscourse can enhance college students' awareness of readers' needs and, second, how the use of metadiscourse is related to the quality of the texts that students produced. Suggests that metadiscourse produces better student writing. (TB)

Compares the discourse knowledge and self-regulation of good and poor writers, as well as the quality and length of their final texts; 48 junior-college students wrote a comparative text. Results showed that poor writers were no more linear than good writers, and no less actively self-regulated their writing. Good writers produced larger texts of…

Examines the sentence-based pedagogies that arose in composition during the 1960s and 1970s (the generative rhetoric of Francis Christensen, imitation exercises, and sentence-combining) and attempts to discern why these three pedagogies have been so completely elided within contemporary composition studies. Concludes that this erasure of sentence…

Offers some advice and help for writing longer works such as a novel or a master's thesis. Discusses novel writing as a classroom project and presents several suggestions for what to write about and how to get started. Discusses novel writing for adults. (SC)

Points out the importance of the Internet in education and discusses the complementary roles of oral and written teaching and learning. Analyzes the Knowledge Integration Environment (KIE) program. (Contains 13 references.) (YDS)

Presents a study where 148 students in 15 grade 4-6 classrooms were taught over an 8-week period how to evaluate their work. Notes that treatment group students became more accurate in their self-evaluations than controls. Discusses how, contrary to the beliefs of many students, parents and teachers, students' propensity to inflate grades…

Investigates relationships between the quality of cross-gendered interactions online and often-expressed complaint that women are ignored in these environments. Finds women initiating more agreements and open-ended questions, but equivalent numbers of disagreements as their male classmates; however, they fail to speak in their own defense when…

Notes new Internet writing environments differ significantly from print forms: they allow texts to evolve--to change their purpose and audience over time. Suggests they allow for new forms of collaboration--texts organize themselves without an omniscient editor shaping them. Concludes that, as a profession, composition instructors need to…

Argues that writing research has not explored the ethical implications of using self-evaluations in classroom and large-scale writing assessment. Explores portfolio cover letters, reflective essays, self-grading, and self-placement as depicted in college composition literature using this postmodern ethical framework. Demonstrates a process of…

Argues that looking at students' uses of cliche in context can teach instructors about students' struggles to fashion new knowledge from what they already believe to be true. Examines students' most frequently used cliches. Suggests writing instructors who examine their response to cliche can learn how their pedagogical practices can deafen them…

Examines five preschool deaf children's use of sign language during free-choice writing. Finds the children used both signed language and nonverbal expression to engage in representational, directive, interactional, personal, and heuristic use of language to support their writing endeavors. Raises the question of whether nonverbal expression might…

Describes the development of an integrated approach for teaching mathematics and writing to freshmen. The goals are to strengthen mathematical skills, develop writing competencies, and foster interdisciplinary awareness. (Author/MM)

Describes a tool for teaching and learning that helps develop needed communication and negotiation competencies in future administrators: coauthorship, or collaborative writing. Specifically, describes the use of coauthorship in two different educational leadership classes. (EV)

Examines university oceanography students' use of evidence in writing considering the relative epistemic status of propositions comprising student' written texts. Defines the epistemic levels by discipline-specific geological constructs from descriptions of data, to identification of features, to relational aspects of features, to theoretical…