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'…

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…

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…

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…

This study tested three models of the structural relationship between the writing achievement of primary grade students and their attitude towards writing (defined here as an affective disposition involving how the act of writing makes the author feel, ranging from happy to unhappy). The three models tested were: (a) writing attitude influences…

This study reports the perceptions of students and lecturers on the effectiveness of the foreign language instruction in relation to students' academic needs in an English-medium university in Turkey. The theoretical framework of the study draws upon a discourse community (DC) perspective, which considers writing as a socio-cultural practice and…

The writing teacher's foremost job is leading students to see the valuable ideas they have to express. Writing is a way to share those ideas with the world rather than a way to be wrong, Anderson asserts. Teachers and parents too often focus on errors in student writing. This focus gives students the impression that writing well is about avoiding…

This study aims to add to the growing research related to the implementation of non-traditional writing tasks in classrooms to encourage science literacy. A secondary reanalysis methodology was employed to review student interviews collected as a part of several individual studies during a ten year research program. This method established an…

There is a conceptual world surrounding writing in schools, and we are conditioned to a particular language about composition and literacy. This study seeks to interrogate the terms composition and literacy at the level of the classroom: to ask what is meant when it is invoked and what it means to the teachers who teach it. The central question of…

The authors investigated changes in self-efficacy in writing and writing apprehension in a sample of first-year college students in an interdisciplinary writing-intensive course taught by faculty from varied disciplines at a liberal arts college. Results showed that self-efficacy in writing significantly increased while writing apprehension…

The study reported in this paper explores issues of motivation and learners' identity in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writing classroom in Vietnam from the perspectives of the learners. It was conducted with thirty English-major students at a university in central Vietnam. While relevant literature appears to place much emphasis on…