ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Al-Maadadi, Fatima; Ihmeideh, Fathi
2016-01-01
Writing often begins during the very early years of childhood; however, some children first learn writing when they begin attending school. Teachers' beliefs about early writing development can influence when and how children learn to write. The purpose of this study was to determine kindergarten teachers' beliefs about the development of…
How Do I Write…? Scaffolding Preschoolers' Early Writing Skills
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Cabell, Sonia Q.; Tortorelli, Laura S.; Gerde, Hope K.
2013-01-01
Providing preschoolers with rich writing experiences can help to lay a foundation for their later reading and writing success. Early writing experiences can be greatly enhanced by how preschool teachers answer young children's questions about writing and engage them in productive writing instruction. With appropriate scaffolding, early writing…
Young Dual Language Learners' Emergent Writing Development
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gillanders, Cristina; Franco, Ximena; Seidel, Kent; Castro, Dina C.; Méndez, Lucía I.
2017-01-01
This study examined how early writing develops in Spanish-English-speaking children of Mexican and Central American descent who are dual language learners (DLLs) in the United States. The emergent writing skills in Spanish and English of 140 preschoolers in a multisite study were assessed using name- and word-writing tasks during the children's…
Early Grade Writing Assessment: An Instrument Model
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Jiménez, Juan E.
2017-01-01
The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization promoted the creation of a model instrument for individual assessment of students' foundational writing skills in the Spanish language that was based on a literature review and existing writing tools and assessments. The purpose of the "Early Grade Writing Assessment"…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Clark, Patricia; Kragler, Sherry
2005-01-01
The purpose of this research was to determine the effect of incorporating writing materials in all areas of the preschool classroom on the early literacy development of young children from low-income families. The researchers worked with six teachers in three preschool classrooms to incorporate literacy materials--particularly those materials that…
Integrating Early Writing into Science Instruction in Preschool
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Wheatley, Barbara C.; Gerde, Hope K.; Cabell, Sonia Q.
2016-01-01
Providing children with early writing opportunities in preschool is a meaningful way to facilitate their language and literacy learning. Young children have an innate curiosity of the natural world around them that motivates their learning; therefore science experiences are logical areas in which to incorporate early writing opportunities.…
An Application of Brief Experimental Analysis with Early Writing
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Parker, David C.; Dickey, Bradley N.; Burns, Matthew K.; McMaster, Kristen L.
2012-01-01
Students' poor performance on national assessments of writing suggests that educators need effective approaches to assess and intervene with writing problems. Brief experimental analysis (BEA) has supporting evidence for identifying interventions in reading, but little research has investigated BEA with writing. Early writing is an especially…
"The Three Hags and Pocohontas": How Collaboration Develops Early Years Writing Skills
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Boyle, Bill; Charles, Marie
2011-01-01
This article relates a child's development in story writing and the progress that she made in achieving text cohesion, spelling development and ideation through the collaborative process. The case study investigates the integration of major aspects of writing development such as collaboration, the importance of peer interactions through social…
Expressive writing in early breast cancer survivors.
Craft, Melissa A; Davis, Gail C; Paulson, René M
2013-02-01
This article is the report of a study aimed at determining whether or not expressive writing improves the quality-of-life of early breast cancer survivors. An additional aim is the investigation of whether or not the type of writing prompt makes a difference in results. The risk of distress can extend well beyond the time of a breast cancer diagnosis. Emotional expression may assist in dealing with this. Randomized controlled study. Participants (n = 120) were randomized into one of four groups: a control group (no writing) or one of three expressive writing groups: breast cancer trauma, any self-selected trauma and facts related to breast cancer. Participants wrote 20 minutes a day for 4 consecutive days. Their quality-of-life was measured, using the 'Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Breast Cancer Version', at baseline and at 1 month and 6 months after writing. Paired t-tests, multivariate analysis of variance and multiple regression were used to analyse the data of the 97 participants who completed the journaling assignment and at least the first assessment, collected in 2006. Intention-to-treat analysis was used. Expressive writing about one's breast cancer, breast cancer trauma and facts related to breast cancer, significantly improved the quality-of-life outcome. Expressive writing, focusing the instructions on writing about one's living and dealing with a diagnosis of breast cancer, is recommended for early breast cancer survivors as a feasible and easily implemented treatment approach to improve quality-of-life. © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
The Modern Value of Early Writings in Medicine and Dentistry.
Peck, Sheldon
2016-01-01
This article illustrates three examples supporting the modern value of early writings in dentistry and medicine. First, by studying cases described in works published long before the era of genetic science, we are able to develop new hypotheses about familial conditions and their genetic roots. Tooth transposition is presented as an example. Second, old writings may lead us to valuable historical insights and perspectives in medicine that can be revealed only in retrospective analysis. An example of this kind of historical analysis uncovers why dentistry became unnaturally separated from mainstream medicine in the 19th century. Third, early writings become keys to unlocking forgotten knowledge that enriches our understanding of historically significant people and events. The discovery of Norman Kingsley's long forgotten pyrographic paintings after Rembrandt portraits is used as an example. Libraries, the traditional custodians of these valued old texts, must continue to be supported, and not undermined by the paperless digital revolution. Copyright American Academy of the History of Dentistry.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Harmey, Sinéad J.; Rodgers, Emily M.
2017-01-01
We used mixed methods to examine differences in the early writing development of children, identified as at risk of literacy difficulties, in the context of Reading Recovery (RR). From an extant dataset of 24 children, we identified those who made fast progress (n = 6) and those who did not (n = 8). We studied change over time in the sources of…
Early Grade Writing Assessment: An Instrument Model.
Jiménez, Juan E
The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization promoted the creation of a model instrument for individual assessment of students' foundational writing skills in the Spanish language that was based on a literature review and existing writing tools and assessments. The purpose of the Early Grade Writing Assessment (EGWA) is to document learners' basic writing skills, mapped in composing units of increasing complexity to communicate meaning. Validation and standardization of EGWA was conducted in the Canary Islands (Spain) in 12 schools using a cross-sectional design with a sample of 1,653 Spanish-speaking students in Grades 1 through 3. The author describes EGWA's internal structure, along with the prevalence of learning disabilities (LD) in transcription and developmental differences in writing between Spanish-speaking children with LD and typical peers. Findings suggest that EGWA's psychometric characteristics are satisfactory, and its internal structure can be attributed to four factors responsible for a high percentage of the variance. The odds ratio indicated that 2 Spanish-speaking children with LD in transcription are identified out of every 100. A comparison between students with and without LD in transcription revealed statistically significant differences concerning sentence and text production across grades. Results are interpreted within current theoretical accounts of writing models.
Monsters under the Bed: Critically Investigating Early Years Writing
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Melrose, Andrew
2012-01-01
"Monsters Under the Bed" is an essential text focussing on critical and contemporary issues surrounding writing for "early years" children. Containing a critically creative and a creatively critical investigation of the cult and culture of the child and childhood in fiction and non-fictional writing, it also contains a wealth of ideas and critical…
The Power of Reflective Writing for Early Childhood Teachers in Palestine
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kahles, Buad
2015-01-01
This research aimed to highlight the power of reflective writing for early childhood teachers in Palestine, seven teachers in Palestine participated in this qualitative study, they were asked to write their reflections for 18 months. Data was gathered using semi-structured interviews and reflective writing journals. Data was analyzed using…
Chinese children's early knowledge about writing.
Zhang, Lan; Yin, Li; Treiman, Rebecca
2017-09-01
Much research on literacy development has focused on learners of alphabetic writing systems. Researchers have hypothesized that children learn about the formal characteristics of writing before they learn about the relations between units of writing and units of speech. We tested this hypothesis by examining young Chinese children's understanding of writing. Mandarin-speaking 2- to 5-year-olds completed a graphic task, which tapped their knowledge about the formal characteristics of writing, and a phonological task, which tapped their knowledge about the correspondence between Chinese characters and syllables. The 3- to 5-year-olds performed better on the graphic task than the phonological task, indicating that learning how writing appears visually begins earlier than learning that writing corresponds to linguistic units, even in a writing system in which written units correspond to syllables. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject? Learning about writing's visual form, how it looks, is an important part of emergent literacy. Knowledge of how writing symbolizes linguistic units may emerge later. What does this study add? We test the hypothesis that Chinese children learn about writing's visual form earlier than its symbolic nature. Chinese 3- to 5- year-olds know more about visual features than character-syllable links. Results show learning of the visual appearance of a notation system is developmentally precocious. © 2016 The British Psychological Society.
Helping Preschoolers Prepare for Writing: Developing Fine Motor Skills
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Huffman, J. Michelle; Fortenberry, Callie
2011-01-01
Early childhood is the most intensive period for the development of physical skills. Writing progress depends largely on the development of fine motor skills involving small muscle movements of the hand. Young children need to participate in a variety of developmentally appropriate activities intentionally designed to promote fine motor control.…
Relations between Early Reading and Writing Skills among Spanish-Speaking Language Minority Children
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Goodrich, J. Marc; Farrington, Amber L.; Lonigan, Christopher J.
2016-01-01
Although there is a growing body of literature on the development of reading skills of Spanish-speaking language minority children, little research has focused on the development of writing skills in this population. This study evaluated whether children's Spanish early reading skills (i.e., print knowledge, phonological awareness, oral language)…
Writing Research Articles for Publication in Early Childhood Education
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Saracho, Olivia N.
2013-01-01
Published research results in early childhood education contribute to the field's knowledge, theory, and practice. They also guide future early childhood education research studies. The publication of research articles is an essential requirement for academics. For some researchers, however, writing may be a difficult activity, particularly the…
Scientific writing seminar for early-stage investigators in substance abuse research.
Guydish, Joseph; Masson, Carmen; Flentje, Annesa; Shopshire, Michael; Sorensen, James L
2016-01-01
There is little information on how to increase the scientific writing productivity of early-stage investigators in the addictions field. A scientific writing seminar is presented in this article, aiming to encourage manuscript writing and dissemination of addiction research, and outcomes are reported for 14 years of the seminar. In 14 years, there were 113 postdoctoral fellow enrollments in a 6-month writing seminar. Records of submission and publication rates of manuscripts were collected for 14 cohorts. Of the 113 participant enrollments, 97 (86%) submitted a manuscript for publication, and 87 participants (77%) published their manuscript. A scientific writing seminar may benefit writing productivity, but more research is needed to compare this training model with other existing models.
Scientific Writing Seminar for Early-stage Investigators in Substance Abuse Research
Guydish, Joseph; Masson, Carmen; Flentje, Annesa; Shopshire, Michael; Sorensen, James L.
2015-01-01
Background There is little information on how to increase the scientific writing productivity of early-stage investigators in the addictions field. A scientific writing seminar is presented in this article, aiming to encourage manuscript writing and dissemination of addiction research, and outcomes are reported for 14 years of the seminar. Methods In 14 years there were 113 postdoctoral fellow enrollments in a 6-month writing seminar. Records of submission and publication rates of manuscripts were collected for 14 cohorts. Results Of the 113 participant enrollments, 97 (86%) submitted a manuscript for publication, and 87 participants (77%) published their manuscript. Conclusions A scientific writing seminar may benefit writing productivity, but more research is needed to compare this training model to other existing models. PMID:25893689
Savage, Robert; Kozakewich, Meagan; Genesee, Fred; Erdos, Caroline; Haigh, Corinne
2017-01-01
This study examined whether decoding and linguistic comprehension abilities, broadly defined by the Simple View of Reading, in grade 1 each uniquely predicted the grade 6 writing performance of English-speaking children (n = 76) who were educated bilingually in both English their first language and French, a second language. Prediction was made from (1) English to English; (2) French to French; and (3) English to French. Results showed that both decoding and linguistic comprehension scores predicted writing accuracy but rarely predicted persuasive writing. Within the linguistic comprehension cluster of tests, Formulating Sentences was a strong consistent within- and between-language predictor of writing accuracy. In practical terms, the present results indicate that early screening for later writing ability using measures of sentence formulation early in students' schooling, in their L1 or L2, can provide greatest predictive power and allow teachers to differentiate instruction in the primary grades. Theoretically, the present results argue that there are correlations between reading-related abilities and writing abilities not only within the same language but also across languages, adding to the growing body of evidence for facilitative cross-linguistic relationships between bilinguals' developing languages. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Writing Posthumanism, Qualitative Enquiry and Early Literacy
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Bridges-Rhoads, Sarah; Van Cleave, Jessica
2017-01-01
This paper was written in the midst of enquiry--provoked by the question of what happens when we write posthumanism, qualitative enquiry and early literacy together. Rather than offer a stable methodology that is the product of our experimentation, the paper functions as a map, a situated cartography that has multiple access points and is…
Limpo, Teresa; Alves, Rui A; Fidalgo, Raquel
2014-06-01
It is well established that the activity of producing a text is a complex one involving three main cognitive processes: Planning, translating, and revising. Although these processes are crucial in skilled writing, beginning and developing writers seem to struggle with them, mainly with planning and revising. To trace the development of the high-level writing processes of planning and revising, from Grades 4 to 9, and to examine whether these skills predict writing quality in younger and older students (Grades 4-6 vs. 7-9), after controlling for gender, school achievement, age, handwriting fluency, spelling, and text structure. Participants were 381 students from Grades 4 to 9 (age 9-15). Students were asked to plan and write a story and to revise another story by detecting and correcting mechanical and substantive errors. From Grades 4 to 9, we found a growing trend in students' ability to plan and revise despite the observed decreases and stationary periods from Grades 4 to 5 and 6 to 7. Moreover, whereas younger students' planning and revising skills made no contribution to the quality of their writing, in older students, these high-level skills contributed to writing quality above and beyond control predictors. The findings of this study seem to indicate that besides the increase in planning and revising, these skills are not fully operational in school-age children. Indeed, given the contribution of these high-level skills to older students' writing, supplementary instruction and practice should be provided from early on. © 2013 The British Psychological Society.
Help Me Where I Am: Scaffolding Writing in Preschool Classrooms
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Quinn, Margaret F.; Gerde, Hope K.; Bingham, Gary E.
2016-01-01
Early writing is important to young children's development--research indicates that writing is predictive of later reading and writing. Despite this, preschool teachers often do not focus on writing and offer limited scaffolding to foster children's writing development. This article shares innovative ways to scaffold early writing across the three…
Exploring the Relationship between Reading and Writing in Early Literacy Development.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kurth, Ruth J.
Researchers studying emerging literacy have begun building a theory of literacy development that links the processes of reading and writing. Their findings suggest that a child's emerging literacy is based on three factors: a functional expectation for print to make logical sense; an expectation of how language operates in alternate contexts; and…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Beam, Sandra; Williams, Cheri
2015-01-01
The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine one kindergarten teacher's use of digital and multimodal technologies to mediate early writing instruction and explore the students' appropriation of that instruction to support their independent writing. Data sources included observations of writing instruction, as well as students'…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Frederiksen, Carl H., Ed.; Dominic, Joseph F., Ed.
Intended for researchers, teachers, local and national policy makers, and others interested in writing, this volume explores the processes and development of writing, particularly in the context of writing instruction. Following a preface, the introduction discusses various perspectives on the activity of writing, such as writing as a cognitive…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hampton, David D.; Lembke, Erica S.
2016-01-01
The purpose of this study was to examine 4 early writing measures used to monitor the early writing progress of 1st-grade students. We administered the measures to 23 1st-grade students biweekly for a total of 16 weeks. We obtained 3-min samples and conducted analyses for each 1-min increment. We scored samples using 2 different methods: correct…
Reading-Writing Integrated Tasks, Comprehensive Corrective Feedback, and EFL Writing Development
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Zhang, Xiaoyan
2017-01-01
The study examines whether there is any difference between the effects of a reading-writing integrated task and comprehensive corrective feedback (CF) on English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' writing development, and whether the input language in the integrated task makes a difference in L2 writing development over time and the language…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Ulanoff, Sharon
This study examined the writing development of two language minority students over 3 school years, in particular, students' writing samples in the form of dialogue journals. Analyses focus on the function of content features (pragmatics) in their writing, the development of mechanical control (surface features), and the change in content over…
Collaborative Writing to Enhance Academic Writing Development through Project Work
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Robayo Lun, Alma Milena; Hernandez Ortiz, Luz Stella
2013-01-01
Advanced students at university level struggle with many aspects of academic writing in English as a foreign language. The purpose of this article is to report on an investigation aimed at analyzing what collaborative writing through project work tells us about students' academic writing development at the tertiary level. The compositions written…
Early writing deficits in preschoolers with oral language difficulties.
Puranik, Cynthia S; Lonigan, Christopher J
2012-01-01
The purpose of this study was to investigate whether preschool children with language impairments (LI), a group with documented reading difficulties, also experience writing difficulties. In addition, a purpose was to examine if the writing outcomes differed when children had concomitant cognitive deficits in addition to oral language problems. A group of 293 preschool children were administered an assessment battery that included measures to examine oral language, nonverbal cognition, emergent reading, and writing. Children were divided into four groups based on their language and cognitive performance. The findings from this study show that as early as preschool, children with weaker oral language skills lag behind their peers with stronger oral language skills in terms of their writing-related skills. Children with oral language and cognitive deficits performed more poorly than children whose deficits were confined to oral language. A child's cognitive ability also has an impact on emergent writing skills, but it appears to be moderated by oral language skills. These results are consistent with research documenting links between preschool language and emergent reading in children with a history of LI. © Hammill Institute on Disabilities 2012.
Early Writing Deficits in Preschoolers with Oral Language Difficulties
Puranik, Cynthia S.; Lonigan, Christopher J.
2016-01-01
The purpose of this study was to investigate whether preschool children with language impairments (LI), a group with documented reading difficulties, also experience writing difficulties. In addition, a purpose was to examine if the writing outcomes differed when children had concomitant cognitive deficits in addition to oral language problems. A group of 293 preschool children were administered an assessment battery that included measures to examine oral language, nonverbal cognition, emergent reading, and writing. Children were divided into four groups based on their language and cognitive performance. The findings from this study show that as early as preschool, children with weaker oral language skills lag behind their peers with stronger oral language skills in terms of their writing-related skills. Children with oral language and cognitive deficits performed more poorly than children whose deficits were confined to oral language. A child’s cognitive ability also has an impact on emergent writing skills, but it appears to be moderated by oral language skills. These results are consistent with research documenting links between preschool language and emergent reading in children with a history of LI. PMID:22043027
A Preliminary Investigation of Racial Bias in Early Writing Curriculum-Based Measures
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kondisko, Joseph E.
2017-01-01
Using de-identified data, this study investigated the relationship between racial categories with curriculum-based early writing measures (CBM-W), which included word dictation, picture word sentence writing, and story prompt tasks for over 300 participants in Grades 1, 2, and 3. Words written, words spelled correctly, correct letter sequences,…
Ways of Knowing: Implications of Writing Curriculum in an Early Childhood Classroom
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Furman, Cara Elizabeth
2017-01-01
Early childhood writing curriculums typically focus on skills and encouraging interest. What children are asked to write is rarely closely examined. Through a self-study of my first and second grade classroom, in this paper I look at the implications of genre when teaching young children. I first identify some of the problems of a popular personal…
Universal Screening for Writing Risk in Kindergarten
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Coker, David L., Jr.; Ritchey, Kristen D.
2014-01-01
Early identification of students at risk for writing disabilities is an important step in improving writing performance. Kindergarten students (n = 84) were administered a set of researcher-developed writing tasks (letter writing, sound spelling, word spelling, and sentence writing) and school-administered reading tasks ("Dynamic Indicators…
2014-01-01
This article attempts to define terminology and to describe a process for writing adaptive, early phase study protocols which are transparent, self-intuitive and uniform. It provides a step by step guide, giving templates from projects which received regulatory authorisation and were successfully performed in the UK. During adaptive studies evolving data is used to modify the trial design and conduct within the protocol-defined remit. Adaptations within that remit are documented using non-substantial protocol amendments which do not require regulatory or ethical review. This concept is efficient in gathering relevant data in exploratory early phase studies, ethical and time- and cost-effective. PMID:24980283
Change over Time in Children's Co-Constructed Writing
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Harmey, Sinead Judith
2015-01-01
The development of expertise in writing is a complex but important achievement for young children as they become literate. Writing is a critical component of literacy development, yet there are few accounts of change over time in early writing development that attend to both changes in writing behaviors, the complexity of written messages, and the…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Werner, Courtney L.
2013-01-01
In this article, the author explains how a writing center can be a potential host for housing writing instruction across the disciplines. She recommends writing centers act as hosts for various faculty development opportunities throughout the semester, and states that these centers can also hold faculty development resources and collaborative…
Building a scholar in writing (BSW): A model for developing students' critical writing skills.
Bailey, Annette; Zanchetta, Margareth; Velasco, Divine; Pon, Gordon; Hassan, Aafreen
2015-11-01
Several authors have highlighted the importance of writing in developing reflective thinking skills, transforming knowledge, communicating expressions, and filling knowledge gaps. However, difficulties with higher order processing and critical analysis affect students' ability to write critical and thoughtful essays. The Building a Scholar in Writing (BSW) model is a 6-step process of increasing intricacies in critical writing development. Development of critical writing is proposed to occur in a processed manner that transitions from presenting simple ideas (just bones) in writing, to connecting ideas (connecting bones), to formulating a thesis and connecting key components (constructing a skeleton), to supporting ideas with evidence (adding muscle), to building creativity and originality (adding essential organs), and finally, developing strong, integrated, critical arguments (adding brain). This process symbolically represents the building of a scholar. The idea of building a scholar equates to progressively giving life and meaning to a piece of writing with unique scholarly characteristics. This progression involves a transformation in awareness, thinking, and understanding, as well as advancement in students' level of critical appraisal skills. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Effects of Early Writing Intervention Delivered within a Data-Based Instruction Framework
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Jung, Pyung-Gang; McMaster, Kristen L.; delMas, Robert C.
2017-01-01
We examined effects of research-based early writing intervention delivered within a data-based instruction (DBI) framework for children with intensive needs. We randomly assigned 46 students with and without disabilities in Grades 1 to 3 within classrooms to either treatment or control. Treatment students received research-based early writing…
The Impact of the Development of Verbal Recoding on Children's Early Writing Skills
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Adams, Anne-Marie; Simmons, Fiona R.; Willis, Catherine S.; Porter, Sarah
2013-01-01
Background: The spontaneous recoding of visual stimuli into a phonological code to aid short-term retention has been associated with progress in learning to read (Palmer, 2000b). Aim: This study examined whether there was a comparable association with the development of writing skills. Sample: One hundred eight children (64 males) in the second…
Sharpening the Craft of Scientific Writing.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Koprowski, John L.
1997-01-01
Describes a writing-intensive ecology course designed to foster the development of writing and critiquing skills early in the semester and immerse students in the peer-review process toward the end of the course. By critiquing other scientific papers, students gain insight into the effectiveness of their own writing while also increasing their…
Development of Early Handwriting: Visual-Motor Control During Letter Copying
Maldarelli, Jennifer E.; Kahrs, Björn A.; Hunt, Sarah C.; Lockman, Jeffrey J.
2015-01-01
Despite the importance of handwriting for school readiness and early academic progress, prior research on the development of handwriting has focused primarily on the product rather than the process by which young children write letters. In contrast, in the present work, early handwriting is viewed as involving a suite of perceptual, motor and cognitive abilities, which must work in unison if children are to write letters efficiently. To study such coordination, head-mounted eye-tracking technology was used to investigate the process of visual-motor coordination while kindergarten children (N=23) and adults (N=11) copied individual letters and strings of letters that differed in terms of their phonemic properties. Results indicated that kindergarten children were able to copy single letters efficiently, as did adults. When the cognitive demands of the task increased and children were presented with strings of letters, however, their ability to copy letters efficiently was compromised: children frequently interrupted their writing mid-letter, whereas they did not do so on single letter trials. Yet, with increasing age, children became more efficient in copying letter strings, in part by using vision more prospectively when writing. Taken together, the results illustrate how the coordination of perceptual, motor and cognitive processes contributes to advances in the development of letter writing skill. PMID:26029821
From Scribbles to Stories: Supporting Writing Development.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Diffily, Deborah
2001-01-01
Describes how caregivers can support young children's writing development. Outlines stages of writing: scribbling, drawing, invented letters, random letters, copying words, developmental spelling, and conventional spelling. Provides tips on what to say to children in each stage of writing. (KB)
Using Print in the Environment to Promote Early Writing
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gerde, Hope K.; Goetsch, Megan E.; Bingham, Gary E.
2016-01-01
Print in the environment is typically posted in early childhood classrooms. However, the print that exists is often not meaningful to children, and teachers rarely engage children in using the print. This is a missed opportunity to support children's writing. This article presents research-based ideas for engaging children with meaningful print in…
Identifying Writing Difficulties in First Grade: An Investigation of Writing and Reading Measures
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Ritchey, Kristen D.; Coker, David L., Jr.
2014-01-01
Early identification of students who are at risk for writing difficulties is an important first step in improving writing performance. First grade students (N = 150) were administered a set of early writing measures and reading measures in January. Sentence Writing Quality and Oral Reading Fluency demonstrated strong classification accuracy when a…
Development of early handwriting: Visual-motor control during letter copying.
Maldarelli, Jennifer E; Kahrs, Björn A; Hunt, Sarah C; Lockman, Jeffrey J
2015-07-01
Despite the importance of handwriting for school readiness and early academic progress, prior research on the development of handwriting has focused primarily on the product rather than the process by which young children write letters. In contrast, in the present work, early handwriting is viewed as involving a suite of perceptual, motor, and cognitive abilities, which must work in unison if children are to write letters efficiently. To study such coordination, head-mounted eye-tracking technology was used to investigate the process of visual-motor coordination while kindergarten children (N = 23) and adults (N = 11) copied individual letters and strings of letters that differed in terms of their phonemic properties. Results indicated that kindergarten children were able to copy single letters efficiently, as did adults. When the cognitive demands of the task increased and children were presented with strings of letters, however, their ability to copy letters efficiently was compromised: Children frequently interrupted their writing midletter, whereas they did not do so on single letter trials. Yet, with increasing age, children became more efficient in copying letter strings, in part by using vision more prospectively when writing. Taken together, the results illustrate how the coordination of perceptual, motor, and cognitive processes contributes to advances in the development of letter writing skill. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).
Sustaining Preschoolers' Engagement during Interactive Writing Lessons
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hall, Anna H.
2016-01-01
Interactive writing is a developmentally appropriate activity used to enhance children's literacy development in the preschool setting. This article describes the unique needs of preschoolers as emerging writers, including their developing fine motor skills, early literacy skills, and social skills related to group writing. Strategies are provided…
Development of Early Handwriting: Visual-Motor Control during Letter Copying
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Maldarelli, Jennifer E.; Kahrs, Björn A.; Hunt, Sarah C.; Lockman, Jeffrey J.
2015-01-01
Despite the importance of handwriting for school readiness and early academic progress, prior research on the development of handwriting has focused primarily on the product rather than the process by which young children write letters. In contrast, in the present work, early handwriting is viewed as involving a suite of perceptual, motor, and…
Children's Text Development: Drawing, Pictures, and Writing
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Christianakis, Mary
2011-01-01
Using a sociohistoric developmental lens, this paper traces the construction of texts composed by fifth graders in an urban classroom in order to answer the following questions: How do children develop as writers in school? How do writing and drawing function in children's texts? How do teaching practices shape children's writing development?…
Effects of Writing Instruction on Kindergarten Students' Writing Achievement: An Experimental Study
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Jones, Cindy D'On
2015-01-01
This full-year experimental study examined how methods of writing instruction contribute to kindergarten students' acquisition of foundational and compositional early writing skills. Multiple regression with cluster analysis was used to compare 3 writing instructional groups: an interactive writing group, a writing workshop group, and a…
Writing over Time: An Analysis of Texts Created by Year One Students
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Mackenzie, Noella M.; Scull, Janet; Bowles, Terry
2015-01-01
Writing is a key area of literacy in the early years, however writing receives less research attention than reading despite its impact on students' learning generally, and literacy development specifically. Writing skills have also been shown to be quite stable--good writers in the early years stay good writers in the later years. Therefore it is…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Wohlwend, Karen E.
2008-01-01
When children enter public kindergartens in the current atmosphere of high-stakes testing, they often encounter an emphasis on correctness that casts doubt on the integrity of their personally invented messages, prompting them to ask not "What did I write?" but "Is this right?" This ethnographic case study examines early writing by 23 kindergarten…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Love, Angela; Burns, M. Susan; Buell, Martha Jane
2007-01-01
Writing activities are an essential part of quality literacy practices in early care and education settings. As children communicate through writing, they learn important concepts about books and other forms of print in the world around them, including writing and alphabet systems. Young children best understand and appreciate writing when it is…
How to develop and write a case for technical writing
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
Couture, B.; Goldstein, J.
1981-01-01
Case of different sizes and shapes for teaching technical writing to engineers at Wayne State University have been developed. The case approach was adopted for some assignments because sophomores and juniors lacked technical expertise and professional knowledge of the engineering world. Cases were found to be good exercises, providing realistic practice in specific writing tasks or isolating particular skills in the composing process. A special kind of case which narrates the experiences of one technical person engaged in the problem-solving process in a professional rhetorical situation was developed. This type of long, realistic fiction is called a an "holistic" case. Rather than asking students to role-play a character, an holistic case realistically encompasses the whole of the technical writing process. It allows students to experience the total communication act in which the technical task and data are fully integrated into the rhetorical situation and gives an opportunity to perform in a realistic context, using skills and knowledge required in communication on the job. It is believed that the holistic case most fully exploits the advantages of the case method for students of professional communication.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Puranik, Cynthia S.; Patchan, Melissa M.; Lemons, Christopher J.; Al Otaiba, Stephanie
2017-01-01
Despite the poor outcomes for U.S. students on national writing tests, overall research on how to teach writing is sparse, and this scarcity is more pronounced in the early years of beginning to write. In this study 81,200 we present preliminary findings from Year 1 of a 3-year Institute of Education Sciences-funded Goal 2 project aimed at…
Developing Business Writing Skills and Reducing Writing Anxiety of EFL Learners through Wikis
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kassem, Mohamed Ali Mohamed
2017-01-01
The present study aimed at investigating the effect of using wikis on developing business writing skills and reducing writing anxiety of Business Administration students at Prince Sattam bin Abdul Aziz University, KSA. Sixty students, who were randomly chosen and divided into two equivalent groups: control and experimental, participated in the…
Why Do You Write? Creative Writing and the Reflective Teacher
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hains-Wesson, Rachael
2013-01-01
In this article, the author asserts that whether we write creatively or academically (or both) it takes time to understand the reasons why we "want" to write, and the more we write, the more we fully begin to appreciate why we have to write in the ?rst place. From an early age, nearly every day, Rachel Hains-Wesson actively participated in…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Jalongo, Mary Renck
2013-01-01
College and university faculty members specializing in early childhood education face some unique challenges in scholarly writing. The purpose of this research was to use open-ended interviews as a way to gather the collective wisdom of a group of key informants about academic writing and publishing in the field. Twenty-two editors and/or authors,…
Writing for Publication as a Tool in Teacher Development
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Rathert, Stefan; Okan, Zühal
2015-01-01
Writing is widely accepted as a tool in the personal and professional development of teachers. Among other forms of teacher writing, writing for publication is rather unusual as it requires courage to share ideas and unfavourable working conditions prevent teachers from finding time and space to write for publication in the first place. In this…
The effects of an early intervention music curriculum on prereading/writing.
Register, D
2001-01-01
This study evaluated the effects of music sessions using a curriculum designed to enhance the prereading and writing skills of 25 children aged 4 to 5 years who were enrolled in Early Intervention and Exceptional Student Education programs. This study was a replication of the work of Standley and Hughes (1997) and utilized a larger sample size (n = 50) in order to evaluate the efficacy of a music curriculum designed specifically to teach prereading and writing skills versus one that focuses on all developmental areas. Both the experimental (n = 25) and control (n = 25) groups received two 30-minute sessions each week for an entire school year for a minimum of 60 sessions per group. The differentiating factors between the two groups were the structure and components of the musical activities. The fall sessions for the experimental group were focused primarily on writing skills while the spring sessions taught reading/book concepts. Music sessions for the control group were based purely on the thematic material, as determined by the classroom teacher with purposeful exclusion of all preliteracy concepts. All participants were pretested at the beginning of the school year and posttested before the school year ended. Overall, results demonstrated that music sessions significantly enhanced both groups' abilities to learn prewriting and print concepts. However, the experimental group showed significantly higher results on the logo identification posttest and the word recognition test. Implications for curriculum design and academic and social applications of music in Early Intervention programs are discussed.
Puranik, Cynthia S.; Lonigan, Christopher J.; Kim, Young-Suk
2011-01-01
The purpose of this study was to examine which emergent literacy skills contribute to preschool children’s emergent writing (name-writing, letter-writing, and spelling) skills. Emergent reading and writing tasks were administered to 296 preschool children aged 4–5 years. Print knowledge and letter-writing skills made positive contributions to name writing; whereas alphabet knowledge, print knowledge, and name writing made positive contributions to letter writing. Both name-writing and letter-writing skills made significant contributions to the prediction of spelling after controlling for age, parental education, print knowledge, phonological awareness, and letter-name and letter-sound knowledge; however, only letter-writing abilities made a significant unique contribution to the prediction of spelling when both letter-writing and name-writing skills were considered together. Name writing reflects knowledge of some letters rather than a broader knowledge of letters that may be needed to support early spelling. Children’s letter-writing skills may be a better indicator of children’s emergent literacy and developing spelling skills than are their name-writing skills at the end of the preschool year. Spelling is a developmentally complex skill beginning in preschool and includes letter writing and blending skills, print knowledge, and letter-name and letter-sound knowledge. PMID:21927537
The Psychology of Writing Development--And Its Implications for Assessment
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Camp, Heather
2012-01-01
This article reviews key developmental theories that have been adopted by writing development researchers over the last fifty years. It describes how researchers have translated these theories into definitions of writing development capable of influencing curricular design and interpretations of student writing and explores the implications for…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Yasuda, Sachiko
2011-01-01
This study examines how novice foreign language (FL) writers develop their genre awareness, linguistic knowledge, and writing competence in a genre-based writing course that incorporates email-writing tasks. To define genre, the study draws on systemic functional linguistics (SFL) that sees language as a resource for making meaning in a particular…
AWE-Based Corrective Feedback on Developing EFL Learners' Writing Skill
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Lu, Zhihong; Li, Xiaowei; Li, Zhenxiao
2015-01-01
The effective design and use of Automated Writing Evaluation (AWE) tools in developing English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners' writing skill and learner autonomy have remained great challenges for system designers, developers, and EFL instructors compared with that of the pencil-paper writing in the context of regular teacher-fronted…
Guided Writing Lessons: Second-Grade Students' Development of Strategic Behavior
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gibson, Sharan A.
2008-01-01
This study describes intra-individual change in strategic behavior of five second-grade students during three months of guided writing instruction for informational text. Data sources included sequential coding of writing behavior from videotaped writing events and analytic assessment of writing products. Students' development of self-scaffolding…
Lesson Study: Developing a Knowledge Base for Elementary Writing Instruction
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
McQuitty, Vicki
2011-01-01
Concern about students' writing skills has led to recommendations that elementary teachers receive more professional development in how to teach writing (National Commission on Writing, 2006). However, there is currently little evidence about the knowledge teachers need to teach writing well, and it is therefore difficult for teacher…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
De La Paz, Susan; Owen, Bonnie; Harris, Karen R.; Graham, Steve
2000-01-01
This article describes implementation of the Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) approach to help students learn a specific essay writing strategy in preparation for a state writing test. It also reviews the theoretical and research bases for using SRSD to teaching writing strategies. (Contains references.) (DB)
Developing Cultural Literacy through the Writing Process: Empowering All Learners.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Palmer, Barbara C.; And Others
Combining the expansion of cultural literacy with the development of process-based writing, this book addresses each stage of the writing process, with emphasis on the recursive and overlapping nature of these stages. Numerous related model activities at the end of each chapter show how to develop the writing process, while expanding the writer's…
Web-Based Interactive Writing Environment: Development and Evaluation
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Yang, Jie Chi; Ko, Hwa Wei; Chung, I. Ling
2005-01-01
This study reports the development and evaluation of a web-based interactive writing environment designed for elementary school students. The environment includes three writing themes, "story pass on", "story chameleon" and "thousand ideas", to encourage reading comprehension, creativity and problem-solving skills of…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Zhang, Chenyi; Hur, Jinhee; Diamond, Karen E.; Powell, Douglas
2015-01-01
This study examined the classroom writing environment in 31 Head Start classrooms, and explored the relations between the writing environment, children's (N = 262) name-writing, and children's letter knowledge using pathway analysis. Our analyses showed that Head Start classrooms provided opportunities (i.e., writing materials and teachers'…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Graham, Steve; Harris, Karen R.; Kiuhara, Sharlene A.; Fishman, Evan J.
2017-01-01
Our study tested whether learning is shaped by fundamental cognitive and motivational forces in the academic domain of writing. We examined whether strategic writing behavior and motivation (attitudes toward writing and self-efficacy) made a statistically significant and unique contribution to the prediction of writing quality and number of words…
Scientific writing: strategies and tools for students and advisors.
Singh, Vikash; Mayer, Philipp
2014-01-01
Scientific writing is a demanding task and many students need more time than expected to finish their research articles. To speed up the process, we highlight some tools, strategies as well as writing guides. We recommend starting early in the research process with writing and to prepare research articles, not after but in parallel to the lab or field work. We suggest considering scientific writing as a team enterprise, which needs proper organization and regular feedback. In addition, it is helpful to select potential target journals early and to consider not only scope and reputation, but also decision times and rejection rates. Before submission, instructions to authors and writing guides should be considered, and drafts should be extensively revised. Later in the process editor's and reviewer's comments should be followed. Our tips and tools help students and advisors to structure the writing and publishing process, thereby stimulating them to develop their own strategies to success. Copyright © 2014 The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
Write to Read: Investigating the Reading-Writing Relationship of Code-Level Early Literacy Skills
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Jones, Cindy D.; Reutzel, D. Ray
2015-01-01
The purpose of this study was to examine whether the code-related features used in current methods of writing instruction in kindergarten classrooms transfer reading outcomes for kindergarten students. We randomly assigned kindergarten students to 3 instructional groups: a writing workshop group, an interactive writing group, and a control group.…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Jefferson, Trevina
2013-01-01
Background: This study discusses data-driven results of newly-developed writing tools that are objective, easy, and less time-consuming than standard classroom writing strategies; additionally, multiple motivation triggers and peer evaluation are evaluated together with these new, modernized writing tools. The results are explained separately and…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kilgore, Christopher D.; Cronley, Courtney; Amey, Beth
2013-01-01
In this case study, we report on the development of a writing-specialist position, the "Writing Resource Coordinator (WRC)", in a school of social work at a large state university in the southern USA. Such programs are facing increasing budgetary pressures at the same time as their growing enrollments strain available resources. Students…
Natural Approaches to Reading and Writing.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Antonacci, Patricia; Hedley, Carolyn
Based on a two-day presentation workshop on early reading and writing approaches, the 12 essays in this book discuss the development of literacy, natural approaches in developing literacy, and supporting literacy development. Essays in the book are: (1) "Theories of Natural Language" (Carolyn N. Hedley); (2) "Oral Language…
Linguistic Feature Development Across Grades and Genre in Elementary Writing.
Hall-Mills, Shannon; Apel, Kenn
2015-07-01
As children develop skills in writing across academic contexts, clinicians and educators need to have a fundamental understanding of typical writing development as well as valid and reliable assessment methods. The purpose of this study was to examine the progression of linguistic elements in school-age children's narrative and expository writing development. Narrative and expository writing samples produced by 89 children in Grades 2 through 4 were analyzed at the microstructure and macrostructure levels. Measures of receptive vocabulary, word-level reading, and reading comprehension were obtained. Exploratory factor analyses revealed 4 microstructure factors (e.g., productivity, grammatical complexity, grammatical accuracy, and lexical density) and 1 macrostructure factor (e.g., a combination of organization, text structure, and cohesion). Multivariate analyses of covariance with reading comprehension as a covariate showed that productivity and macrostructure were sensitive to grade-level and genre differences and that expository grammatical complexity was sensitive to grade-level differences. Findings are discussed in light of grade-level standards for narrative and expository writing and current practices in writing assessment. Multiple suggestions are offered for clinical and educational implications, and specific directions are provided for future research.
Development of medical writing in India: Past, present and future.
Sharma, Suhasini
2017-01-01
Pharmaceutical medical writing has grown significantly in India in the last couple of decades. It includes preparing regulatory, safety, and publication documents as well as educational and communication material related to health and health-care products. Medical writing requires medical understanding, knowledge of drug development and the regulatory and safety domains, understanding of research methodologies, and awareness of relevant regulations and guidelines. It also requires the ability to analyze, interpret, and present biomedical scientific data in the required format and good writing skills. Medical writing is the fourth most commonly outsourced clinical development activity, and its global demand has steadily increased due to rising cost pressures on the pharmaceutical industry. India has the unique advantages of a large workforce of science graduates and medical professionals trained in English and lower costs, which make it a suitable destination for outsourcing medical writing services. However, the current share of India in global medical writing business is very small. This industry in India faces some real challenges, such as the lack of depth and breadth in domain expertise, inadequate technical writing skills, high attrition rates, and paucity of standardized training programs as well as quality assessment tools. Focusing our time, attention, and resources to address these challenges will help the Indian medical writing industry gain its rightful share in the global medical writing business.
Development of medical writing in India: Past, present and future
Sharma, Suhasini
2017-01-01
Pharmaceutical medical writing has grown significantly in India in the last couple of decades. It includes preparing regulatory, safety, and publication documents as well as educational and communication material related to health and health-care products. Medical writing requires medical understanding, knowledge of drug development and the regulatory and safety domains, understanding of research methodologies, and awareness of relevant regulations and guidelines. It also requires the ability to analyze, interpret, and present biomedical scientific data in the required format and good writing skills. Medical writing is the fourth most commonly outsourced clinical development activity, and its global demand has steadily increased due to rising cost pressures on the pharmaceutical industry. India has the unique advantages of a large workforce of science graduates and medical professionals trained in English and lower costs, which make it a suitable destination for outsourcing medical writing services. However, the current share of India in global medical writing business is very small. This industry in India faces some real challenges, such as the lack of depth and breadth in domain expertise, inadequate technical writing skills, high attrition rates, and paucity of standardized training programs as well as quality assessment tools. Focusing our time, attention, and resources to address these challenges will help the Indian medical writing industry gain its rightful share in the global medical writing business. PMID:28194338
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Bastug, Muhammet
2016-01-01
The current study aimed to reveal classroom teachers' feelings and experiences in teaching early reading and writing. Phenomenological research design was applied in the qualitative research methodology of the study. The participants of the study were 15 classroom teachers working in different cities. The data were collected through…
The Reading-Writing Connection
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Miller, Brett; McCardle, Peggy; Long, Richard
2012-01-01
Reading and writing development begin in early childhood and are linked in daily function and in classroom activities from kindergarten or prekindergarten through high school and beyond. There is little research addressing that relationship, or when and how best to integrate these two critical areas instructionally. The report presents an experts…
Developing Writing and Thinking Skills in the Student.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hill, Jeff
An English teacher at Hokkaido International School, Japan, guided his students through the writing process of thinking up ideas for writing topics and developing and revising those ideas into competent works. The class was composed of seven non-native speakers (in grades nine through twelve) who tried to achieve fluency in English within the…
Predictors of Success with Writing in the First Year of School
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Mackenzie, Noella; Hemmings, Brian
2014-01-01
Language and literacy skills are instrumental to success at school and early success with writing is a key factor in literacy development. By eight years of age, children spend up to half of their school day engaged in writing tasks suggesting that those who find learning to write difficult may be disadvantaged. The ability to hear and record…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Yaden, David B.; Tardibuono, Joan M.
2004-01-01
This article reports on a study using Piagetian clinical methodology to examine the early writing development of 56, urban, Spanish-speaking preschoolers in a metropolitan area of the United States. In addition, the article draws upon findings by the Expert Study (Flippo, 1998) to underscore the types of instructional environments that have proven…
The writing retreat: a high-yield clinical faculty development opportunity in academic writing.
Cable, Christian T; Boyer, Debra; Colbert, Colleen Y; Boyer, Edward W
2013-06-01
The need for consistent academic productivity challenges junior clinician-scholars, who often lack the aptitude to ensure efficient production of manuscripts. To solve this problem, an academic division of a major medical center developed an off-site writing retreat. The purpose of the retreat was not to teach writing skills, but to offer senior mentor assistance with a focus on the elements of manuscript writing. The retreat paired senior faculty members with junior staff. Senior faculty identified manuscript topics and provided real-time writing and editing supervision. Team-building exercises, midcourse corrections, and debriefing interviews were built into the retreat. The number of manuscripts and grant proposals generated during the 2008-2011 retreats was recorded, and the program was evaluated by using unstructured debriefing interviews. An average of 6 to 7 faculty members and fellows participated in each retreat. During the past 4 years, participants produced an average of 3 grant proposals and 7 manuscripts per retreat. After the writing retreat, each fellow and junior faculty member produced an average of 4 scholarly products per year, compared to fewer than 2 for prior years' retreats. Participant feedback indicated the success of the retreat resulted from protected time, direct mentorship by the scholars involved, and pairing of authors, which allows for rapid production of manuscripts and accelerated the editing process. More than 80% of mentors returned each year to participate. The writing retreat is a feasible, effective strategy to increase scholarship among faculty, acceptable to mentees and mentors, and sustainable over time.
Nietzsche in Basel: Writing Reading.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Miller, J. Hillis
1993-01-01
Explores the tight relationship between reading and writing, and discusses the implications of this central relationship for departments of English. Discusses Friedrich Nietzsche's early writings on rhetoric as challenging Western metaphysical tradition and providing a new model of writing. (HB)
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Driscoll, Dana Lynn; Powell, Roger
2016-01-01
Drawing from a five-year longitudinal data set following thirteen college writers through undergraduate writing and beyond, we explore the impact of students' emotions and emotional dispositions on their ability to transfer writing knowledge and on their overall writing development. Participants experienced a range of emotions concerning their…
von Koss Torkildsen, Janne; Morken, Frøydis; Helland, Wenche A; Helland, Turid
In this study of third grade school children, we investigated the association between writing process measures recorded with key stroke logging and the final written product. Moreover, we examined the cognitive predictors of writing process and product measures. Analyses of key strokes showed that while most children spontaneously made local online revisions while writing, few revised previously written text. Children with good reading and spelling abilities made more online revisions than their peers. Two process factors, transcription fluency and online revision activity, contributed to explaining variance in narrative macrostructural quality and story length. As for cognitive predictors, spelling was the only factor that gave a unique contribution to explaining variance in writing process factors. Better spelling was associated with more revisions and faster transcription. The results show that developing writers' ability to make online revisions in creative writing tasks is related to both the quality of the final written product and to individual literacy skills. More generally, the findings indicate that investigations of the dynamics of the writing process may provide insights into the factors that contribute to creative writing during early stages of literacy.
The Potential Role(s) of Writing in Second Language Development
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Williams, Jessica
2012-01-01
Writing is often seen as having a minor role in second language learning. This article explores recent research that suggests that writing can have a facilitative role in language development. In particular, it focuses on three features of writing: (1) its slower pace, and (2) the enduring record that it leaves, both of which can encourage…
Writing Activities for Developing Reading Comprehension.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Karlin, Robert; Karlin, Andrea R.
As both draw upon language and experience, and both deal with meaning, writing and reading can be learned concurrently. Writing activities having a positive effect on reading skills include notetaking and sentence combining exercises. A more productive way of improving reading comprehension through writing is to have students base their writing on…
Which Factor, Teaching or Writing, Contributes More to Faculty Development?
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Boice, Robert
The effect of a highly-structured faculty development program that focused on improving teaching skills and writing productivity through weekly individual sessions was studied with 16 social sciences faculty. Participants were alternatively assigned to one of four groups that emphasized development in teaching skills, writing productivity, or a…
Jackson, Debra
2009-01-01
There is an increasing expectation that academic and clinical nurses will contribute to disciplinary and professional discourses through scholarly writing. However, the difficulties and challenges associated with writing for publication mean that many papers will never be written. This current paper describes an innovative approach developed to support skill development and outcomes in writing for publication. Intensive residential writing retreats informed by the principles of servant leadership and incorporating strategies such as mentoring and peer learning were conducted in 2005 and 2007. Positive outcomes and benefits included publications submitted to peer-reviewed journals, as well as positive effects on collegial relationships, and team building. Novice writers benefited from intensive and sustained support and coaching by experienced writers. Organisational benefits included increased participation by staff and research higher degree students in publication activities, enhanced collegial relationships and opportunities for senior established writers to work with inexperienced writers.
The development of a multi-target compiler-writing system for flight software development
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
Feyock, S.; Donegan, M. K.
1977-01-01
A wide variety of systems designed to assist the user in the task of writing compilers has been developed. A survey of these systems reveals that none is entirely appropriate to the purposes of the MUST project, which involves the compilation of one or at most a small set of higher-order languages to a wide variety of target machines offering little or no software support. This requirement dictates that any compiler writing system employed must provide maximal support in the areas of semantics specification and code generation, the areas in which existing compiler writing systems as well as theoretical underpinnings are weakest. This paper describes an ongoing research and development effort to create a compiler writing system which will overcome these difficulties, thus providing a software system which makes possible the fast, trouble-free creation of reliable compilers for a wide variety of target computers.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Bourke, Lorna; Davies, Simon J.; Sumner, Emma; Green, Carolyn
2014-01-01
Visually mediated processes including, exposure to print (e.g. reading) as well as orthographic transcription and coding skills, have been found to contribute to individual differences in literacy development. The current study examined the role of visuospatial working memory (WM) in underpinning this relationship and emergent writing. One hundred…
The Writing Development of English Language Learners from Two Grades
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Zheng, Xun
2012-01-01
The current study is a qualitative case study that investigated the writing development of seven Chinese-speaking English language learners (ELLs) from kindergarten and 3rd-grade ESL classes in an elementary school in the Midwest and intended to discover the factors that affect students' English writing development in a one-year period. Guided by…
Cognitive Constraints and the Early Learning Goals in Writing
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Bourke, Lorna; Adams, Anne-Marie
2010-01-01
This study examined the relative importance of a number of cognitive factors (i.e. working memory, vocabulary knowledge, general cognitive ability and reading skills) in accounting for differences in the rate of progress made by children in the development of emergent writing skills. Sixty-seven children were assessed on tasks measuring the…
Second Language Writing Development: A Research Agenda
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Polio, Charlene
2017-01-01
In 1998, Wolfe-Quintero, Inagaki & Kim published a monograph describing measures used in assessing writing development. Despite more recent research on linguistic development (e.g., Bulté & Housen 2012; Verspoor, Schmid & Xu 2012; Connor-Linton & Polio 2014), the volume is still a valuable resource and good starting point for…
Tracing the Development of Argumentive Writing in a Discourse-Rich Context
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kuhn, Deanna; Hemberger, Laura; Khait, Valerie
2016-01-01
In most assessments of students' argumentive writing and in most research on the topic, students write on topics for which they have no specific prior preparation. We examined development in the argumentive writing urban middle school students did as part of a two-year dialogic-based intervention in which students engaged deeply with a series of…
Yoon, Ji Hye; Jeong, Yong
2018-01-01
Background and Purpose Korean-speaking patients with a brain injury may show agraphia that differs from that of English-speaking patients due to the unique features of Hangul syllabic writing. Each grapheme in Hangul must be arranged from left to right and/or top to bottom within a square space to form a syllable, which requires greater visuospatial abilities than when writing the letters constituting an alphabetic writing system. Among the Hangul grapheme positions within a syllable, the position of a vowel is important because it determines the writing direction and the whole configuration in Korean syllabic writing. Due to the visuospatial characteristics of the Hangul vowel, individuals with early-onset Alzheimer's disease (EOAD) may experiences differences between the difficulties of writing Hangul vowels and consonants due to prominent visuospatial dysfunctions caused by parietal lesions. Methods Eighteen patients with EOAD and 18 age-and-education-matched healthy adults participated in this study. The participants were requested to listen to and write 30 monosyllabic characters that consisted of an initial consonant, medial vowel, and final consonant with a one-to-one phoneme-to-grapheme correspondence. We measured the writing time for each grapheme, the pause time between writing the initial consonant and the medial vowel (P1), and the pause time between writing the medial vowel and the final consonant (P2). Results All grapheme writing and pause times were significantly longer in the EOAD group than in the controls. P1 was also significantly longer than P2 in the EOAD group. Conclusions Patients with EOAD might require a higher judgment ability and longer processing time for determining the visuospatial grapheme position before writing medial vowels. This finding suggests that a longer pause time before writing medial vowels is an early marker of visuospatial dysfunction in patients with EOAD. PMID:29504296
Yoon, Ji Hye; Jeong, Yong; Na, Duk L
2018-04-01
Korean-speaking patients with a brain injury may show agraphia that differs from that of English-speaking patients due to the unique features of Hangul syllabic writing. Each grapheme in Hangul must be arranged from left to right and/or top to bottom within a square space to form a syllable, which requires greater visuospatial abilities than when writing the letters constituting an alphabetic writing system. Among the Hangul grapheme positions within a syllable, the position of a vowel is important because it determines the writing direction and the whole configuration in Korean syllabic writing. Due to the visuospatial characteristics of the Hangul vowel, individuals with early-onset Alzheimer's disease (EOAD) may experiences differences between the difficulties of writing Hangul vowels and consonants due to prominent visuospatial dysfunctions caused by parietal lesions. Eighteen patients with EOAD and 18 age-and-education-matched healthy adults participated in this study. The participants were requested to listen to and write 30 monosyllabic characters that consisted of an initial consonant, medial vowel, and final consonant with a one-to-one phoneme-to-grapheme correspondence. We measured the writing time for each grapheme, the pause time between writing the initial consonant and the medial vowel (P1), and the pause time between writing the medial vowel and the final consonant (P2). All grapheme writing and pause times were significantly longer in the EOAD group than in the controls. P1 was also significantly longer than P2 in the EOAD group. Patients with EOAD might require a higher judgment ability and longer processing time for determining the visuospatial grapheme position before writing medial vowels. This finding suggests that a longer pause time before writing medial vowels is an early marker of visuospatial dysfunction in patients with EOAD. Copyright © 2018 Korean Neurological Association.
Early differentiation between drawing and writing in Chinese children.
Treiman, Rebecca; Yin, Li
2011-04-01
Children under 3½ years of age or so are often thought to produce the same types of scribbles for writing and drawing. We tested this idea by asking Chinese 2- to 6-year-olds to write and draw four targets. In Study 1, Chinese adults judged the status of the productions as writings or drawings. The adults performed significantly above the level expected by chance even with the productions of 2- to 2½-year-olds. In Study 2, we examined specific characteristics of the children's writings and drawings. Although the younger children's scribbles bore little resemblance to the correct characters, they tended to be smaller, sparser, and more angular than their artwork, with less filling in. Differences were also found in paper use and implement use. Children did not appear to distinguish writing from drawing for their own names before they did so for other targets. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Ritchey, Kristen D.; Coker, David L., Jr.; Jackson, Allison F.
2015-01-01
We investigated the relationship between 28 teachers' theoretical orientations to writing instruction and self-reported instructional practices and student writing performance. First-, second-, and third-grade teachers completed the Teacher Writing Orientation Scale developed by Graham, Harris, MacArthur, and Fink (2002) and reported the frequency…
Using Technology to Support Expository Reading and Writing in Science Classes
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Montelongo, Jose A.; Herter, Roberta J.
2010-01-01
Students struggle with the transition from learning to read narrative text in the early grades to reading expository text in the science classroom in the upper grades as they begin reading and writing to gain information. Science teachers can adapt their teaching materials to develop students' reading comprehension and recall by writing summaries…
Increasing Research Productivity and Professional Development in Psychology With a Writing Retreat.
Stanley, Ian H; Hom, Melanie A; Chu, Carol; Joiner, Thomas E
2017-09-01
Writing is a core feature of the training requirements and career demands of psychology faculty members and graduate students. Within academic psychology, specifically, writing is vital for the generation of scientific knowledge through manuscripts and grant applications. Although resources exist regarding how to improve one's writing skills, few models have been described regarding how to promote a culture of writing productivity that realizes tangible deliverables, such as manuscripts and grant applications. In this article, we discuss the rationale, model, and initial outcome data of a writing retreat developed and implemented to increase research productivity among psychology faculty and trainees. We also review best practices for conducting writing retreats and identify key areas for future SoTL on advancing writing.
Engaging Young Adolescents in School-Based Writing
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Yost, Deborah S.; Liang, Ling L.; Vogel, Robert
2014-01-01
How might middle school teachers and schools more appropriately engage early adolescent students in the writing process so that they are motivated and engaged to "want" to write and write well? This article introduces "Writers Matter," an approach designed to engage and motivate young adolescents in the writing process,…
Effects of Web-Based Collaborative Writing on Individual L2 Writing Development
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Bikowski, Dawn; Vithanage, Ramyadarshanie
2016-01-01
This study investigated the effect of repeated in-class web-based collaborative writing tasks on second language writers' (L2) individual writing scores. A pre-test post-test research model was used in addition to participant surveys, class observations, and teacher interviews. Participants included 59 L2 writers in a writing class at a large U.S.…
Xue, Gui; Jiang, Ting; Chen, Chuansheng; Dong, Qi
2008-02-15
How language experience affects visual word recognition has been a topic of intense interest. Using event-related potentials (ERPs), the present study compared the early electrophysiological responses (i.e., N1) to familiar and unfamiliar writings under different conditions. Thirteen native Chinese speakers (with English as their second language) were recruited to passively view four types of scripts: Chinese (familiar logographic writings), English (familiar alphabetic writings), Korean Hangul (unfamiliar logographic writings), and Tibetan (unfamiliar alphabetic writings). Stimuli also differed in lexicality (words vs. non-words, for familiar writings only), length (characters/letters vs. words), and presentation duration (100 ms vs. 750 ms). We found no significant differences between words and non-words, and the effect of language experience (familiar vs. unfamiliar) was significantly modulated by stimulus length and writing system, and to a less degree, by presentation duration. That is, the language experience effect (i.e., a stronger N1 response to familiar writings than to unfamiliar writings) was significant only for alphabetic letters, but not for alphabetic and logographic words. The difference between Chinese characters and unfamiliar logographic characters was significant under the condition of short presentation duration, but not under the condition of long presentation duration. Long stimuli elicited a stronger N1 response than did short stimuli, but this effect was significantly attenuated for familiar writings. These results suggest that N1 response might not reliably differentiate familiar and unfamiliar writings. More importantly, our results suggest that N1 is modulated by visual, linguistic, and task factors, which has important implications for the visual expertise hypothesis.
Putting Writing Research into Practice: Applications for Teacher Professional Development
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Troia, Gary A., Ed.; Shankland, Rebecca K., Ed.; Heintz, Anne, Ed.
2010-01-01
What are the most effective methods for teaching writing across grade levels and student populations? What kind of training do teachers need to put research-validated methods into practice? This unique volume combines the latest writing research with clear-cut recommendations for designing high-quality professional development efforts. Prominent…
Edwards, Lana
2003-01-01
This review examines the literature on how to teach kindergarten children with reading and writing difficulties how to write. Specifically, research on handwriting instruction, spelling instruction, and composition writing is discussed. Due to the limited number of empirical studies on writing that included kindergarten students with diagnosed reading and writing difficulties, selected studies conducted with the full range of kindergarten children, as well as studies conducted in the early elementary grades, are presented to highlight future directions for research.
Development of a Computer Writing System Based on EOG
López, Alberto; Ferrero, Francisco; Yangüela, David; Álvarez, Constantina; Postolache, Octavian
2017-01-01
The development of a novel computer writing system based on eye movements is introduced herein. A system of these characteristics requires the consideration of three subsystems: (1) A hardware device for the acquisition and transmission of the signals generated by eye movement to the computer; (2) A software application that allows, among other functions, data processing in order to minimize noise and classify signals; and (3) A graphical interface that allows the user to write text easily on the computer screen using eye movements only. This work analyzes these three subsystems and proposes innovative and low cost solutions for each one of them. This computer writing system was tested with 20 users and its efficiency was compared to a traditional virtual keyboard. The results have shown an important reduction in the time spent on writing, which can be very useful, especially for people with severe motor disorders. PMID:28672863
Development of a Computer Writing System Based on EOG.
López, Alberto; Ferrero, Francisco; Yangüela, David; Álvarez, Constantina; Postolache, Octavian
2017-06-26
The development of a novel computer writing system based on eye movements is introduced herein. A system of these characteristics requires the consideration of three subsystems: (1) A hardware device for the acquisition and transmission of the signals generated by eye movement to the computer; (2) A software application that allows, among other functions, data processing in order to minimize noise and classify signals; and (3) A graphical interface that allows the user to write text easily on the computer screen using eye movements only. This work analyzes these three subsystems and proposes innovative and low cost solutions for each one of them. This computer writing system was tested with 20 users and its efficiency was compared to a traditional virtual keyboard. The results have shown an important reduction in the time spent on writing, which can be very useful, especially for people with severe motor disorders.
Developing Historical Reading and Writing with Adolescent Readers: Effects on Student Learning
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
De La Paz, Susan; Felton, Mark; Monte-Sano, Chauncey; Croninger, Robert; Jackson, Cara; Deogracias, Jeehye Shim; Hoffman, Benjamin Polk
2014-01-01
In this study, the effects of a disciplinary reading and writing curriculum intervention with professional development are shared. We share our instructional approach and provide writing outcomes for struggling adolescent readers who read at or below basic proficiency levels, as well as writing outcomes for proficient and advanced readers.…
Exploring the Use of Focused Freewriting in Developing Academic Writing
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Li, Linda Y.
2007-01-01
Focused freewriting, broadly defined as writing without stopping and editing about a specific topic, has been viewed and used as a powerful tool for developing student writing in a wide spectrum of educational contexts. This study aimed to further explore the use of focused freewriting in the context of promoting students' academic skills…
How We Write: Understanding Scholarly Writing through Metaphor
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Boyd, Michelle
2012-01-01
This article introduces the "writing metaphor" and examines why political scientists should consider developing one to describe their own writing process. Drawing on the author's experience with writing accountability groups, it defines the components of the writing metaphor, provides an example, and discusses its advantages and disadvantages. The…
Multiple Continua of Writing Development in a First Grade Classroom
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Eitelgeorge, Janice S.; Barrett, Robin
2004-01-01
The purpose of this yearlong study was to understand the complexities of the writing process and to specifically attend to progressions in textual development with first-grade writers. The inquiry focused for a macroview on all the children during writing workshop and for a microview on six case studies that displayed the range of literacy…
Pavelko, Stacey L; Lieberman, R Jane; Schwartz, Jamie; Hahs-Vaughn, Debbie; Nye, Chad
2017-01-01
Research shows that many preschool children with specific language impairment (SLI) have difficulty acquiring literacy skills including phonological awareness, print concepts, and alphabet knowledge. Limited research suggests that preschool children with SLI also have difficulty with emergent writing tasks such as name writing and word writing. In typically developing children, research indicates that emergent writing skills are acquired in a developmental sequence: (1) linearity, (2) segmentation, (3) simple characters, (4) left-right orientation, (5) complex characters, (6) random letters, and (7) invented spelling. This study compared the emergent writing skills of 4-year-old children with SLI (n = 22) to their age- and gender-matched peers (n = 22). Results indicated that children with SLI demonstrate difficulty with a variety of writing tasks, including letter writing, name writing, word writing, and sentence writing when compared to their typically-developing peers. Children with SLI followed the same developmental sequence in acquiring writing skills as their typically-developing peers.
Writing by the Book, Writing beyond the Book
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Johnson, Kristine
2017-01-01
Writing has become more visible in academia through writing advice manuals and the faculty development activities they inspire. In this article, I examine writing advice manuals and argue they are epistemologically current traditional, which limits how well and how far they can support scholarly writers. Writing advice manuals and composition…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Salem, Ashraf Atta M. S.
2013-01-01
The present study aimed at investigating the effects of using a program based on the writing workshop approach on developing basic writing skills of prospective teachers of English in Hurgada faculty of Education. For that purpose, the researcher constructed and validated a teaching program based on the writing workshop approach, checklist of the…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Garcia, Eduardo; Crespo, Patricia; Bermúdez, Ivana
2017-01-01
The main objective of this research was to analyze the impact of transcription skills of Spanish writers when writing an independently composed sentence within a writing-level design. The free-writing sentence task from the "Early Grade Writing Assessment" (Jiménez, in press) was used to examine the production, accuracy, speed, syntactic…
Clabough, Erin B D; Clabough, Seth W
2016-01-01
Scientific writing is an important communication and learning tool in neuroscience, yet it is a skill not adequately cultivated in introductory undergraduate science courses. Proficient, confident scientific writers are produced by providing specific knowledge about the writing process, combined with a clear student understanding about how to think about writing (also known as metacognition). We developed a rubric for evaluating scientific papers and assessed different methods of using the rubric in inquiry-based introductory biology classrooms. Students were either 1) given the rubric alone, 2) given the rubric, but also required to visit a biology subject tutor for paper assistance, or 3) asked to self-grade paper components using the rubric. Students who were required to use a peer tutor had more negative attitudes towards scientific writing, while students who used the rubric alone reported more confidence in their science writing skills by the conclusion of the semester. Overall, students rated the use of an example paper or grading rubric as the most effective ways of teaching scientific writing, while rating peer review as ineffective. Our paper describes a concrete, simple method of infusing scientific writing into inquiry-based science classes, and provides clear avenues to enhance communication and scientific writing skills in entry-level classes through the use of a rubric or example paper, with the goal of producing students capable of performing at a higher level in upper level neuroscience classes and independent research.
Clabough, Erin B.D.; Clabough, Seth W.
2016-01-01
Scientific writing is an important communication and learning tool in neuroscience, yet it is a skill not adequately cultivated in introductory undergraduate science courses. Proficient, confident scientific writers are produced by providing specific knowledge about the writing process, combined with a clear student understanding about how to think about writing (also known as metacognition). We developed a rubric for evaluating scientific papers and assessed different methods of using the rubric in inquiry-based introductory biology classrooms. Students were either 1) given the rubric alone, 2) given the rubric, but also required to visit a biology subject tutor for paper assistance, or 3) asked to self-grade paper components using the rubric. Students who were required to use a peer tutor had more negative attitudes towards scientific writing, while students who used the rubric alone reported more confidence in their science writing skills by the conclusion of the semester. Overall, students rated the use of an example paper or grading rubric as the most effective ways of teaching scientific writing, while rating peer review as ineffective. Our paper describes a concrete, simple method of infusing scientific writing into inquiry-based science classes, and provides clear avenues to enhance communication and scientific writing skills in entry-level classes through the use of a rubric or example paper, with the goal of producing students capable of performing at a higher level in upper level neuroscience classes and independent research. PMID:27980476
Development of the Write Process for Pipeline-Ready Heavy Oil
DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)
Lee Brecher; Charles Mones; Frank Guffey
Work completed under this program advances the goal of demonstrating Western Research Institute's (WRI's) WRITE{trademark} process for upgrading heavy oil at field scale. MEG Energy Corporation (MEG) located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada supported efforts at WRI to develop the WRITE{trademark} process as an oil sands, field-upgrading technology through this Task 51 Jointly Sponsored Research project. The project consisted of 6 tasks: (1) optimization of the distillate recovery unit (DRU), (2) demonstration and design of a continuous coker, (3) conceptual design and cost estimate for a commercial facility, (4) design of a WRITE{trademark} pilot plant, (5) hydrotreating studies, and (6) establishmore » a petroleum analysis laboratory. WRITE{trademark} is a heavy oil and bitumen upgrading process that produces residuum-free, pipeline ready oil from heavy material with undiluted density and viscosity that exceed prevailing pipeline specifications. WRITE{trademark} uses two processing stages to achieve low and high temperature conversion of heavy oil or bitumen. The first stage DRU operates at mild thermal cracking conditions, yielding a light overhead product and a heavy residuum or bottoms material. These bottoms flow to the second stage continuous coker that operates at severe pyrolysis conditions, yielding light pyrolyzate and coke. The combined pyrolyzate and mildly cracked overhead streams form WRITE{trademark}'s synthetic crude oil (SCO) production. The main objectives of this project were to (1) complete testing and analysis at bench scale with the DRU and continuous coker reactors and provide results to MEG for process evaluation and scale-up determinations and (2) complete a technical and economic assessment of WRITE{trademark} technology to determine its viability. The DRU test program was completed and a processing envelope developed. These results were used for process assessment and for scaleup. Tests in the continuous coker were intended to determine the
Improving together: better science writing through peer learning
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Stiller-Reeve, Mathew A.; Heuzé, Céline; Ball, William T.; White, Rachel H.; Messori, Gabriele; van der Wiel, Karin; Medhaug, Iselin; Eckes, Annemarie H.; O'Callaghan, Amee; Newland, Mike J.; Williams, Sian R.; Kasoar, Matthew; Wittmeier, Hella Elisa; Kumer, Valerie
2016-07-01
Science, in our case the climate and geosciences, is increasingly interdisciplinary. Scientists must therefore communicate across disciplinary boundaries. For this communication to be successful, scientists must write clearly and concisely, yet the historically poor standard of scientific writing does not seem to be improving. Scientific writing must improve, and the key to long-term improvement lies with the early-career scientist (ECS). Many interventions exist for an ECS to improve their writing, like style guides and courses. However, momentum is often difficult to maintain after these interventions are completed. Continuity is key to improving writing. This paper introduces the ClimateSnack project, which aims to motivate ECSs to develop and continue to improve their writing and communication skills. The project adopts a peer-learning framework where ECSs voluntarily form writing groups at different institutes around the world. The group members learn, discuss, and improve their writing skills together. Several ClimateSnack writing groups have formed. This paper examines why some of the groups have flourished and others have dissolved. We identify the challenges involved in making a writing group successful and effective, notably the leadership of self-organized groups, and both individual and institutional time management. Within some of the groups, peer learning clearly offers a powerful tool to improve writing as well as bringing other benefits, including improved general communication skills and increased confidence.
Supporting the Development of Students' Academic Writing through Collaborative Process Writing
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Mutwarasibo, Faustin
2013-01-01
The study examines how undergraduate university students in Rwanda experience collaborative process writing as an instruction method capable of helping them improve their academic writing abilities in English. It involved 34 second-year students, divided into 12 small working groups. The data were collected by means of group interviews carried out…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Paesani, Kate
2016-01-01
This study explores relationships among reading literature, creative writing, and language development in a university-level advanced French grammar course through the theoretical lens of the multiliteracies framework. The goal is to investigate reading-writing connections and whether these literacy practices facilitate students' understanding and…
Modeling the Development of L1 and EFL Writing Proficiency of Secondary School Students
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Schoonen, Rob; van Gelderen, Amos; Stoel, Reinoud D.; Hulstijn, Jan; de Glopper, Kees
2011-01-01
This longitudinal study investigates the development of writing proficiency in English as a foreign language (EFL), in contrast to the development of first language (L1) writing proficiency in Dutch L1, in a sample of almost 400 secondary school students in the Netherlands. Students performed several writing tasks in both languages in three…
Writing for publication: faculty development initiative using social learning theory.
Sanderson, Bonnie K; Carter, Matt; Schuessler, Jenny B
2012-01-01
Demonstrating scholarly competency is an expectation for nurse faculty. However, there is hesitancy among some faculty to fully engage in scholarly activities. To strengthen a school of nursing's culture of scholarship, a faculty development writing initiative based on Social Learning Theory was implemented. The authors discuss this initiative to facilitate writing for publication productivity among faculty and the successful outcomes.
Write for Your Life: Developing Digital Literacies and Writing Pedagogy in Teacher Education
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Collier, Shartriya; Foley, Brian; Moguel, David; Barnard, Ian
2013-01-01
The need for the effective development of digital literacies pervades every aspect of instruction in contemporary classrooms. As a result, teacher candidates must be equipped to draw upon a variety of literacies in order to tap into the complex social worlds of their future pupils. The Write for Your Life Project was designed to strengthen…
Developing a Culture of Writing at Virginia State University: A New Writing Emphasis
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Thomas, Freddy L.
2009-01-01
Beginning in the fall of 2008 (and continuing through the spring of 2013), Virginia State University, America's first fully state supported four-year institution of higher learning for Blacks and one of two land-grant institutions in the Commonwealth of Virginia, launched a comprehensive and ambitious program to develop a culture of writing (and…
Integrating writing research with curricular development in large-enrollment introductory physics
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Demaree, Dedra
2008-05-01
Multiple research projects have been undertaken as part of an ongoing study to develop methods to do quantitative assessment of writing to learn within physics. The ability to make use of writing to learn at first glance appears limited in large-enrollment courses due to the time-intensive nature of essay writing and grading. However, effective ways to implement writing are quite possible. One study that will be discussed required students to do textbook summary writing in introductory physics in the 2007 spring semester of the ``Foundation Physics Course'' at the University of Cape Town. This course is a component of the special access program which contains mostly second language English speakers. Another use of writing will be reported that is currently being used in the introductory physics course at Oregon State University as a way to enhance problem solving. This project is also aimed at scaffolding students toward goals in our upper division courses. This talk will report on some of what we know about writing to learn, how we are working to improve ways to study it quantitatively, and how we are incorporating some aspects of it in accessible ways in large-enrollment introductory courses.
Early Writing Deficits in Preschoolers with Oral Language Difficulties
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Puranik, Cynthia S.; Lonigan, Christopher J.
2012-01-01
The purpose of this study was to investigate whether preschool children with language impairments (LI), a group with documented reading difficulties, also experience writing difficulties. In addition, a purpose was to examine if the writing outcomes differed when children had concomitant cognitive deficits in addition to oral language problems. A…
Training Fathers To Develop Reading and Writing Skills in Young Children with Disabilities.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Ortiz, Robert W.; Stile, Stephen W.
The potential benefits of father participation in their children's reading and writing activities include improved literacy skills, increased bonding, and heightened self-esteem of both fathers and children. This paper identifies a training model for working with fathers--Project DADS. Using this model, early childhood professionals can foster…
Steinert, Yvonne; McLeod, Peter J; Liben, Stephen; Snell, Linda
2008-01-01
Although educational innovations in medical education are increasing in number, many educators do not submit their ideas for publication. The goal of this initiative was to assist faculty members write about their educational innovations. Twenty-four faculty members participated in this intervention, which consisted of a half-day workshop, three peer writing groups, and independent study. We assessed the impact of this intervention through post-workshop evaluations, a one-year follow-up questionnaire, tracking of manuscript submissions, and an analysis of curriculum vitae. The workshop evaluations and one-year follow-up demonstrated that participants valued the workshop small groups, self-instructional workbook, and peer support and feedback provided by the peer writing groups. One year later, nine participants submitted a total of 14 manuscripts, 11 of which were accepted for publication. In addition, 10 participants presented a total of 38 abstracts at educational meetings. Five years later, we reviewed the curriculum vitae of all participants who had published or presented their educational innovation. Although the total number of publications remained the same, the number of educationally-related publications and presentations at scientific meetings increased considerably. A faculty development workshop and peer writing group can facilitate writing productivity and presentations of scholarly work in medical education.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Ngo, Chau M.; Trinh, Lap Q.
2011-01-01
The field of English language education has seen developments in writing pedagogy, moving from product-based to process-based and then to genre-based approaches. In Vietnam, teaching secondary school students how to write in English is still lagging behind these growing developments. Product-based approach is commonly seen in English writing…
Assessing a Writing Intensive General Education Capstone: Research as Faculty Development
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Parrish, Juli; Hesse, Doug; Bateman, Geoffrey
2016-01-01
We explain how collaboratively assessing a writing-intensive general education capstone seminar constituted a high-impact practice for faculty development. Students at the University of Denver complete an Advanced Seminar taught by faculty across the curriculum. Topics and themes vary widely, as do types of assigned writing, making assessment an…
DRAWS: Development of Reading and Writing in Social Studies. Teacher's Guide.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Garrahy, Dennis J.
The teacher's guide outlines seven individual social studies units designed to help low achieving students develop reading and writing skills. Following a preface on reading and writing in the content area, material is divided into seven sections which cover the program units on religion, "isms," education, energy, technology, revolution, and…
Emergent Writing in Preschoolers: Preliminary Evidence for a Theoretical Framework
Puranik, Cynthia S.; Lonigan, Christopher J.
2014-01-01
Researchers and educators use the term emergent literacy to refer to a broad set of skills and attitudes that serve as foundational skills for acquiring success in later reading and writing; however, models of emergent literacy have generally focused on reading and reading-related behaviors. Hence, the primary aim of this study was to articulate and evaluate a theoretical model of the components of emergent writing. Alternative models of the structure of individual and developmental differences of emergent writing and writing-related skills were examined in 372 preschool children who ranged in age from 3- to 5-years using confirmatory factor analysis. Results from a confirmatory factor analysis provide evidence that these emergent writing skills are best described by three correlated but distinct factors, (a) Conceptual Knowledge, (b) Procedural Knowledge, and (c) Generative Knowledge. Evidence that these three emergent writing factors show different patterns of relations to emergent literacy constructs is presented. Implications for understanding the development of writing and assessment of early writing skills are discussed. PMID:25316955
A Psycholinguistic Description of the Development of Writing in Selected First Grade Students.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Milz, Vera E.
A study was conducted to examine writing development in first grade children. The writings from an entire classroom were collected. From these, six children's writings were chosen for cross-sectional analysis. Two children from this group were then selected for further in-depth case studies. Interviews, parent surveys, and observations were used…
A State-of-the-Art Review of the Real-Time Computer-Aided Study of the Writing Process
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Abdel Latif, Muhammad M.
2008-01-01
Writing researchers have developed various methods for investigating the writing process since the 1970s. The early 1980s saw the occurrence of the real-time computer-aided study of the writing process that relies on the protocols generated by recording the computer screen activities as writers compose using the word processor. This article…
Investigating the extent of neuroplasticity: Writing in children with perinatal stroke.
Woolpert, Darin; Reilly, Judy S
2016-08-01
The developing brain is remarkably plastic, as evidenced by language studies of children with perinatal stroke (PS). Despite initial delays and in contrast to adults with comparable lesions, children with PS perform comparably to their age-matched peers in free conversation by school age. Recent studies of spoken language in older children with PS have indicated limits to neural plasticity. Writing, a cognitively demanding and language dependent domain, is understudied in children with PS. Investigating writing development will provide another perspective on the continuing linguistic development in this population. Written language performance in 43 children with PS and 60 of their typically-developing (TD) peers was evaluated to further investigate the breadth and limits to neural plasticity. Two tasks of varying difficulty were administered: a picture description, which provided a referent to facilitate writing for the children, and a more challenging autobiographical narrative. Texts were analyzed across three broad writing dimensions - productivity, complexity, and linguistic accuracy. Group differences were primarily found on accuracy indices. Morphological accuracy was most impacted by early brain injury and older children with PS did not have higher morphological accuracy than their younger counterparts, suggesting limited development with age. There were no differences in performance based on hemisphere of lesion. In addition to enhancing our understanding of long-term language outcomes in children with PS, the results further illuminate the extent and limitations of early neural plasticity for language. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Developing Team Skills through a Collaborative Writing Assignment
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Thomas, Theda Ann
2014-01-01
Employers want students who are able to work effectively as members of a team, and expect universities to develop this ability in their graduates. This paper proposes a framework for a collaborative writing assignment that specifically develops students' ability to work in teams. The framework has been tested using two iterations of an action…
Scaffolded Writing and Early Literacy Development with Children Who Are Deaf: A Case Study
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Scott-Weich, Bridget; Yaden, David B., Jr.
2017-01-01
This case study examined the effects that the processes of private speech and materialization (using line underscores as word placeholders) had on the emergent writing behaviours of one, six-year-old student who was enrolled in an auditory--oral deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) first-grade classroom situated on a large urban public school campus.…
Teaching and Testing Early Reading. Focus On
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Mraz, Maryann; Kissel, Brian
2007-01-01
This issue of "Focus On" provides an overview of several key early literacy components: phonemic awareness, alphabet knowledge, concepts of print, oral language development, writing, family literacy, and reading aloud. Suggestions for assessing early literacy development are provided, and examples of implementation of effective early literacy…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Wisker, Gina
2013-01-01
Most work on writing and publication processes focuses on writing support for undergraduates or postgraduates writing in the disciplines, while work on academic identities frequently considers development as a university teacher. This essay consider the reviewing process for academics who write, whether doctoral students, researchers, teachers or…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Korth, Byran B.; Wimmer, Jennifer J.; Wilcox, Brad; Morrison, Timothy G.; Harward, Stan; Peterson, Nancy; Simmerman, Sue; Pierce, Linda
2017-01-01
Given the interrelated role of writing and the development of early literacy skills, recommendations have been made to increase instructional writing experiences in K-2 classrooms. In an effort to increase the amount of writing in the primary grades that leads to later literacy success, it is important that teachers engage in instructional…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Simmons, Eileen
2004-01-01
Eileen Simmons, a veteran teacher-consultant from the Oklahoma State University Writing Project, describes collaboration among writing project teacher-consultants and site-based teachers to plan professional development before, during, and after a summer writing camp for students at their school. This model, which has been adapted in a variety of…
Family Connections: Promoting Early Literacy Skills--Ages Birth to 5
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Huisman, Sarah
2012-01-01
Reading, writing, and communicating, also known as literacy, are important cognitive skills to teach within society. Early literacy is knowledge about reading and writing before actually being able to read and write and is the foundation to future reading and writing skills (Ghoting & Martin-Diaz, 2006). The role of families in developing early…
"Thinking-for-Writing": A Prolegomenon on Writing Signed Languages.
Rosen, Russell S; Hartman, Maria C; Wang, Ye
2017-01-01
In his article in this American Annals of the Deaf special issue that also includes the present article, Grushkin argues that the writing difficulties of many deaf and hard of hearing children result primarily from the orthographic nature of the writing system; he proposes a new system based on features found in signed languages. In response, the present authors review the literature on D/HH children's writing difficulties, outline the main percepts of and assumptions about writing signed languages, discuss "thinking-for-writing" as a process in developing writing skills, offer research designs to test the effectiveness of writing signed language systems, and provide strategies for adopting "thinking-for-writing" in education. They conclude that until empirical studies show that writing signed languages effectively reflects writers' "thinking-for-writing," the alphabetic orthographic system of English should still be used, and ways should be found to teach D/HH children to use English writing to express their thoughts.
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Eremina, Svetlana V.
2003-10-01
The series of workshops on academic writing have been developed by academic writing instructors from Language Teaching Centre, Central European University and presented at the Samara Academic Writing Workshops in November 2001. This paper presents only the part dealing with strucutre of an argumentative essay.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Vue, Ge; Hall, Tracey E.; Robinson, Kristin; Ganley, Patricia; Elizalde, Emma; Graham, Steve
2016-01-01
Conducting focus groups with target audiences to assess user needs is a critical step in the process of designing and developing a web-based writing environment. This descriptive study examined focus group data gathered to address two questions: First, do data from focus groups affirm and expand our understanding of writing and writing development…
An Online Writing Partnership: Transforming Classroom Writing Instruction
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Townsend, Jane S.; Nail, Allan; Cheveallier, Jennifer; Browning, Angela
2013-01-01
The four authors of this article have each at different times over a ten-year period helped develop versions of the Online Writing Partnership between future English teachers learning to teach writing and high school students learning to write better. The authors have been striving to help future English teachers learn how to help high school…
The Protean Shape of the Writing Associate's Role: An Empirical Study and Conceptual Model
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Cairns, Rhoda; Anderson, Paul V.
2008-01-01
Writing fellow or writing associate (WA) programs trace their heritage to a single point of origin: the model developed at Brown University in the early 1980s by Tori Haring-Smith (Soven, 1993, 2001). Since then, the Brown model has spread to hundreds of schools. WA programs are so adaptable because they consist of many discrete elements, each of…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gallagher, Kelly
2017-01-01
Kelly Gallagher writes that "wide swaths of students are not developing their writing skills--skills we know to be foundational to their literate lives." In this article, he explains how school districts can go about developing students' writing skills in all content-area classrooms. He highlights five reasons why students should write…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Betz, Phyllis
On the Way to SUCCESS in Reading and Writing with Early Prevention of School Failure (EPSF) is a program targeting children (4-9 years) in danger of academic failure and their families. Major components of the program are age- and individual-appropriate development learning activities, professional development, curricula aligned with initial and…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hampson, Margaret P.; Hearron, Tom; Noggle, Mary
2009-01-01
Though Writing Across the Curriculum is not a new concept, Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute offers a two-semester professional development program that combines this instructional approach with emerging technology. Though this program focuses on the use of writing to enhance student learning, this training format can be…
Technology Empowers Reading and Writing of Young Children.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Casey, Jean
2001-01-01
Contends that failing to learn to write and read in the early years results in more special education placement, retention, and poor self-esteem for the learner than any other cause. Proposes that computer technology may have many benefits for children with such learning difficulties, including motivational aspects and developing fine motor…
Development and implementation of a writing program to improve resident authorship rates.
Clemmons, Amber Bradley; Hoge, Stephanie C; Cribb, Ashley; Manasco, Kalen B
2015-09-01
The development, implementation, and evaluation of a writing program with a formalized writing project as a component of postgraduate year 1 (PGY1) and postgraduate year 2 (PGY2) pharmacy residencies are described. The writing program at Georgia Regents Medical Center/University of Georgia College of Pharmacy, a collaborative and jointly funded program, was initiated in the 2010-11 residency year. The goals of the program are to teach residents to communicate effectively, apply leadership skills, employ project management skills, and provide medication- and practice- related education and training. The program combines both writing experiences and mentorship. At the beginning of the residency year, trainees are presented with opportunities to participate in both research projects and writing projects. Specifically, opportunities within the writing program include involvement in review articles, case reports, drug information rounds, book chapters, letters to the editor, and high-quality medication-use evaluations for potential publication. The writing project is highly encouraged, and completion of a manuscript to be submitted for publication is expected by graduation. Nine papers were published by 8 of 18 PGY1 and PGY2 residents in the four years before program implementation. A total of 23 publications were published by 18 (72%) of the 25 PGY1 and PGY2 residents in the four years after implementation of the writing program. Implementation of a formal writing program increased the overall publication rate of residents. Copyright © 2015 by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, Inc. All rights reserved.
Professional Development: A Skills Approach to a Writing Workshop
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Levitt, Roberta; Kramer-Vida, Louisa; Palumbo, Anthony; Kelly, Susan P.
2014-01-01
In this era of globalization, students need to know how to write well. Faculty development needs to focus on assisting primary teachers as they prepare students for a twenty-first-century world. Strategic curriculum reform and professional development can be achieved by partnerships between district administrators and professional consultants. Two…
Using Reciprocal Peer Review to Help Graduate Students Develop Scholarly Writing Skills
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Palmer, Betsy; Major, Claire Howell
2008-01-01
We developed an innovative instructional method to actively engage students in writing and critiquing scholarly work. We tested the effectiveness of this pedagogy using a mixed methods research design. Compared to control group peers, students in the experimental classes perceived gains in their own writing, research ability, and motivation to…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Aram, Dorit; Korat, Ofra; Hassunah-Arafat, Safieh
2013-01-01
This longitudinal study assessed the literacy development of native Arabic-speaking children from kindergarten to the end of first grade, focusing on the role of home literacy activities (mother-child shared book reading and joint writing). The contribution of these activities in kindergarten to children's reading and writing at the end of…
A novel approach to improving writing skills: ClimateSnack
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Reeve, Mathew
2014-05-01
Writing is a huge part of any research career. We can think of writing as a research tool we find in any research laboratory. Much like any research tool, we have to understand how to calibrate, adjust and apply it in order to achieve the very best experimental outcomes. We can learn how to use this tool with advice from writing workshops, online writing courses, books and so on. Unfortunately, when it comes to working with this tool, we often have to do it alone. But, like in any laboratory, the most rewarding way to learn and to achieve the best results is to interact with others. Through this interaction, we can improve our writing and remain motivated. ClimateSnack aims to help early career scientists understand how they can use writing as an effective research tool. We encourage the formation of writing groups at different universities and institutes. Members write short popular science articles and read them aloud at group meetings. The group uses knowledge from different learning resources to discuss the articles and give feedback. The author then improves their writing further before publishing on the ClimateSnack website. If early-career scientists can successfully increase their control of writing, they will more likely write memorable high-impact scientific articles, and confidently communicate their science via varied media to varied audiences.
Dynamic Assessment, Tutor Mediation and Academic Writing Development
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Shrestha, Prithvi; Coffin, Caroline
2012-01-01
Supporting undergraduate students with their academic literacies has recently been a major focus in higher education in the UK. This paper explores the value of tutor mediation in the context of academic writing development among undergraduate business studies students in open and distance learning, following the dynamic assessment (DA) approach…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Camacho, Ana; Alves, Rui A.
2017-01-01
Learning to read and write efficiently is of the utmost importance in elementary school. However, writing is frequently difficult and can be demotivating for beginning writers. Fortunately these barriers can be partially alleviated with parental help. Many studies showed that parental involvement influences children's competence and motivation in…
Learning to Write, Writing to Learn: Theory and Research in Practice
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Indrisano, Roselmina, Ed.; Paratore, Jeanne R., Ed.
2005-01-01
Improving the way to teach writing requires deepening one's understanding of the process of writing. Each chapter in this collection brings together the perspectives of a university researcher and a classroom teacher to show explicitly the connection between writing theory, and practice. The book covers writing development in grades K?12 and…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hoffner, Helen
2003-01-01
Explains a reading and writing assignment called "Writing a Movie" in which students view a short film segment and write a script in which they describe the scene. Notes that this assignment uses films to develop fluency and helps students understand the reading and writing connections. Concludes that students learn to summarize a scene from film,…
Development of Writing: Key Components of Written Language
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kantor, Patricia Thatcher
2012-01-01
This study utilized confirmatory factor analyses and latent change score analyses to model individual and developmental differences in a longitudinal study of children's writing. Participants were 158 children who completed a writing sample each year from 1st through 4th grade. At all four time points, a four-factor model of writing provided…
Dynamic Development of Complexity and Accuracy: A Case Study in Second Language Academic Writing
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Rosmawati
2014-01-01
This paper reports on the development of complexity and accuracy in English as a Second Language (ESL) academic writing. Although research into complexity and accuracy development in second language (L2) writing has been well established, few studies have assumed the multidimensionality of these two constructs (Norris & Ortega, 2009) or…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Obery, Angela D.
2012-01-01
This qualitative study examined the influence of the 2011 Oregon Writing Project (OWP) Summer Institute (SI) on the professional development of six teachers in the following ways: 1. The development of case descriptions of teachers' personal and professional backgrounds relevant to their teaching of writing. 2. An examination of the effects of the…
Berninger, Virginia W; Abbott, Robert D; Jones, Janine; Wolf, Beverly J; Gould, Laura; Anderson-Youngstrom, Marci; Shimada, Shirley; Apel, Kenn
2006-01-01
The first findings from a 5-year, overlapping-cohorts longitudinal study of typical language development are reported for (a) the interrelationships among Language by Ear (listening), Mouth (speaking), Eye (reading), and Hand (writing) in Cohort 1 in 1st and 3rd grade and Cohort 2 in 3rd and 5th grade; (b) the interrelationships among three modes of Language by Hand (writing manuscript letters with pen and keyboard and cursive letters with pen) in each cohort in the same grade levels as (a); and (c) the ability of the 1st graders in Cohort 1 and the 3rd graders in Cohort 2 to apply fast mapping in learning to spell pseudowords. Results showed that individual differences in Listening Comprehension, Oral Expression, Reading Comprehension, and Written Expression are stable developmentally, but each functional language system is only moderately correlated with the others. Likewise, manuscript writing, cursive writing, and keyboarding are only moderately correlated, and each has a different set of unique neuropsychological predictors depending on outcome measure and grade level. Results support the use of the following neuropsychological measures in assessing handwriting modes: orthographic coding, rapid automatic naming, finger succession (grapho-motor planning for sequential finger movements), inhibition, inhibition/switching, and phonemes skills (which may facilitate transfer of abstract letter identities across letter formats and modes of production). Both 1st and 3rd graders showed evidence of fast mapping of novel spoken word forms onto written word forms over 3 brief sessions (2 of which involved teaching) embedded in the assessment battery; and this fast mapping explained unique variance in their spelling achievement over and beyond their orthographic and phonological coding abilities and correlated significantly with current and next-year spelling achievement.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gragson, Derek E.; Hagen, John P.
2010-01-01
Writing formal "journal-style" lab reports is often one of the requirements chemistry and biochemistry students encounter in the physical chemistry laboratory. Helping students improve their technical writing skills is the primary reason this type of writing is a requirement in the physical chemistry laboratory. Developing these skills is an…
"He Just Told Me to Get on with It": Insights into Transforming Doctoral Writing Development
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Johnson, E. Marcia
2015-01-01
This paper reports on the results of a two-year study into threshold concepts (TCs) in doctoral writing. The findings informed the development of a thinking to write strategy (the 4x4) that has been implemented as part of a pan-university doctoral writing programme at a New Zealand university.
Limpo, Teresa; Alves, Rui A
Writing proficiency is heavily based on acquisition and development of self-regulation and transcription skills. The present study examined the effects of combining transcription training with a self-regulation intervention (self-regulated strategy development [SRSD]) in Grade 2 (ages 7-8). Forty-three students receiving self-regulation plus transcription (SRSD+TR) intervention were compared with 37 students receiving a self-regulation only (SRSD only) intervention and 39 students receiving the standard language arts curriculum. Compared with control instruction, SRSD instruction-with or without transcription training-resulted in more complex plans; longer, better, and more complete stories; and the effects transferred to story written recall. Transcription training produced an incremental effect on students' composing skills. In particular, the SRSD+TR intervention increased handwriting fluency, spelling accuracy for inconsistent words, planning and story completeness, writing fluency, clause length, and burst length. Compared with the SRSD-only intervention, the SRSD+TR intervention was particularly effective in raising the writing quality of poorer writers. This pattern of findings suggests that students benefit from writing instruction coupling self-regulation and transcription training from very early on. This seems to be a promising instructional approach not only to ameliorate all students' writing ability and prevent future writing problems but also to minimize struggling writers' difficulties and support them in mastering writing.
Developing Writing Abilities of EFL Students through Blogging
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kitchakarn, Orachorn
2014-01-01
Due to a rapid development and expansion of technology and, as a result, Web 2.0 technologies are providing both teachers and learners with new solutions to the limitations of traditional method in the field of language teaching and learning. The research compared students' writing ability before and after they were taught through blog, a new…
Shellenbarger, Teresa; Hunker, Diane F; Gazza, Elizabeth A
2015-01-01
Faculty teaching nurses enrolled in clinical doctoral programs need to understand the process of student scholarly writing development so that students can be prepared to share knowledge and communicate effectively in scholarly formats. A hermeneutic phenomenological study that sought to understand the scholarly writing development of nurses enrolled in a clinical doctoral program was conducted. Findings from interviews with six Doctor of Nursing Practice students revealed three themes: learning throughout life, influence of emotions, and getting through the gate. Based upon these findings, recommendations for further development of doctoral student writing are suggested so that students can disseminate their knowledge in a scholarly manner, improve practice, and contribute to the profession. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
A Powerful Tool: Writing Based on Knowledge and Understanding
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Ginty, Eloise; Hawkins, Joanna; Kurzman, Karen; Leddy, Diana; Miller, Jane
2016-01-01
The National Writing Project (NWP) has contributed enormously and consistently to the effort to help teachers help students learn to write. In the early 1970s, researchers such as Donald Graves and Janet Emig began studying the ways writers go about the task of thinking and producing polished writing. The NWP's book "Because Writing…
Teamwork and Feedback: Broadening the Base of Collaborative Writing.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gebhardt, Richard
Many advocates of collaborative writing place too little emphasis on the emotional benefits of feedback to the writer by restricting group feedback to relatively late points in the writing process. Collaboration is as appropriate during the early stages of writing as it is after the completion of a draft. Students can receive feedback from…
Developing Critical Thinking Skills Using the Science Writing Heuristic in the Chemistry Laboratory
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Stephenson, N. S.; Sadler-McKnight, N. P.
2016-01-01
The Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) laboratory approach is a teaching and learning tool which combines writing, inquiry, collaboration and reflection, and provides scaffolding for the development of critical thinking skills. In this study, the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST) was used to measure the critical thinking skills of…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hall, Anna H.
2017-01-01
Interactive writing is a research-based early literacy strategy that has been found effective at increasing young children's oral language skills, alphabet knowledge, phonemic awareness, concepts of print, and early writing skills. This paper reports on a case study which explored the feasibility and fidelity of implementing interactive writing in…
Scientific Writing: Strategies and Tools for Students and Advisors
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Singh, Vikash; Mayer, Philipp
2014-01-01
Scientific writing is a demanding task and many students need more time than expected to finish their research articles. To speed up the process, we highlight some tools, strategies as well as writing guides. We recommend starting early in the research process with writing and to prepare research articles, not after but in parallel to the lab or…
Phase Transitions in Development of Writing Fluency from a Complex Dynamic Systems Perspective
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Baba, Kyoko; Nitta, Ryo
2014-01-01
This study explored patterns in L2 writing development by focusing on one of the linguistic features of texts (fluency) from a complex dynamic systems perspective. It investigated whether two English-as-a-foreign-language university students would experience discontinuous change (phase transition) in their writing fluency through repetition of a…
Radical Feminism and the Subject of Writing.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Rhodes, Jacqueline
The radical feminists of the late 1960s and early 1970s, as well as their online counterparts today, offer provocative examples of networked textuality, a discourse dependent on the constant and visible contextualization of self and writing within the discourses of hegemony. Given its potential use for liberatory writing pedagogies, it seems…
Do Fine Motor Skills Contribute to Early Reading Development?
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Suggate, Sebastian; Pufke, Eva; Stoeger, Heidrun
2018-01-01
Background: Little is known about how fine motor skills (FMS) relate to early literacy skills, especially over and above cognitive variables. Moreover, a lack of distinction between FMS, grapho-motor and writing skills may have hampered previous work. Method: In Germany, kindergartners (n = 144, aged 6;1) were recruited before beginning formal…
Reading and Writing in the Curriculum.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Ediger, Marlow
There are many kinds of writing activities for pupils. Pupils need to develop proficiency for a variety of types of writing, such as creative writing and poetry, writing in journals, writing about personal experiences, writing an outline, writing an opinion, writing on how something should be done, writing and problem solving, writing to inform,…
Jones, Jasmin Niedo; Abbott, Robert D.; Berninger, Virginia W.
2014-01-01
Human traits tend to fall along normal distributions. The aim of this research was to evaluate an evidence-based conceptual framework for predicting expected individual differences in reading and writing achievement outcomes for typically developing readers and writers in early and middle childhood from Verbal Reasoning with or without Working Memory Components (phonological, orthographic, and morphological word storage and processing units, phonological and orthographic loops, and rapid switching attention for cross-code integration). Verbal Reasoning (reconceptualized as Bidirectional Cognitive-Linguistic Translation) plus the Working Memory Components (reconceptualized as a language learning system) accounted for more variance than Verbal Reasoning alone, except for handwriting for which Working Memory Components alone were better predictors. Which predictors explained unique variance varied within and across reading (oral real word and pseudoword accuracy and rate, reading comprehension) and writing (handwriting, spelling, composing) skills and grade levels (second and fifth) in this longitudinal study. Educational applications are illustrated and theoretical and practical significance discussed. PMID:24948868
Mesrahi, Tahereh; Sedighi, Mohammadreza
2013-08-01
Learning disability is one of the most noticed subjects for behavioral specialists. Most of thelearning difficulties are caused by senso-motor development and neurological organization. The main purposeof the present research is to examine the role of delayed perceptual-motor development and brain damage inorigination of expressive writing disorder (EWD). The studied sample is 89 pupils divided into two groups, one of which is pupils with expressivewriting disorder (n=43) and the other is pupils without expressive writing disorder (n=46), consisted of secondand third grade elementary school students. First of all, students with EWD are selected through dictation testand intelligence test, and then the two groups, students with and without EWD, would take the Bender Gestalttest. The average score of perceptual visual-motor development and brain damage of two groups is comparedusing T test for independent groups and χ2 test. Results show that there is a significant difference in perceptual visual-motor development betweenstudents with EWD and students without EWD (p<0.01). Based on the results, perceptual-motor development ofstudents with EWD is lower than students without EWD. There is no significant difference in brain damagebetween those with EWD and healthy people, (p> 0.05). Based on our findings it could be concluded that those who are relatively more developed thantheir peers, in terms of visual-motor perception, are more successful in education, especially in expressive writing.
Writing Pal: Feasibility of an Intelligent Writing Strategy Tutor in the High School Classroom
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Roscoe, Rod D.; McNamara, Danielle S.
2013-01-01
The Writing Pal (W-Pal) is a novel intelligent tutoring system (ITS) that offers writing strategy instruction, game-based practice, essay writing practice, and formative feedback to developing writers. Compared to more tractable and constrained learning domains for ITS, writing is an ill-defined domain because the features of effective writing are…
Writing Partners: Expanding the Audiences for Student Writing.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gillis, Candida
1994-01-01
Describes how one English teacher developed an approach to teaching writing that pairs student writers with writers in the community outside the school. Outlines the features of this writing partners project, including the responsibilities of each partner. Argues that such programs foster writer skill and self-esteem. (HB)
Achieving Consistency in Writing across the Curriculum
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Andersen, Richard
2003-01-01
From the early 1900s to the present, there have always been inconsistencies in how teachers evaluate the writing quality of their students' essays. Their critiques vary as much as their personalities. To establish common standards in writing for all courses in which essays are assigned and, at the same time, not infringe on the integrity of…
Reading materials for post-literacy: The development and testing of a model of social writing
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Bhola, Harbans S.
1989-12-01
A model of social writing, for use in writing socially relevant, easy-to-read, follow-up books for neo-literate adults, is presented. The model was fully developed and tested in the context of a series of writers' workshops during 1981-87; and incorporates all of the three aspects of writing: the expressive, the cognitive, and the social. Specifically, the following elements are included: selection of subject and topic within a dialectic of national development needs and community learning needs; negotiable definitions of general and specific objectives; acquiring knowledge of subject matter, and establishing necessary collaboration with subject-matter specialists; content planning to choose content and language of discourse, participatively with the future community of readers; choice of treatment of content as didactic or dramatic; outlining of manuscript as argument, dialogue or story; writing easy-to-read yet interesting materials; trying out the manuscript and making revisions; working with the illustrator and the editor; and preparing the manuscript for printing. Both the development and the testing of the model involved reflection-in-action and not stand-alone research exercises. The successful use of the model in workshops to train writers of post-literacy materials provided one source of support for the model. A comparison of this model of social writing with other models of writing available in literature has provided further support for the conceptual and procedural structure of the model. Transfers of the model to other cultural settings as well as to the writing of other types of educational materials, such as distance education texts and units, have also proved effective.
Effects of Direct Instruction and Strategy Modeling on Upper-Primary Students’ Writing Development
López, Paula; Torrance, Mark; Rijlaarsdam, Gert; Fidalgo, Raquel
2017-01-01
Strategy-focused instruction is one of the most effective approaches to improve writing skills. It aims to teach developing writers strategies that give them executive control over their writing processes. Programs under this kind of instruction tend to have multiple components that include direct instruction, modeling and scaffolded practice. This multi-component nature has two drawbacks: it makes implementation challenging due to the amount of time and training required to perform each stage, and it is difficult to determine the underlying mechanisms that contribute to its effectiveness. To unpack why strategy-focused instruction is effective, we explored the specific effects of two key components: direct teaching of writing strategies and modeling of strategy use. Six classes (133 students) of upper-primary education were randomly assigned to one of the two experimental conditions, in which students received instruction aimed at developing effective strategies for planning and drafting, or control group with no strategy instruction: Direct Instruction (N = 46), Modeling (N = 45), and Control (N = 42). Writing performance was assessed before the intervention and immediately after the intervention with two tasks, one collaborative and the other one individual to explore whether differential effects resulted from students writing alone or in pairs. Writing performance was assessed through reader-based and text-based measures of text quality. Results at post-test showed similar improvement in both intervention conditions, relatively to controls, in all measures and in both the collaborative and the individual task. No statistically significant differences were observed between experimental conditions. These findings suggest that both components, direct teaching and modeling, are equally effective in improving writing skills in upper primary students, and these effects are present even after a short training. PMID:28713299
Improving the 5th Formers' Continuous Writing Skills through the Creative Writing Module
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Murugiah, Mohana Ram
2013-01-01
Writing is a complex task. The development of students' writing skill depends on the teacher's teaching strategy and also the materials used in the writing lesson. In the present study, the effectiveness of a creative writing module was examined that was designed to improve the writing skill of a group of excellent students. It was added with…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Childress, Amy
2011-01-01
While several models of adult writing have been proposed and studied, the development of writing skills in young children has only recently garnered attention. Using measures of fine-motor, language, working memory, and attention/executive functions, the current study explored motor and cognitive skills that may contribute to writing skill in…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Alves, Rui A.; Limpo, Teresa; Fidalgo, Raquel; Carvalhais, Lénia; Pereira, Luísa Álvares; Castro, São Luís
2016-01-01
Writing development seems heavily dependent upon the automatization of transcription. This study aimed to further investigate the link between transcription and writing by examining the effects of promoting handwriting and spelling skills on a comprehensive set of writing measures (viz., bursts and pauses, levels of written language, and writing…
Writing in the Workplace: Implications for Human Resource Development
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Akdere, Mesut; Azevedo, Ross E.
2005-01-01
Writing in the workplace is among the understudied business topics in the field of HRD. Yet, the impacts of writing in today's workplace are significant, and organizations making it a priority benefit from it. Furthermore, writing is related to the issue of workplace literacy which is the umbrella term for basic communication skills. This…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Bruce, M. L.; Coffer, P. K.; Rees, S.; Robson, J. M.
2016-01-01
Many undergraduate students find the production of an extended piece of academic writing challenging. This challenge is more acute in the sciences where production of extended texts is infrequent throughout undergraduate studies. This paper reports the development of a new English for Academic Purposes (EAP) workshop and associated resources for…
Dynamic Development in Speaking versus Writing in Identical Twins
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Chan, HuiPing; Verspoor, Marjolijn; Vahtrick, Louisa
2015-01-01
Taking a dynamic usage-based perspective, this longitudinal case study compares the development of sentence complexity in speaking versus writing in two beginner Taiwanese learners of English (identical twins) in an extensive corpus consisting of 100 oral and 100 written texts of approximately 200 words produced by each twin over 8 months. Three…
Impact Evaluation of National Writing Project Professional Development Program
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gallagher, H. Alix; Woodworth, Katrina; McCaffrey, Teresa; Park, Christina J.; Wang, Haiwen
2014-01-01
Improving teacher effectiveness is a key strategy to ensure student readiness for college and careers and to address achievement gaps and persistent low performance. In response to the new Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts (CCSS-ELA) the National Writing Project (NWP) created a professional development (PD) program to support…
What Happens When I Write? Pupils' Writing about Writing
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Barbeiro, Luis Filipe
2011-01-01
This article presents pupils' awareness of writing as elicited through a metawriting task, in other words a task in which pupils from the third, fourth and sixth forms (grades) were required to write about writing. The analysis of the texts revealed the pupils' increasing ability to write texts focusing on writing and on the subject's relationship…
Howard, Z R; Donalson, L M; Kim, W K; Li, X; Zabala Díaz, I; Landers, K L; Maciorowski, K G; Ricke, S C
2006-02-01
Because food and poultry industries are demanding an improvement in written communication skills among graduates, research paper writing should be an integral part of a senior undergraduate class. However, scientific writing assignments are often treated as secondary to developing the technical skills of the students. Scientific research paper writing has been emphasized in an undergraduate course on advanced food microbiology taught in the Poultry Science Department at Texas A& M University (College Station, TX). Students' opinions suggest that research paper writing as part of a senior course in Poultry Science provides students with scientific communication skills and useful training for their career, but more emphasis on reading and understanding scientific literature may be required.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Reyes, Lisa Darlene
2017-01-01
The unpreparedness of some regular classroom teachers of English Language Learners (ELLS) to provide appropriate writing feedback and receive improved professional development to combat low student progress have resulted in researcher debate about how and why teachers provide feedback. Some teachers have become frustrated with writing feedback as…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Trapman, Mirjam; van Gelderen, Amos; van Schooten, Erik; Hulstijn, Jan
2018-01-01
In a longitudinal design, 51 low-achieving adolescents' development in writing proficiency from Grades 7 to 9 was measured. There were 25 native-Dutch and 26 language-minority students. In addition, the roles of (1) linguistic knowledge, (2) metacognitive knowledge, and (3) linguistic fluency in predicting both the level and development of writing…
Writing-to-Learn, Writing-to-Communicate, & Scientific Literacy
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Balgopal, Meena; Wallace, Alison
2013-01-01
Writing-to-learn (WTL) is an effective instructional and learning strategy that centers on the process of organizing and articulating ideas, as opposed to writing-to-communicate, which centers on the finished written product. We describe a WTL model that we have developed and tested with various student groups over several years. With effective…
Reflective writing: the student nurse's perspective on reflective writing and poetry writing.
Coleman, Dawn; Willis, Diane S
2015-07-01
Reflective writing is a mandatory part of nurse education but how students develop their skills and use reflection as part of their experiential learning remains relatively unknown. Understanding reflective writing in all forms from the perspective of a student nurse is therefore important. To explore the use of reflective writing and the use of poetry in pre-registered nursing students. A qualitative design was employed to explore reflective writing in pre-registered nursing students. A small university in Scotland. BSc (Hons) Adult and Mental Health Pre-registration Student Nurses. Two focus groups were conducted with 10 student nurses during March 2012. Data was analysed thematically using the framework of McCarthy (1999). Students found the process of reflective writing daunting but valued it over time. Current educational methods, such as assessing reflective accounts, often lead to the 'narrative' being watered down and the student feeling judged. Despite this, reflection made students feel responsible for their own learning and research on the topic. Some students felt the use of models of reflection constricting, whilst poetry freed up their expression allowing them to demonstrate the compassion for their patient under their care. Poetry writing gives students the opportunity for freedom of expression, personal satisfaction and a closer connection with their patients, which the more formal approach to reflective writing did not offer. There is a need for students to have a safe and supportive forum in which to express and have their experiences acknowledged without the fear of being judged. Crown Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Understanding Course Content through Letter Writing: Do Informal Writing Assignments Improve Grades?
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Bersamin, Melina; Zamboanga, Byron L.; Orsak-Neff, Natalie
2013-01-01
Using an experimental study design (N = 41), we examined whether participation in an informal writing assignment, specifically writing a letter to a friend about course content, improved exam scores in an undergraduate child development course. Findings indicated that participating in the writing assignment significantly improved scores on an exam…
Developing an Automated Writing Placement System for ESL Learners
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Yannakoudakis, Helen; Andersen, Øistein E.; Geranpayeh, Ardeshir; Briscoe, Ted; Nicholls, Diane
2018-01-01
There are quite a few challenges in the development of an automated writing placement model for non-native English learners, among them the fact that exams that encompass the full range of language proficiency exhibited at different stages of learning are hard to design. However, acquisition of appropriate training data that are relevant to the…
What Children Write: A Phenomenological Approach to Writing Development.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
King, Robert W.
To examine the differences and the unique qualities of third grade writers in relation to their uses of language and their perception of the world, a selection of writings from 20 third grade students was analyzed for language ability as measured by words per T-unit. Then, two students from the higher and two from the lower end of the scale were…
Toward understanding writing to learn in physics: Investigating student writing
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Demaree, Dedra
Writing to Learn, and in specific of Writing to Learn within physics. Second, we have also made progress in characterizing student behaviors in an effort to quantify the study of writing: the link between writing and learning content is not obvious, and we have shown that students may not even be learning to write through practice in the context of physics. Third, we have developed a valuable new tool, a novel program to track and analyze student writing, that supplies quantitative information about student writing. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Li, Linda Y.; Vandermensbrugghe, Joelle
2011-01-01
Evidence from research suggests writing support is particularly needed for international research students who have to tackle the challenges of thesis writing in English as their second language in Western academic settings. This article reports the development of an ongoing writing group to support the thesis writing process of international…
Demystifying Disciplinary Writing: A Case Study in the Writing of Chemistry
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Fredrica L. Stoller; Jones, James K.; Costanza-Robinson, Molly S.; Robinson, Marin S.
2005-01-01
This article describes steps taken to demystify the writing of chemistry as part of the development of a junior level writing course for chemistry majors at Northern Arizona University (NAU). Although the course is offered by the chemistry department, its conception, development, implementation, and assessment have been the result of an…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Rasinski, Timothy; Padak, Nancy
2009-01-01
This article explores the possibilities of using natural writing opportunities that occur in family life to nurture children's literacy development. From notes to lists to journals to parodies, families can use writing to nurture personal relationships and simultaneously improve literacy. Specific tips for teachers to share with parents in making…
Timed Writing Practice for Japanese University Students in an EFL Setting.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kresovich, Brant M.
1990-01-01
Timed writing exercises used at the University of the Ryukyus (Japan) to help alleviate common problems in English second language writing are described. It is proposed that Japanese students have difficulty writing in English because of early training in the grammar-translation method, a lack of communication skills, the overuse of bilingual…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Worsley, Dale; Mayer, Bernadette
Aimed at secondary school science and English teachers, this book presents practical advice for developing good student writing in science and mathematics. Five main sections cover: (1) an essay development workshop; (2) 47 specific writing assignments; (3) over 30 questions teachers ask about science writing, and the answers; (4) an anthology of…
Research-Based Integrated Reading and Writing Course Development
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Pierce, Calisa A.
2017-01-01
With the continuing national emphases on acceleration and completion, an integrated reading and writing course (a combined developmental reading and developmental writing course, with all levels compressed into a single course) is one way to move students more quickly and efficiently through the developmental sequence while still maintaining…
Writing as Envision: Autobiographical and Academic Writing in the Composition Class.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Tokarczyk, Michelle M.
Three students in an autobiography class--an African-American, a woman, and a gay man struggling to come out--used their writing to both affirm their places in the world and envision another place. Having reviewed her early educational experiences as an African-American, Holly focused her essay back to her present college days and her attempts to…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Tuyen, Kim Thanh; Bin Osman, Shuki; Dan, Thai Cong; Ahmad, Nor Shafrin Binti
2016-01-01
Research Paper Writing (RPW) plays a key role in completing all research work. Poor writing could lead to the postponement of publications. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a program of (RPW) to improve RPW ability for EFL/ESL writers, especially for undergraduate students in Higher Education (HE) institutions, which has caught less attention…
Examining Shifts in Preservice Teachers' Beliefs and Attitudes toward Writing Instruction
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hall, Anna H.
2016-01-01
The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of integrating self-reflection, focused instruction, and field practice in a semester-long language arts course in order to shift early childhood preservice teachers' (PSTs) beliefs and attitudes about writing instruction, as well as their development and planned use of tools for…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Schwieter, John W.
2010-01-01
In the present study, Vygotsky's (1978, 1986) sociocultural framework of the zone of proximal development (ZPD) and scaffolding writing (Bodrova & Leong, 1995, 1996; Ross, 1976) are used as the theoretical basis to study the development of second language writing. A course project is presented in which advanced English language learners of Spanish…
Bilingual Writing as an Act of Identity: Sign-Making in Multiple Scripts
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kabuto, Bobbie
2010-01-01
This article explores early bilingual script writing as an act of identity. Using multiple theoretical perspectives related to social semiotics and social constructivist perspectives on identity and writing, the research presented in this article is based on a case study of an early biliterate learner of Japanese and English from the ages of 3-7.…
The Development of E-Mail Literacy: From Writing to Peers to Writing to Authority Figures
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Chen, Chi-Fen Emily
2006-01-01
Though e-mail has become a common interpersonal communication medium, it does not mean that this medium is used without difficulty. While people can write e-mails to peers in any manner they like, writing e-mails to authority figures requires higher pragmatic competence and critical language awareness of how discourse shapes and reflects power…
Innovative Writing Instruction: Writing Selves, Writing Stories
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kinloch, Valeria, Ed.
2009-01-01
In this third "Innovative Writing Instruction" column, the author invited a former high school teacher on the verge of preparing for doctoral candidacy exams, an instructor and doctoral student interested in writing research/practice, and a university supervisor for teacher education preservice students to share aspects of their writing selves,…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Limpo, Teresa; Alves, Rui A.; Fidalgo, Raquel
2014-01-01
Background: It is well established that the activity of producing a text is a complex one involving three main cognitive processes: Planning, translating, and revising. Although these processes are crucial in skilled writing, beginning and developing writers seem to struggle with them, mainly with planning and revising. Aims: To trace the…
Comparing Two Methods of Writing Instruction: Effects on Kindergarten Students' Reading Skills
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Jones, Cindy D'on; Reutzel, D. Ray; Fargo, Jamison D.
2010-01-01
This experimental study directly compared the effects of two prevalent forms of classroom writing instruction, interactive writing and writing workshop, on kindergarten students' acquisition of early reading skills. Repeated measures data was collected at four points over 16 weeks to monitor growth of 151 kindergarten students in phonological…
Teaching Writing in Graduate School
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Sallee, Margaret; Hallett, Ronald; Tierney, William
2011-01-01
Graduate students are typically expected to know how to write. Those who write poorly are occasionally penalized, but little in-class attention is given to help students continue to develop and refine their writing skills. More often than not, writing courses at the graduate level are remedial programs designed for international students and…
Developing and Validating a Metacognitive Writing Questionnaire for EFL Learners
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Farahian, Majid
2017-01-01
In an attempt to develop a metacognitive writing questionnaire, Farahian (2015) conducted a study which was based on the results obtained from a semi-structured interview (Maftoon, Birjandi & Farahian, 2014). After running various exploratory factor analyses (EFA) to validate the questionnaire two general scales of knowledge and regulation of…
Development of a Writing Center: A Bright Idea.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
McKeague, Patricia M.; Reis, Elizabeth
Recognizing that good writing skills are critical to achieving college and career success, the Communications Department at Moraine Valley Community College (MVCC) initiated a 10-month research and planning process which culminated in the establishment of a Writing Center (WC) in the fall of 1990. The objectives of the WC are to: (1) offer all…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Paquette, Kelli R.
2009-01-01
A mixed methodological approach was used to examine the effect of a cross-age tutoring writing program among second- and fourth-grade students in a rural elementary school in Delaware. Pre-test and post-test writing prompts were administered and evaluated using the 6+1 traits writing assessment rubric. Students were assessed qualitatively through…
Teaching Writing in the Republic of Colombia, 1800-1850
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Clark, Meri L.
2010-01-01
This article examines the enduring importance of handwriting in the early republic of Colombia. Colonial practice informed writing instruction but Colombians re-established it in national terms from the 1820s onward. Teaching writing became a critical tool of state formation: an ideal republic of virtuous functionaries depended on uniform…
Assessing the Writing of Deaf College Students: Reevaluating a Direct Assessment of Writing
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Schley, Sara; Albertini, John
2005-01-01
The NTID Writing Test was developed to assess the writing ability of postsecondary deaf students entering the National Technical Institute for the Deaf and to determine their appropriate placement into developmental writing courses. While previous research (Albertini et al., 1986; Albertini et al., 1996; Bochner, Albertini, Samar, & Metz, 1992)…
A Recipe for Writing Motivation
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Chakraborty, Basanti; Stone, Sandra
2008-01-01
There is nothing worse than hearing moans and groans when writing time is announced to students. Motivation for writing begins when students' interests are mixed with opportunities for creativity. This article presents an idea shared by a writing coach who found a way to spark students' interest in writing by developing recipes for more…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
McClellan, Michael; Myelle-Watson, Dawn; Peters, Brad; Spears, Debora; Wellen, David
2012-01-01
To teach science writing effectively, scholars encourage combining writing to learn with applications of the science writing heuristic. How teachers learn to do so remains under-examined. This essay follows a cohort of ninth-grade science teachers who collaborated in a project to develop, test, and revise such a combination of writing prompts for…
The Development of Composition Skills via Directed Writing.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Rahilly, Leonard J.
To alleviate problems associated with free composition as a method of foreign language writing instruction, the directed writing method was adapted for use in a college French composition course. High-quality French texts, often of only a page or two and written by native speakers, are used as a basis for grammatical analysis and discussion and a…
Developing Writing Competencies through Education in Elementary School
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Zuckerman, G. A.; Obukhova, O. L.
2015-01-01
D. Elkonin's thesis that thinking is much more closely related to writing than to oral speech formed the basis of our three-year formative experiment at the elementary school level. In order to test this idea, second-graders through fourth-graders were given a few assignments in which they were asked to exchange thoughts in writing with their…
Parental Writing Support and Preschoolers' Early Literacy, Language, and Fine Motor Skills
Bindman, Samantha W.; Skibbe, Lori E.; Hindman, Annemarie H.; Aram, Dorit; Morrison, Frederick J.
2014-01-01
The current study examines the nature and variability of parents' aid to preschoolers in the context of a shared writing task, as well as the relations between this support and children's literacy, vocabulary, and fine motor skills. In total, 135 preschool children (72 girls) and their parents (primarily mothers) in an ethnically diverse, middle-income community were observed while writing a semi-structured invitation for a pretend birthday party together. Children's phonological awareness, alphabet knowledge, word decoding, vocabulary, and fine motor skills were also assessed. Results revealed that parents provided variable, but generally low–level, support for children's approximation of sound-symbol correspondence in their writing (i.e., graphophonemic support), as well as for their production of letter forms (i.e., print support). Parents frequently accepted errors rather than asking for corrections (i.e., demand for precision). Further analysis of the parent-child dyads (n = 103) who wrote the child's name on the invitation showed that parents provided higher graphophonemic, but not print, support when writing the child's name than other words. Overall parental graphophonemic support was positively linked to children's decoding and fine motor skills, whereas print support and demand for precision were not related to any of the child outcomes. In sum, this study indicates that while parental support for preschoolers' writing may be minimal, it is uniquely linked to key literacy-related outcomes in preschool. PMID:25284957
Parental Writing Support and Preschoolers' Early Literacy, Language, and Fine Motor Skills.
Bindman, Samantha W; Skibbe, Lori E; Hindman, Annemarie H; Aram, Dorit; Morrison, Frederick J
2014-01-01
The current study examines the nature and variability of parents' aid to preschoolers in the context of a shared writing task, as well as the relations between this support and children's literacy, vocabulary, and fine motor skills. In total, 135 preschool children (72 girls) and their parents (primarily mothers) in an ethnically diverse, middle-income community were observed while writing a semi-structured invitation for a pretend birthday party together. Children's phonological awareness, alphabet knowledge, word decoding, vocabulary, and fine motor skills were also assessed. Results revealed that parents provided variable, but generally low-level, support for children's approximation of sound-symbol correspondence in their writing (i.e., graphophonemic support), as well as for their production of letter forms (i.e., print support). Parents frequently accepted errors rather than asking for corrections (i.e., demand for precision). Further analysis of the parent-child dyads ( n = 103) who wrote the child's name on the invitation showed that parents provided higher graphophonemic, but not print, support when writing the child's name than other words. Overall parental graphophonemic support was positively linked to children's decoding and fine motor skills, whereas print support and demand for precision were not related to any of the child outcomes. In sum, this study indicates that while parental support for preschoolers' writing may be minimal, it is uniquely linked to key literacy-related outcomes in preschool.
The art of writing good research proposals.
van Ekelenburg, Henk
2010-01-01
Whilst scientists are by default motivated by intellectual challenges linked to the area of their interest rather than have an interest in the financial component related to their work, the reality of today is that funding for their work does not come automatically More and more governments provide project-related funding rather than multipurpose funding that covers the total annual costs of a research performing entity (such as a university department). So, like it or not, researchers have to present their research ideas and convince funding bodies about the usefulness and importance of their intended research work. Writing the research proposal is not simply typing words and punctuation. It requires succinctly and clearly chronicling the facts, as well as crafting a convincing line of reasoning for funding the project. For the best result, both the logical, verbal left side of the brain and the intuitive, creative right side of the brain need to work as a team. This article covers the process of writing a proposal, from research idea to submission to the funding body. The key to good writing is linking the text into a logical project flow. Therefore, in the early stage of writing an RTD proposal, developing the chain of reasoning and creating a flow chart is recommended to get a clear overview of the entire project and to visualise how the many work packages are connected.
Development and Effects of a Writing and Thinking Course in Psychology
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Johnson, E. Jean; Tuskenis, Albert D.; Howell, Glenna L.; Jaroszewski, Kimberly
2011-01-01
The authors developed and assessed a new undergraduate psychology course: Thinking and Writing in Psychology. A description of how the course was developed using the APA learning goals as well as results from an analysis of the course's effectiveness are offered. The course demonstrated a positive impact on the overall grade point average and…
Rubrics as a Tool in Writing Instruction: Effects on the Opinion Essays of First and Second Graders
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Bradford, Kendall L.; Newland, Amanda C.; Rule, Audrey C.; Montgomery, Sarah E.
2016-01-01
Recently-adopted standards call for more emphasis on writing in early elementary grades. Rubrics may assist students in attending to important characteristics of effective writing, but research data on their use in early childhood is lacking. This study explores the effects of rubric use on writing instruction of opinion paragraphs for 20 first…
"Exercices de style": Developing Multiple Competencies through a Writing Portfolio
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Paesani, Kate
2006-01-01
This article presents a writing portfolio project whose primary goal is to integrate the development of proficiency skills, content knowledge, and grammatical competence through literary study. Excerpts from Queneau's (1947) "Exercices de style," which tells the same story 99 times, serve as the basis for this portfolio project: These excerpts are…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Ennis, Robin Parks; Jolivette, Kristine
2014-01-01
The Common Core State Standards Initiative includes an emphasis on teaching writing and related skills in all subject areas. This study sought to improve the persuasive writing skills and self-efficacy skills of students with emotional and behavioral disorders by implementing self-regulated strategy development with pairs of students in a high…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Pelger, Susanne; Sigrell, Anders
2016-01-01
Background: Feedback is one of the most significant factors for students' development of writing skills. For feedback to be successful, however, students and teachers need a common language--a meta-language--for discussing texts. Not least because in science education such a meta-language might contribute to improve writing training and…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Rigolino, Rachel; Freel, Penny
2007-01-01
In 1996, the State University of New York at New Paltz developed the Supplemental Writing Workshop Program for its basic writing students in response to public pressure to discontinue the offering of so-called remedial writing courses at four-year institutions. Our primary purpose in this article is to describe the design of the SWW Program, which…
The Writing Process: Effects of Life-Span Development on Imaging.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Shock, Diane Hahn
A qualitative study focused on incubation and illumination within the act of writing to determine if life-span development affects image production during these creative, cognitive acts. Sixteen subjects of both sexes from four age groups represented major developmental stages in the life cycle. The research design provided two 90-minute sessions…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Anderson, Dianne Bruce
2010-01-01
Blogging and computerized journaling are effective tools for writing skill development; however, research has not revealed which specific populations of students are aided by blogging or journaling, nor has research revealed the specific writing skills that are most likely to be improved by these practices. The purpose of the study was to discover…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Nippold, Marilyn A.; Ward-Lonergan, Jeannene M.; Fanning, Jessica L.
2005-01-01
Purpose: Persuasive writing is a demanding task that requires the use of complex language to analyze, discuss, and resolve controversies in a way that is clear, convincing, and considerate of diverse points of view. This investigation examined selected aspects of later language development in the context of persuasive writing. The purpose of the…
Using Automated Writing Evaluation to Reduce Grammar Errors in Writing
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Liao, Hui-Chuan
2016-01-01
Despite the recent development of automated writing evaluation (AWE) technology and the growing interest in applying this technology to language classrooms, few studies have looked at the effects of using AWE on reducing grammatical errors in L2 writing. This study identified the primary English grammatical error types made by 66 Taiwanese…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Engin, Marion
2014-01-01
This paper describes a project that aimed to leverage the students' interest and experience of technology and multimodal environments to develop their academic writing skills and second language learning. Students were expected to follow a model, research a topic, and craft a digital video tutorial on an aspect of academic writing which would form…
Balachandran, Shreedevi; Venkatesaperumal, Ramesh; Clara, Jothi; Shukri, Raghda K.
2014-01-01
Objectives: The objectives of this study were to assess the attitude of Omani nursing students towards writing-to-learn (WTL) and its relationship to demographic variables, self-efficacy and the writing process Methods: A cross-sectional design was used to evaluate attitudes towards WTL by Sultan Qaboos University nursing students. A convenience sample of 106 students was used and data collected between October 2009 and March 2010. A modified version of the WTL attitude scale developed by Dobie and Poirrier was used to collect the data. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used for analysis. Results: Senior and junior students had more positive attitudes to WTL than mid-level students who tended to have negative attitudes towards writing. Although 52.8% students had negative attitudes towards the writing process, the median was higher for attitudes to the writing process compared to the median for self-efficacy. There was a positive correlation between self-efficacy and writing process scores. Conclusion: Overall, students had negative attitudes towards WTL. Attitudes are learnt or formed through previous experiences. The incorporation of WTL strategies into teaching can transform students’ negative attitudes towards writing into positive ones. PMID:24516740
Young Children and Their Writing.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
DeFord, Diane E.
1980-01-01
As children move toward learning specified forms of writing, they organize print in their environment and learn generalized communication strategies. Learning to write is developmentally similar to the acquisition of oral language. Ten stages are suggested for understanding the development of children's writing. (JN)
Facilitating Scholarly Writing in Academic Medicine
Pololi, Linda; Knight, Sharon; Dunn, Kathleen
2004-01-01
Scholarly writing is a critical skill for faculty in academic medicine; however, few faculty receive instruction in the process. We describe the experience of 18 assistant professors who participated in a writing and faculty development program which consisted of 7 monthly 75-minute sessions embedded in a Collaborative Mentoring Program (CMP). Participants identified barriers to writing, developed personal writing strategies, had time to write, and completed monthly writing contracts. Participants provided written responses to open-ended questions about the learning experience, and at the end of the program, participants identified manuscripts submitted for publication, and completed an audiotaped interview. Analysis of qualitative data using data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing/verification showed that this writing program facilitated the knowledge, skills, and support needed to foster writing productivity. All participants completed at least 1 scholarly manuscript by the end of the CMP. The impact on participants’ future academic productivity requires long-term follow-up. PMID:14748862
"¿Cómo Lo Escribo en Inglés o en Español?" Writing in Dual-Language Learners
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gillanders, Cristina
2018-01-01
The purpose of this article is to describe the development of writing in young dual language learners, who are children under 5 years old who are learning the dominant language and another language at the same time. Early writing has been associated with literacy outcomes in the later years of elementary school. The article presents samples of…
Life Writing Lite: Judy Garland and Reparative Rhetorics of Celebrity Life Writing
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Janangelo, Joseph
2010-01-01
This essay offers a rhetorical reading of entertainer Judy Garland's early life writing projects. The author focuses on two open letters Garland published in 1950, in which she talks to the public and press to let them know "the truth" ("Open") about her life and how much her audience means to her. As a troubled celebrity, Garland had for years…
Writing Apprehension and the Writing Process. Learning Package No. 32.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Collins, Norma, Comp.; Smith, Carl, Ed.
Originally developed as part of a project for the Department of Defense Schools (DoDDS) system, this learning package on writing apprehension and the writing process is designed for teachers who wish to upgrade or expand their teaching skills on their own. The package includes an overview of the project; a comprehensive search of the ERIC…
Materials for Assessing the Writing Skill
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Nimehchisalem, Vahid
2010-01-01
This paper reviews the issues of concern in writing scale development in English as Second Language (ESL) settings with an intention to provide a useful guide for researchers or writing teachers who wish to develop or adapt valid, reliable and efficient writing scales considering their present assessment situations. With a brief discussion on the…
Drawing, Talking, and Writing: Rethinking Writing Development. Occasional Paper No. 3.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Dyson, Anne Haas
A study investigated one way in which teachers can focus on more than children's products and writing processes by examining their social processes as well, specifically the health of the classroom communities and the individual children's comfort within those communities. Under the supervision of the same teacher, "journal time" in…
Write! Write! Write! Ready-to-Use Writing Process Activities for Grades 4-8.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Behrman, Carol H.
This handbook contains over 265 reproducible writing process activities that help make writing fun for students in grades 4-8. The handbook provides stimulating activities to give students the directed practice they need to learn to write clearly and competently. Designed for minimal teacher input, activities are complete with directions geared to…
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Kravchuk, Deborah A.
With the adoption of the Common Core Learning Standards and the release of the Next Generation Science Standards, New York State students are expected to write in science classes with science writing assessments becoming an indicator of grade level literacy proficiency. The introduction of these assessments raises questions concerning the readiness of teachers to help students learn the skills needed in order to be successful on standardized tests. While such mandates stress the need for incorporating writing into the classroom, few secondary science teachers receive content-specific training in how to teach writing strategies; rather, they often receive the same professional development as their non-science colleagues. This evaluative case study examined how eight secondary science teachers in the Hyde Park Central School District perceived student outcomes as they focused on identifying the challenges encountered and overcome by transferring writing-to-learn (WTL) strategies into the classroom. Targeted professional development (PD) allowed the group of eight secondary science teachers to research WTL strategies, practice them in the classroom, and assess their success through personal and collegial reflection. The results of this study showed a positive correlation between introducing low-stakes writing in the science classroom and increased student understanding of the content presented, that short low-stakes writing prompts helped the students focus on thinking and organizing their thoughts in the science settings (Totten, 2005), and that the secondary science teachers participating in this study perceived the inclusion writing in the classroom to have a positive effect on student outcomes.
Using gamification to develop academic writing skills in dental undergraduate students.
El Tantawi, Maha; Sadaf, Shazia; AlHumaid, Jehan
2018-02-01
To assess the satisfaction of first-year dental students with gamification and its effect on perceived and actual improvement of academic writing. Two first-year classes of dental undergraduate students were recruited for the study which extended over 4 months and ended in January 2015. A pre-intervention assessment of students' academic writing skills was performed using criteria to evaluate writing. The same criteria were used to evaluate the final writing assignment after the intervention. Students' satisfaction with game aspects was assessed. The per cent change in writing score was regressed on scores of satisfaction with game aspects controlling for gender. Perceived improvement in writing was also assessed. Data from 87 (94.6%) students were available for analysis. Students' overall satisfaction with the gamified experience was modest [mean (SD) = 5.9 (2.1)] and so was their overall perception of improvement in writing [mean (SD) = 6.0 (2.2)]. The per cent score of the first assignment was 35.6 which improved to 80 in the last assignment. Satisfaction with playing the game was significantly associated with higher percentage of improvement in actual writing skills [regression coefficient (95% confidence interval) = 21.1 (1.9, 40.2)]. Using gamification in an obligatory course for first-year dental students was associated with an improvement in academic writing skills although students' satisfaction with game aspects was modest and their willingness to use gamification in future courses was minimal. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
A Formula for Early Infantile Autism.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Roy, M. Aaron
Offered is an explanation for the development of early infantile autism as defined by L. Kanner which incorporates the behavior of the child, the behavior of the parent, and a critical time period of development. Writings of Kanner on the characteristics of autistic children, parental characteristics, and etiology are reviewed. The formula…
Peer Facilitated Writing Groups: A Programmatic Approach to Doctoral Student Writing
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kumar, Vijay; Aitchison, Claire
2018-01-01
Very few empirical studies have investigated programmes in which doctoral students act as peer facilitators in faculty writing groups. We report on the development of a centrally delivered doctoral student writing programme in which twenty student participants were mentored and provided with the resources to initiate their own faculty-based…
Positivism and Realism in the Writings of Moritz Schlick
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Lewis, Joia A.
1990-01-01
Moritz Schlick, the founder of the Vienna Circle, is best known for his logical positivist writings of the late 20's and early 30's. He is traditionally seen as having dropped his earlier realist views for an anti-realist positivism. This picture obscures both the complexity and profundity of Schlick's own philosophical development, as well as important issues in understanding positivist and realist assumptions in current debates among philosophers of science. This dissertation seeks to contribute to the contemporary debates through an analysis of Schlick's early as well as his later work, through an examination and evaluation of the principles and motives upon which Schlick based his claims.
Families Writing Together: The Experience of English Language Learner Families in a Writing Workshop
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Korab, Elizabeth
2010-01-01
The purpose of this qualitative study was to gain a greater understanding of English language learner (ELL) family involvement in school environments through the lens of family literacy. This study was informed by literature from two fields: early childhood writing and ELL family involvement. While some schools have focused on at-home reading…
Ipsilateral printing in children's mirror-writing: a cause of specific learning disabilities?
Mather, David S
2012-09-01
Previous research has demonstrated that young children produce mirror-image letter-reversals when printing their names in a leftward direction from the midline or right margin of their writing paper. This ability is postulated to be an epiphenomenon of a symmetric, proximal (arm) stage of motor development that ontogenetically precedes lateralization of fine-motor distal (finger) control-a stage in which each arm can be controlled by either side of the brain. From this view, canonical writing in right hemi-space is contralaterally mediated by the left hemisphere and mirror-writing in left hemi-space is ipsilaterally mediated by the right hemisphere. However, evidence of right hemisphere canonical letter processing in dyslexia suggests that this is not always the case. Concordantly, an early study corrected reversals by having children print these errors canonically in left hemi-space and then rightward across the midline into right hemi-space. To further understand this behaviour, the present study investigated mirror-writing in three schools (Public, Montessori, and Waldorf) each differing in how writing is introduced. It was hypothesised that there would be no school-differences in mirror-writing if printing had been learned before school-entry and that some children would produce reversals in right hemi-space that were canonically written in left-hemi-space (inverse reversals)-the opposite of the normal pattern. The results showed that 39% of the children demonstrated these inverse reversals. It is discussed how this unexpectedly high incidence may be foundational in the development of the phonologically proficient and deficient subtypes of dyslexia, spelling-dysgraphia, and the left-hand inverted writing posture.
On Developing the Writing Skills Course for Accounting Students
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Firch, Tim; Campbell, Annhenrie; Lindsay, David H.; Garner, Don E.
2010-01-01
The CSU, Stanislaus, accounting program is providing a new course that meets the university-wide upper-division writing requirement and offers accounting students additional professional study. While a writing skills course is not unusual in a business program, few offer an alternative centered on the accounting body of knowledge. Undergraduate…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Donovan, Carol A.; Milewicz, Elizabeth J.; Smolkin, Laura B.
2003-01-01
Describes children's early use of oral and written language for different purposes. Advocates fostering early appreciation of a variety of texts to cultivate children's disposition to read and write for enjoyment, information, and communication. Presents ideas for using the talking, reading, and writing done every day by young children to develop…
Beginning Reading and Writing. Language and Literacy Series.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Strickland, Dorothy S., Ed.; Morrow, Lesley Mandel, Ed.
In this essay collection, scholars in the area of early literacy provide concrete strategies for achieving excellence in literacy instruction. The collection presents current, research-based information on the advances and refinements in the area of emerging literacy and the early stages of formal instruction in reading and writing. Following a…
Writing with Young Children: A Comparison of Paternal and Maternal Guidance
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Aram, Dorit
2010-01-01
The increasing involvement of fathers in active parenthood raises questions concerning their parenting style. This study compared mothers and fathers in their writing interactions with their young children, exploring how parents' writing guidance related to children's early literacy. Mothers and fathers of 51 kindergarteners were videotaped…
Writing in Young Deaf Children
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Williams, Cheri; Mayer, Connie
2015-01-01
The authors conducted an integrative review of the research literature on the writing development, writing instruction, and writing assessment of young deaf children ages 3 to 8 years (or preschool through third grade) published between 1990 and 2012. A total of 17 studies were identified that met inclusion criteria. The analysis examined research…
Helping Spanish SMEs Staff to Develop Their Competence in Writing Business Letters
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Foz-Gil, Carmen; Gonzalez-Pueyo, Isabel
2009-01-01
This paper reports on the development of a website tool aimed at helping Spanish small and medium enterprises (SMEs) staff to write their commercial correspondence in English. It describes the steps involved in the tool system design process, making an emphasis on the methodological criteria and rational that guided us to develop the site. In…
Why Real-Life Writing Benefits Students.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Wheeler, John
1987-01-01
Recent research indicates that journalistic reporting and writing techniques effectively develop language arts competency. Such writing techniques should be taught long before the student enters high school. Benefits of real-life writing to students are discussed. (MT)
Investigating Persuasive Writing by 9-11 Year Olds
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Beard, Roger; Burrell, Andrew; Homer, Matt
2016-01-01
Within research into children's persuasive writing, relatively little work has been done on the writing of advertisements, how such writing develops in the primary school years and the textual features that help to secure this development. Framed within rhetoric, writing and linguistics, an exploratory study was undertaken in which a standardised…
The Write Brain: How to Educate and Entertain with Learner-Centered Writing
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Iverson, Kathleen M.
2009-01-01
This article presents a conceptual framework for the writing process to facilitate motivation, learning, retention, and knowledge transfer in readers of expository material. Drawing from four well-developed bodies of knowledge--cognitive science, learning theory, technical communication, and creative writing--the author creates a model that allows…
The Influence of Private Speech on Writing Development: A Vygotskian Perspective.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Schimmoeller, Margaret A.
This paper presents a portion of a larger study testing assumptions from Lev Vygotsky's spontaneous private speech theory and the relationship between private speech (overt self-talk) and writing development. Sixteen kindergarten and first-grade children were observed over time in natural classroom settings to note changes in private speech and…
Writing in the Business Professions.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kogen, Myra, Ed.
Assessing the current state of writing instruction for the business world as well as promising developments of theory and practice in this expanding field, this book contains 14 articles by nationally known leaders in this teaching specialty. The first section of the book, looking at the writing process as it applies to professional writing,…
Writing Groups for Doctoral Education
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Aitchison, Claire
2009-01-01
There is a burgeoning interest in how best to support and facilitate the development of writing and writing output of research students. One pedagogy is the use of writing groups for and beyond the period of the doctorate; however, there is relatively little empirical research that helps explain "how" the pedagogies of research writing…
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Pelger, Susanne; Sigrell, Anders
2016-01-01
Background: Feedback is one of the most significant factors for students' development of writing skills. For feedback to be successful, however, students and teachers need a common language - a meta-language - for discussing texts. Not least because in science education such a meta-language might contribute to improve writing training and feedback-giving. Purpose: The aim of this study was to explore students' perception of teachers' feedback given on their texts in two genres, and to suggest how writing training and feedback-giving could become more efficient. Sample: In this study were included 44 degree project students in biology and molecular biology, and 21 supervising teachers at a Swedish university. Design and methods: The study concerned students' writing about their degree projects in two genres: scientific writing and popular science writing. The data consisted of documented teacher feedback on the students' popular science texts. It also included students' and teachers' answers to questionnaires about writing and feedback. All data were collected during the spring of 2012. Teachers' feedback, actual and recalled - by students and teachers, respectively - was analysed and compared using the so-called Canons of rhetoric. Results: While the teachers recalled the given feedback as mainly positive, most students recalled only negative feedback. According to the teachers, suggested improvements concerned firstly the content, and secondly the structure of the text. In contrast, the students mentioned language style first, followed by content. Conclusions: The disagreement between students and teachers regarding how and what feedback was given on the students texts confirm the need of improved strategies for writing training and feedback-giving in science education. We suggest that the rhetorical meta-language might play a crucial role in overcoming the difficulties observed in this study. We also discuss how training of writing skills may contribute to
The Writing-Based Practice: The Development of Social and Emotional Awareness in Adolescents
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Parkin, Johanna
2017-01-01
Although a great deal of research exists regarding various components of the Writing-Based Practice along with best practice of writing instruction, the research that does exist only examines how writing instruction impacts writing. This research study, however, examined whether there is a potential connection between a writing immersion program,…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Breland, Hunter M.; Carlton, Sydell T.; Taylor, Susan
Based on the results of a Phase 1 investigation into the nature of legal writing, a prototype writing assessment, the Diagnostic Writing Skills Test (DWST) for entering law students was developed. The DWST is composed of two multiple-choice testlets based on prompts and responses to the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) Writing Sample. It contains…
Developing a Pedagogical-Technical Framework to Improve Creative Writing
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Chong, Stefanie Xinyi; Lee, Chien-Sing
2012-01-01
There are many evidences of motivational and educational benefits from the use of learning software. However, there is a lack of study with regards to the teaching of creative writing. This paper aims to bridge the following gaps: first, the need for a proper framework for scaffolding creative writing through learning software; second, the lack of…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kirmizi, Özkan; Kirmizi, Gülin Dagdeviren
2015-01-01
The present study aimed at investigating higher education L2 learners in a Turkish context in terms of writing self-efficacy, writing anxiety, and the causes of writing anxiety. The data have been collected through the Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI), developed by Cheng, (2004), and Causes of Writing Anxiety Inventory (CWAI), and…
Influences of Writing Project Involvement on the Professional Development of Teachers
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Holmes, Barbara Dondiego
2009-01-01
Writing is a powerful learning tool that allows students to connect critical thinking across the curriculum. Good writing skills are necessary for students to succeed in higher education and on the job. Teachers, however, are avoiding teaching writing, in part because it has not been included until recently in high stakes testing, and in part…
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Richards, Janet C.; Lassonde, Cynthia A.
2011-01-01
The 25 mini-lessons provided in this book are designed to develop students' self-regulated writing behaviors and enhance their self-perceived writing abilities. These foundational writing strategies are applicable and adaptable to all primary students: emergent, advanced, English Language Learners, and struggling writers. Following the SCAMPER…
Early Career Teacher Professional Learning
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
McCormack, Ann; Gore, Jennifer; Thomas, Kaye
2006-01-01
Becoming a teacher requires not only the development of a professional identity but the construction of professional knowledge and practice through continued professional learning. This study tracked a sample group of 16 early career teachers through their first year of teaching. The participants were encouraged to write about their experiences in…
Challenges Face Arab Students in Writing Well-Developed Paragraphs in English
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Rass, Ruwaida Abu
2015-01-01
This study aimed to investigate problems facing Palestinian Arab students from Israel who are majoring in teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in developing well-written paragraphs in English. They usually transfer the stylistic features of their first language, Arabic to the target language, English. For example, they tend to write long…
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Geither, Elise; Meeks, Lisa
2014-01-01
When it comes to academic work, students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often have the required knowledge but struggle to get their thoughts down in writing. This is a practical guide to teaching and improving writing skills in students with ASD to meet academic writing standards and prepare for the increased expectations of higher education.…
Language Ideologies and Orthographies: Developing a Writing System for than Owingeh
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Ashworth, Evan
2013-01-01
The use of writing to represent the heritage language represents a contentious issue for many members of Puebloan societies in the American Southwest. Many community members resist the use of writing for this purpose on the grounds that it acts as a form of colonialism, while others accept the use of writing in the heritage language because it is…
Writing across the Accounting Curriculum: An Experiment.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Riordan, Diane A.; Riordan, Michael P.; Sullivan, M. Cathy
2000-01-01
Develops a structured writing effectiveness program across three junior level courses in the accounting major (tax, cost, and financial accounting) to improve the writing skills of accounting students. Provides evidence that the writing across the curriculum project significantly improved the students' writing skills. (SC)
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Dyment, Janet E.; O'Connell, Timothy S.
This digest explores the literature related to journal writing from various disciplines, including psychology, language studies, outdoor education, and experiential education. Although journal writing has been around since ancient times, it was not until the early 1960s that it flourished as a learning tool. Instructors from a wide range of…
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Crossley, Scott A.; Kyle, Kristopher; McNamara, Danielle S.
2016-01-01
An important topic in writing research has been the use of cohesive features. Much of this research has focused on local and text cohesion. The few studies that have studied global cohesion have been restricted to first language writing. This study investigates the development of local, global, and text cohesion in the writing of 57 language (L2)…
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Al Asmari, AbdulRahman
2013-01-01
The tenet of this study is to investigate the use of writing strategies in reducing writing apprehension and uncovering its effect on EFL students' writing achievement. It also attempts to explore associations between foreign language apprehension, writing achievement and writing strategies. The primary aims of the study were to explore the…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Bush, Jonathan; Zuidema, Leah
2013-01-01
In this article, the authors report the importance of teaching students about collaborative writing. When teachers are effective in helping students to learn processes for collaborative writing, everyone involved needs to speak, listen, write, and read about how to write well and what makes writing good. Students are forced to "go meta"…
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McKeown, Debra; FitzPatrick, Erin; Sandmel, Karin
2014-01-01
Self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) is one of the most effective writing interventions (Graham, McKeown, Kiuhara, & Harris, 2012) and has improved the writing skills of students with emotional and behavior disorders (EBD). Practice-based professional development (PBPD) has been effective for teaching participants how to implement SRSD…
The Evolution of a Writing Program.
White, Bonnie J; Lamson, Karen S
2017-07-01
Scholarly writing is required in nursing, and some students are unable to communicate effectively through writing. Faculty members may struggle with the grading of written assignments. A writing team, consisting of a nursing faculty member, the school of nursing library liaison, and members from academic support services, implemented strategies including workshops, handouts, and use of exemplars to improve student writing and to provide support to faculty. Few students sought help from the writing team. An online writing center within the existing learning management system was developed to address nursing students' and faculty's scholarly writing needs. The writing center includes guides, tutorials, and exemplars. Anecdotal evidence indicates the use of the writing center during afternoons and evenings and prior to due dates of written assignments. Online writing resources were used more frequently than face-to-face support. Further research is needed to evaluate the effectiveness of the program. [J Nurs Educ. 2017;56(7):443-445.]. Copyright 2017, SLACK Incorporated.
Blogging to Develop Honors Students' Writing
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Harlan-Haughey, Sarah; Cunningham, Taylor; Lees, Katherine; Estrup, Andrew
2016-01-01
Blogging is an excellent way to implement students bringing their further insights to their classmates following an exciting class discussion, continuing an exchange of ideas and providing students with another tool to improve their writing skills. Student class blogging offers many benefits--for student and instructor alike--compared to assigning…
First Graders Can Write: Focus on Communication.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Milz, Vera E.
1980-01-01
Among the various methods used by a classroom teacher to encourage writing in her first grade class are letter writing, writing a book, writing notes to each other, and keeping journals. The desire to communicate is the primary motivating factor in the development of both oral and written language. (JN)
Teaching Argumentative Writing to Teachers and Students: Effects of Professional Development
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Howell, Emily; Hunt-Barron, Sarah; Kaminski, Rebecca; Sanders, Rachel
2018-01-01
This multiple-case study design with embedded units of analysis examined a two-year professional development (PD) program in which two rural districts received at least 90 hours of PD. This PD was provided through an Investing in Innovation (i3) grant that the United States Department of Education awarded to the National Writing Project. Two of…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Done, Elizabeth; Knowler, Helen
2013-01-01
This article responds to Aitchson's observation that development of new pedagogic practices for teaching writing is inhibited by lack of research into how such pedagogies work in practice. The article refers to research into the introduction of a module, "Writing as Professional Development", on a part-time master's-level programme for…
Negotiating Pedagogy Development: Learning to Teach Writing in a Service-Learning Context
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kelley, Karen S.; Hart, Steven; King, James R.
2007-01-01
Research has called for courses to be developed that provide preservice teachers opportunities to actively engage their pedagogies under construction in order to effectively translate their beliefs into sound instructional practice. This article presents research that examined how a service-learning writing tutoring program affected preservice…
Use of Writing with Symbols 2000 Software to Facilitate Emergent Literacy Development
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Parette, Howard P.; Boeckmann, Nichole M.; Hourcade, Jack J.
2008-01-01
This paper outlines the use of the "Writing with Symbols 2000" software to facilitate emergent literacy development. The program's use of pictures incorporated with text has great potential to help young children with and without disabilities acquire fundamental literacy concepts about print, phonemic awareness, alphabetic principle, vocabulary…
Technical Writing: Process and Product. Third Edition.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gerson, Sharon J.; Gerson, Steven M.
This book guides students through the entire writing process--prewriting, writing, and rewriting--developing an easy-to-use, step-by-step technique for writing the types of documents they will encounter on the job. It engages students in the writing process and encourages hands-on application as well as discussions about ethics, audience…
Writing Plan Quality: Relevance to Writing Scores
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Chai, Constance
2006-01-01
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…
Thompson, Robert; Tanimoto, Steven; Abbott, Robert; Nielsen, Kathleen; Lyman, Ruby Dawn; Geselowitz, Kira; Habermann, Katrien; Mickail, Terry; Raskind, Marshall; Peverly, Stephen; Nagy, William; Berninger, Virginia
2017-01-01
This study in programmatic research on technology-supported instruction first identified, through pretesting using evidence-based criteria, students with persisting specific learning disabilities (SLDs) in written language during middle childhood (grades 4-6) and early adolescence (grades 7-9). Participants then completed computerized writing instruction and posttesting. The 12 computer lessons varied output modes (letter production by stylus alternating with hunt and peck keyboarding versus by pencil with grooves alternating with touch typing on keyboard), input (read or heard source material), and task (notes or summaries). Posttesting and coded notes and summaries showed the effectiveness of computerized writing instruction on both writing tasks for multiple modes of language input and letter production output for improving letter production and related writing skills.
Thompson, Robert; Tanimoto, Steven; Abbott, Robert; Nielsen, Kathleen; Lyman, Ruby Dawn; Geselowitz, Kira; Habermann, Katrien; Mickail, Terry; Raskind, Marshall; Peverly, Stephen; Nagy, William; Berninger, Virginia
2017-01-01
This study in programmatic research on technology-supported instruction first identified, through pretesting using evidence-based criteria, students with persisting specific learning disabilities (SLDs) in written language during middle childhood (grades 4-6) and early adolescence (grades 7-9). Participants then completed computerized writing instruction and posttesting. The 12 computer lessons varied output modes (letter production by stylus alternating with hunt and peck keyboarding versus by pencil with grooves alternating with touch typing on keyboard), input (read or heard source material), and task (notes or summaries). Posttesting and coded notes and summaries showed the effectiveness of computerized writing instruction on both writing tasks for multiple modes of language input and letter production output for improving letter production and related writing skills. PMID:27434553
The writing approaches of secondary students.
Lavelle, Ellen; Smith, Jennifer; O'Ryan, Leslie
2002-09-01
Research with college students has supported a model of writing approaches that defines the relationship between a writer and writing task along a deep and surface process continuum (Biggs, 1988). Based on that model, Lavelle (1993) developed the Inventory of Processes in College Composition which reflects students' motives and strategies as related to writing outcomes. It is also important to define the approaches of secondary students to better understand writing processes at that level, and development in written composition. This study was designed to define the writing approaches of secondary students by factor analysing students' responses to items regarding writing beliefs and writing strategies, and to compare the secondary approaches to those of college students. A related goal was to explore the relationships of the secondary writing approaches to perceived self-regulatory efficacy for writing (Zimmerman & Bandura, 1994), writing preferences, and writing outcomes. The initial, factor analytic phase involved 398 junior level high school students (11th grade) enrolled in a mandatory language arts class at each of three large Midwestern high schools (USA). Then, 49 junior level students enrolled in two language arts classes participated as subjects in the second phase. Classroom teachers administered the Inventory of Processes in College Composition (Lavelle, 1993), which contained 72 true-or-false items regarding writing beliefs and strategies, during regular class periods. Data were factor analysed and the structure compared to that of college students. In the second phase, the new inventory, Inventory of Processes in Secondary Composition, was administered in conjunction with the Perceived Self-Regulatory Efficacy for Writing Inventory (Zimmerman & Bandura, 1994), and a writing preferences survey. A writing sample and grade in Language Arts classes were obtained and served as outcome variables. The factor structure of secondary writing reflected three
The Word Writing CAFE: Assessing Student Writing for Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Leal, Dorothy J.
2005-01-01
The Word Writing CAFE is a new assessment tool designed for teachers to evaluate objectively students' word-writing ability for fluency, accuracy, and complexity. It is designed to be given to the whole class at one time. This article describes the development of the CAFE and provides directions for administering and scoring it. The author also…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Blikstad-Balas, Marte; Roe, Astrid; Klette, Kirsti
2018-01-01
Research suggests that student development as writers requires a supportive environment in which they receive sustained opportunities to write. However, writing researchers in general know relatively little about the actual writing opportunities embedded in students' language arts lessons and how students' production of texts in class is framed.…
Enhancing Undergraduate Students' Research and Writing
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Lumpkin, Angela
2015-01-01
Concern about the research and writing abilities of undergraduate students led to the development, implementation and enhancement of four sequential writing assignments in an introductory course. These writing assignments--which included a report on an interview of a professional in the field, a research paper on an aspirational career, a research…
Kindergarten Predictors of Third Grade Writing
Kim, Young-Suk; Al Otaiba, Stephanie; Wanzek, Jeanne
2015-01-01
The primary goal of the present study was to examine the relations of kindergarten transcription, oral language, word reading, and attention skills to writing skills in third grade. Children (N = 157) were assessed on their letter writing automaticity, spelling, oral language, word reading, and attention in kindergarten. Then, they were assessed on writing in third grade using three writing tasks – one narrative and two expository prompts. Children’s written compositions were evaluated in terms of writing quality (the extent to which ideas were developed and presented in an organized manner). Structural equation modeling showed that kindergarten oral language and lexical literacy skills (i.e., word reading and spelling) were independently predicted third grade narrative writing quality, and kindergarten literacy skill uniquely predicted third grade expository writing quality. In contrast, attention and letter writing automaticity were not directly related to writing quality in either narrative or expository genre. These results are discussed in light of theoretical and practical implications. PMID:25642118
Writing for understanding: The effect of using informational writing on student science achievement
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Parson, Atiya
The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate whether or not informational writing in the science curriculum would impact fifth grade students' science achievement and conceptual understanding. The population of this study came from a metropolitan school district in the state of Georgia for school year 2012-2013. The quantitative data included students' pretest, posttest, and writing assessment scores. Examination approaches for this study included (a) examining theories and research on learning views for children, (b) determining how writing across the curriculum has worked, and (c) developing a research design for the present study that was based on findings from previous studies. The study was designed to find (a) whether there is a significant differences in science achievement between fifth-grade students who use informational writing weekly during science instruction and ones that do not, and (b) whether there is a significant differences in conceptual understanding of fifth-grade science content for students who use informational writing weekly and fifth-grade students who do not. To answer these questions, students pretest and posttest results were compared to determine if a statistical significance existed after informational writing was implemented in the experimental group for 10 weeks. The results indicate that there was no significant difference in test scores between students receiving the informational writing intervention and students without this intervention. However, this study found that students receiving informational writing intervention had better performance scores on conceptual writing assessment than the students without the intervention.
Writing about Clients: Developing Composite Case Material and Its Rationale
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Duffy, Maureen
2010-01-01
Ethical guidelines of the 4 major professional associations representing counselors and psychotherapists are reviewed. To help clarify thinking about writing up clinical cases, 3 kinds of cases are described. The author concludes that the current guidelines for clinician authors in writing about clients for publication or presentation are…
Self-Regulated Strategy Development as a Tier 2 Writing Intervention
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Johnson, Evelyn S.; Hancock, Christine; Carter, Deborah R.; Pool, Juli L.
2013-01-01
In a response to intervention framework, the implication of limited writing instruction suggests an immediate need for Tier 2 interventions to support struggling writers while at the same time addressing instructional gaps in Tier 1. Many schools struggle with implementing writing intervention, partly because of the limited number of…
The Quality of University Writing: A Preliminary Analysis of Undergraduate Portfolios.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Lavelle, Ellen
2003-01-01
Conducted an ex post facto study to test for differences in the quality of university student writing as reflected in years 1 and 2 and again in years 3 and 4. Findings from 30 undergraduate portfolios show no significant differences between early and late samples and no significant relationship between grade point average and writing quality.…
Developmental and Individual Differences in Chinese Writing
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Guan, Connie Qun; Ye, Feifei; Wagner, Richard K.; Meng, Wanjin
2013-01-01
The goal of the present study was to examine the generalizability of a model of the underlying dimensions of written composition across writing systems (Chinese Mandarin vs. English) and level of writing skill. A five-factor model of writing originally developed from analyses of 1st and 4th grade English writing samples was applied to Chinese…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Tinker, John
2006-01-01
For several years, the author has been working with colleagues in the Northern California Writing Centers Association (NCWCA) and the Stanford Writing Center to build bridges between college and high school writing centers. The writing center at Stanford defines one of its central goals as "celebrating a culture of writing" for all…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gollnitz, Deborah-Lee
2010-01-01
Writing skills are considered essential to lifelong success, yet experts cannot agree on one model or set of traits that distinguishes good writing from poor writing. Instructional strategies in developing student writing at the high school level need to include a means by which students receive immediate, specific feedback that acts as a scaffold…
Writing for Manufacturing Personnel.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Mercer County Community Coll., Trenton, NJ.
This document, developed by Mercer County Community College (New Jersey) and its partners, offers lists of topics covered in each day of a 24-day course designed to teach General Motors employees the following skills: document information; write clear directions and instructions; outline and organize thoughts and ideas; write memos and business…
Cognitive Components of Developmental Writing Skill
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Decker, Scott L.; Roberts, Alycia M.; Roberts, Kristin L.; Stafford, Allison L.; Eckert, Mark A.
2016-01-01
A significant number of studies have examined the cognitive components of basic academic skills, which has led to major changes in both teaching and early identification assessment practices. However, the majority of previous research has focused solely on reading. This study examines the cognitive components of academic writing skills across…
Creative Writing as Public Pedagogy: A Short History of My Life in the Movies
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Ryan, Michael
2005-01-01
In the early 1970's the author of this article decided to dedicate his life to two tasks. The first was to write politically and creatively in popular literary genres such as the detective novel for a larger public than one was likely to find through academic writing. The second was to write politically and inventively within the genres of…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hacker, Douglas J.; Dole, Janice A.; Ferguson, Monica; Adamson, Sharon; Roundy, Linda; Scarpulla, Laura
2015-01-01
Our purpose for this quasi-experimental study was to evaluate the short-term and maintenance effects of the self-regulated strategy development writing instructional model by Graham and Harris with 7th-grade students in an urban, ethnically diverse Title I middle school. We compared the writing skills of our intervention students with those of…
Assessing the writing of deaf college students: reevaluating a direct assessment of writing.
Schley, Sara; Albertini, John
2005-01-01
The NTID Writing Test was developed to assess the writing ability of postsecondary deaf students entering the National Technical Institute for the Deaf and to determine their appropriate placement into developmental writing courses. While previous research (Albertini et al., 1986; Albertini et al., 1996; Bochner, Albertini, Samar, & Metz, 1992) has shown the test to be reliable between multiple test raters and as a valid measure of writing ability for placement into these courses, changes in curriculum and the rater pool necessitated a new look at interrater reliability and concurrent validity. We evaluated the rating scores for 236 samples from students who entered the college during the fall 2001. Using a multiprong approach, we confirmed the interrater reliability and the validity of this direct measure of assessment. The implications of continued use of this and similar tests in light of definitions of validity, local control, and the nature of writing are discussed.
Developing Writing Proficiency for the Lower-Level Foreign Language Student.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
DeBoer, Valetta Jane
1984-01-01
Learning to communicate is important for today's foreign language student, and it is important to provide meaningful communicative experiences in writing as well as speaking the language. A letter exchange between peers can provide a meaningful and exciting writing experience for lower-level students. While not entirely without problems, arranging…
A Structural Equation Model of the Writing Process in Typically Developing Sixth Grade Children
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Koutsoftas, Anthony D.
2010-01-01
Educational reform initiatives of the last decade have focused on the three R's: reading, writing, and arithmetic, with writing receiving the least attention in the research literature (National Commission on Writing, 2003). Studies of writing performance in United States schoolchildren indicate that many are writing only at basic levels. The…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Tomas, Z.; Kostka, I.; Mott-Smith, J. A.
2013-01-01
The authors of "Teaching Writing" draw on their years of teaching and their knowledge of theory and research to present major concepts in teaching L2 writing. These concepts encompass how cultural differences affect the writing class, planning instruction, text-based writing, writing strategies, modeling, and responding to student…
Word Processors and the Teaching of Writing.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Crozier, D. S. R.
1986-01-01
Word processors can assist teachers and students by focusing on writing as a process, rather than a product. Word processing breaks writing up into manageable chunks that permit writing skills to develop in an integraged manner. (10 references) (CJH)
National Writing Project 2009 Annual Report
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
National Writing Project (NJ1), 2009
2009-01-01
Writing as a tool for thinking, learning, and communicating is crucial to academic and career success as well as to active citizenship in a democracy. This annual report of the National Writing Project features teachers of math, chemistry, art, history, and business who develop their students as writers. These educators employ writing to engage…
Student Writing, Teacher Feedback, and Working Online: Launching the Drive to Write Program
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Balu, Rekha; Alterman, Emma; Haider, Zeest; Quinn, Kelly
2018-01-01
The Drive to Write program was organized by New Visions for Public Schools (a New York City school support network that helps schools with professional development, data infrastructure, leadership training, certification, and more), and New Visions hopes it will lead to a new standard in writing instruction and student learning. New Visions is…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Folta, Bernarr
This paper discusses the rationale and teaching methods for a six-week unit, for a high school freshman English Class, on perception, semantics, and writing, which places special focus on developing tension in student writing. The first four objectives of the course focus on perception and the next two focus on semantics. The seventh…
Deactivating the Writing Program.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Strickland, James
A written language learner must be given an environment that enables or fosters writing development. Unfortunately, the typical system of education and the learning strategies that are taught are at times the very things that deactivate, frustrate, and even pervert the writing program. In fact, some of the rules that student writers respond to are…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Edwards, Pat
Intended for use by students, this illustrated Australian classroom unit was designed to encourage young people to develop a lifelong habit of letter writing. The booklet begins with a letter to children from the Australian "Post," and excerpts from two poems about letter writing. A section on how letters can link the world emphasizes…
A Counter-Proposal for Process: Toward the Development of Online Writing Archives
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Jensen, Kyle
2009-01-01
This dissertation advances an alternate vision for research and teaching in rhetoric and composition studies that centers on the development of online writing archives. To justify the need for this alternate vision, it assesses the limitations of the field's predominant research and teaching program: process theory. More specifically, it examines…
Applying Cultural Project Based Learning to Develop Students' Academic Writing
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Irawati, Lulus
2015-01-01
Writing is considered to be the most demanding and difficult skill for many college students, since there are some steps to be followed such as prewriting, drafting, editing, revising and publishing. The interesting topic like culture including lifestyle, costume, and custom is necessary to be offered in Academic Writing class. Accordingly, this…
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Wright, K. E.; Domagal-Goldman, S. D.
2011-12-01
We are early-career scientists jointly leading a project to write 'The Astrobiology Primer', a brief but comprehensive introduction to astrobiology, and we are using the process of producing the document as an innovative way of strengthening the international community of early-career astrobiologists. Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in our universe. It includes not just study of life on Earth, but also the potential for life to exist beyond Earth, and the development of techniques to search for such life. It therefore incorporates geological and earth sciences, life sciences, chemistry, astronomy and planetary sciences. This requires astrobiologists to integrate these different disciplines in order to address questions such as 'How did Earth and its biosphere originate?', 'How do life and the physical, chemical and geological cycles on Earth interact, and affect each other?' and so 'What does life on Earth tell us about the habitability of environments outside Earth?'. The primer will provide a brief but comprehensive introduction to the field; it will be significantly more comprehensive than a normal review paper but much shorter than a textbook. This project is an initiative run entirely by early-career scientists, for the benefit of other early-career scientists and others. All the writers and editors of the primer are graduate/post-graduate students or post-doctoral fellows, and our primary target group for the primer is other early-career scientists, although we hope and expect that the primer will also be useful far more broadly in education and outreach work. An Astrobiology Primer was first published in 2006(Ref1), written and edited by a small group of early-career astrobiologists to provide an introduction to astrobiology for other early-career scientists new to the field. It has been used not only by the target group for private study, but in formal education and outreach settings at universities and
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Canbulat, Ayse Nur Kutluca
2017-01-01
This work uses exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses to study Verbal Skills Development Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale (VSDTS), Reading Skills Development Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale (RSDTS) and Writing Skills Development Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale (WSDTS) developed to identify classroom teacher candidates' perceptions of teacher…
Young Learner Writing Performance in Swiss Elementary Schools--Which Teacher Variables Matter?
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Loder Buechel, Laura
2015-01-01
Elementary school English language teachers in Swiss public schools often question the role of writing in early years language instruction because there is a significant disparity in messages they receive from Board of Education members, from fellow teachers and from teacher trainers. This study describes the issues concerning writing in the first…
Writing: Clearing the Mind for Action.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Neff, Bonita Dostal
Many communication majors expect to do little written communication, since skill in oral communication is more developed if not preferred. Before a student writes or becomes engaged in the rational and logical process of evaluating writing, he or she is in the stage of clearing the mind for action. A non-rationalistic approach to writing seeks to…
What Do Writers in Industry Write?
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Locker, Kitty O.
Noting that one of the biggest factors in motivating students in technical writing classes is to convince them that they will need to write in their future jobs, this paper offers evidence for use by teachers in persuading students of the importance of developing their writing skills. The first part of the paper presents refutations of some of the…
Kerr, Lisa
2010-12-01
This paper examines definitions and uses of reflective and creative writing in health care education classrooms and professional development settings. A review of articles related to writing in health care reveals that when teaching narrative competence is the goal, creative writing may produce the best outcomes. Ultimately, the paper describes the importance of defining literary creative writing as a distinct form of writing and recommends scholars interested in using literary creative writing to teach narrative competence study pedagogy of the field.
Young Children’s Motivation to Read and Write: Development in Social Contexts
Nolen, Susan Bobbitt
2009-01-01
In a 3-year longitudinal, mixed-method study, 67 children in two schools were observed during literacy activities in Grades 1–3. Children and their teachers were interviewed each year about the children’s motivation to read and write. Taking a grounded theory approach, content analysis of the child interview protocols identified the motivations that were salient to children at each grade level in each domain, looking for patterns by grade and school. Analysis of field notes, teacher interviews, and child interviews suggests that children’s motivation for literacy is best understood in terms of development in specific contexts. Development in literacy skill and teachers’ methods of instruction and raising motivation provided affordances and constraints for literate activity and its accompanying motivations. In particular, there was support for both the developmental hypotheses of Renninger and her colleagues (Hidi & Renninger, 2006) and of Pressick-Kilborne and Walker (2002). The positions of poor readers and the strategies they used were negotiated and developed in response to the social meanings of reading, writing, and relative literacy skill co-constructed by students and teachers in each classroom. The relationship of these findings to theories of motivation is discussed. PMID:19727337
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Harris, Kathleen I.; Kinley, Hannah L.; Cook, Angela
2017-01-01
One of early childhood teachers' first questions of parents with regard to school readiness is whether the child knows the ABCs (Hyson & Tomlinson, 2014). Crucial pre-reading and writing skills, such as oral language, phonological awareness, print awareness, and alphabet letter recognition, are important to children's cognitive development…
Kohrt, Brandon A.; Upadhaya, Nawaraj; Luitel, Nagendra P.; Maharjan, Sujen M.; Kaiser, Bonnie N.; MacFarlane, Elizabeth K.; Khan, Noreen
2014-01-01
Background Collaborations among researchers, clinicians, and individuals with mental illness from high-income countries (HICs) and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are crucial to produce research, interventions, and policies that are relevant, feasible, and ethical. However, global mental health and cultural psychiatry research publications have been dominated by HIC investigators. Objective The aim of this review was to present recommendations for collaborative writing with a focus on early career researchers in HICs and LMICs. Methods A workshop was conducted with HIC and LMIC investigators in Nepal to discuss lessons learned for collaborative writing. The researchers had experience in cross-cultural psychiatric epidemiology, health services research, randomized controlled trials, and projects with war and disaster-affected populations in complex humanitarian emergencies including child soldiers and refugees. Additional lessons learned were contributed from researchers engaged in similar collaborations in Haiti. Findings A step-by-step process for collaborative writing was developed. Conclusions HIC and LMIC writing collaborations will encourage accurate, ethical, and contextually grounded publications to foster understanding and facilitate reduction of the global burden of mental illness. PMID:24976552
Handwriting in Early Childhood Education: Current Research and Future Implications
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Dinehart, Laura H.
2015-01-01
Early fine motor writing skills are quickly becoming recognized as an important school readiness skill associated with later academic success (Dinehart and Manfra, 2013; Grissmer et al., 2010; Son and Meisels, 2006). Yet, little is known about the development of handwriting, the extent to which it is of value in the early childhood classroom and…
Writing in Biology: The Senior Project.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Franz, Craig J.; Soven, Margot
1996-01-01
Describes the development, implementation, and critique of a strategy to train biology students in writing scientific research papers and writing for a nontechnical audience. Enables students to see the connection between biology and rhetoric and the importance of developing capacities for generating translations and synthesis of their technical…
Early motor development and cognitive abilities among Mexican preschoolers.
Osorio-Valencia, Erika; Torres-Sánchez, Luisa; López-Carrillo, Lizbeth; Rothenberg, Stephen J; Schnaas, Lourdes
2017-07-18
Psychomotricity plays a very important role in children's development, especially for learning involving reading-writing and mathematical calculations. Evaluate motor development in children 3 years old and its relationship with their cognitive abilities at the age of 5 years. Based on a cohort study, we analyzed the information about motor performance evaluated at 3 years old by Peabody Motor Scale and cognitive abilities at 5 years old. The association was estimated using linear regression models adjusted by mother's intelligence quotient, sex, Bayley mental development index at 18 months, and quality of the environment at home (HOME scale). 148 children whose motor performance was determined at age 3 and was evaluated later at age 5 to determine their cognitive abilities. Cognitive abilities (verbal, quantitative, and memory) measured by McCarthy Scales. Significant positive associations were observed between stationary balance at age 3 with verbal abilities (β = 0.67, p = .04) and memory (β = 0.81, p = .02) at 5 years. Grasping and visual-motor integration were significant and positively associated with quantitative abilities (β = 0.74, p = .005; β = 0.61, p = .01) and memory (β = 2.11, p = .001; β = 1.74, p = .004). The results suggest that early motor performance contributes to the establishment of cognitive abilities at 5 years. Evaluation and early motor stimulation before the child is faced with formal learning likely helps to create neuronal networks that facilitate the acquisition of academic knowledge.
Movie-Generated EFL Writing: Discovering the Act of Writing through Visual Literacy Practices
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hekmati, Nargess; Ghahremani Ghajar, Sue-san; Navidinia, Hossein
2018-01-01
The present article explores the idea of using movies in EFL classrooms to develop students' writing skill. In this qualitative study, 15 EFL learners were engaged in different writing activities in a contextualized form of movies, meaning that the films acted as text-books, and activities were designed based on the contexts of the films. Taking…
Writing Abstracts and Developing Posters for National Meetings
Morrison, R. Sean
2011-01-01
Abstract Presenting posters at national meetings can help fellows and junior faculty members develop a national reputation. They often lead to interesting and fruitful networking and collaboration opportunities. They also help with promotion in academic medicine and can reveal new job opportunities. Practically, presenting posters can help justify funding to attend a meeting. Finally, this process can be invaluable in assisting with manuscript preparation. This article provides suggestions and words of wisdom for palliative care fellows and junior faculty members wanting to present a poster at a national meeting describing a case study or original research. It outlines how to pick a topic, decide on collaborators, and choose a meeting for the submission. It also describes how to write the abstract using examples that present a general format as well as writing tips for each section. It then describes how to prepare the poster and do the presentation. Sample poster formats are provided as are talking points to help the reader productively interact with those that visit the poster. Finally, tips are given regarding what to do after the meeting. The article seeks to not only describe the basic steps of this entire process, but also to highlight the hidden curriculum behind the successful abstracts and posters. These tricks of the trade can help the submission stand out and will make sure the reader gets the most out of the hard work that goes into a poster presentation at a national meeting. PMID:21241194
Writing abstracts and developing posters for national meetings.
Wood, Gordon J; Morrison, R Sean
2011-03-01
Presenting posters at national meetings can help fellows and junior faculty members develop a national reputation. They often lead to interesting and fruitful networking and collaboration opportunities. They also help with promotion in academic medicine and can reveal new job opportunities. Practically, presenting posters can help justify funding to attend a meeting. Finally, this process can be invaluable in assisting with manuscript preparation. This article provides suggestions and words of wisdom for palliative care fellows and junior faculty members wanting to present a poster at a national meeting describing a case study or original research. It outlines how to pick a topic, decide on collaborators, and choose a meeting for the submission. It also describes how to write the abstract using examples that present a general format as well as writing tips for each section. It then describes how to prepare the poster and do the presentation. Sample poster formats are provided as are talking points to help the reader productively interact with those that visit the poster. Finally, tips are given regarding what to do after the meeting. The article seeks to not only describe the basic steps of this entire process, but also to highlight the hidden curriculum behind the successful abstracts and posters. These tricks of the trade can help the submission stand out and will make sure the reader gets the most out of the hard work that goes into a poster presentation at a national meeting.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Corden, Roy
2007-01-01
The purpose of this collaborative schools-university study was to investigate how the explicit instruction of literary devices during designated literacy sessions could improve the quality of children's narrative writing. A guiding question for the study was: Can children's writing can be enhanced by teachers drawing attention to the literary…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Carter, Marilyn; And Others
Intended for students preparing for the General Educational Development (GED) test, this workbook enables them to complete lessons in writing and spelling skills and to take the simulated writing skills tests. The first section contains worksheets on basic writing skills, such as sentence structure, capitalization, and punctuation and the use of…
A Systematic Approach to Proposal Writing.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Alvir, Howard P.
This document contains two research exercises entitled: "Revising Rough Drafts into Short and Simple Texts" and "Developing Vote Curriculum Criteria Based upon Federal Guidelines." The first exercise can be used by educators wishing to conduct a proposal writing workshop centered around the development and writing of acceptable goals, objectives,…
Writing: A Mosaic of New Perspectives
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Grigorenko, Elena L., Ed.; Mambrino, Elisa, Ed.; Preiss, David D., Ed.
2012-01-01
This book captures the diversity and richness of writing as it relates to different forms of abilities, skills, competencies, and expertise. Psychologists, educators, researchers, and practitioners in neighboring areas are interested in exploring how writing develops and in what manner this development can be fostered, but they lack a handy,…
"The Writing Writes Itself": Deleuzian Desire and the Creative Writing MFA Degree
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Walker, Ginger Marie
2017-01-01
This post-qualitative inquiry project investigated subjectivity (sense of self) among graduates of creative writing Master of Fine Arts (MFA) programs. The project asked how subjectivity is involved in the creative writing process and how that process fuels further writing after a creative piece (such as the MFA thesis) is completed. A…
Understanding, Developing, and Writing Effective IEPs: A Step-by-Step Guide for Educators
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Pierangelo, Roger; Giuliani, George A.
2007-01-01
Creating and evaluating Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) for students with disabilities is a major responsibility for teachers and school leaders, yet the process involves legal components not always understood by educators. In "Understanding, Developing, and Writing Effective IEPs," legal and special education experts Roger…
The Effect of Process Writing Activities on the Writing Skills of Prospective Turkish Teachers
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Dilidüzgün, Sükran
2013-01-01
Problem statement: Writing an essay is a most difficult creative work and consequently requires detailed instruction. There are in fact two types of instruction that contribute to the development of writing skills: Reading activities analysing texts in content and schematic structure to find out how they are composed and process writing…
The Cortical Network for Braille Writing in the Blind.
Likova, Lora T; Tyler, Christopher W; Cacciamani, Laura; Mineff, Kristyo; Nicholas, Spero
2016-01-01
Fundamental forms of high-order cognition, such as reading and writing, are usually studied in the context of one modality - vision. People without sight, however, use the kinesthetic-based Braille writing, and haptic-based Braille reading. We asked whether the cognitive and motor control mechanisms underlying writing and reading are modality-specific or supramodal. While a number of previous functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) studies have investigated the brain network for Braille reading in the blind, such studies on Braille writing are lacking. Consequently, no comparative network analysis of Braille writing vs. reading exists. Here, we report the first study of Braille writing, and a comparison of the brain organization for Braille writing vs Braille reading. FMRI was conducted in a Siemens 3T Trio scanner. Our custom MRI-compatible drawing/writing lectern was further modified to provide for Braille reading and writing. Each of five paragraphs of novel Braille text describing objects, faces and navigation sequences was read, then reproduced twice by Braille writing from memory, then read a second time. During Braille reading, the haptic-sensing of the Braille letters strongly activated not only the early visual area V1 and V2, but some highly specialized areas, such as the classical visual grapheme area and the Exner motor grapheme area. Braille-writing-from-memory, engaged a significantly more extensive network in dorsal motor, somatosensory/kinesthetic, dorsal parietal and prefrontal cortex. However, in contrast to the largely extended V1 activation in drawing-from-memory in the blind after training (Likova, 2012), Braille writing from memory generated focal activation restricted to the most foveal part of V1, presumably reflecting topographically the focal demands of such a "pin-pricking" task.
The Cortical Network for Braille Writing in the Blind
Likova, Lora T.; Tyler, Christopher W.; Cacciamani, Laura; Mineff, Kristyo; Nicholas, Spero
2017-01-01
Fundamental forms of high-order cognition, such as reading and writing, are usually studied in the context of one modality - vision. People without sight, however, use the kinesthetic-based Braille writing, and haptic-based Braille reading. We asked whether the cognitive and motor control mechanisms underlying writing and reading are modality-specific or supramodal. While a number of previous functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) studies have investigated the brain network for Braille reading in the blind, such studies on Braille writing are lacking. Consequently, no comparative network analysis of Braille writing vs. reading exists. Here, we report the first study of Braille writing, and a comparison of the brain organization for Braille writing vs Braille reading. FMRI was conducted in a Siemens 3T Trio scanner. Our custom MRI-compatible drawing/writing lectern was further modified to provide for Braille reading and writing. Each of five paragraphs of novel Braille text describing objects, faces and navigation sequences was read, then reproduced twice by Braille writing from memory, then read a second time. During Braille reading, the haptic-sensing of the Braille letters strongly activated not only the early visual area V1 and V2, but some highly specialized areas, such as the classical visual grapheme area and the Exner motor grapheme area. Braille-writing-from-memory, engaged a significantly more extensive network in dorsal motor, somatosensory/kinesthetic, dorsal parietal and prefrontal cortex. However, in contrast to the largely extended V1 activation in drawing-from-memory in the blind after training (Likova, 2012), Braille writing from memory generated focal activation restricted to the most foveal part of V1, presumably reflecting topographically the focal demands of such a “pin-pricking” task. PMID:28890944
Promoting Writing for Research: The "Writing Retreat" Model
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Singh, R. J.
2012-01-01
Research papers take a long time to write and in an academic environment where the "publish or perish" clause applies, writing retreats are a way of creating time and space to write academic articles in a concentrated period of time. This article examines ways in which academics can write more articles for publication. In particular it…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Koch, Richard; Roop, Laura; Setter, Gail
2006-01-01
The National Writing Project at Work (NWP) monograph series documents how the National Writing Project model is implemented and developed at local sites across the country. These monographs describe NWP work, which is often shared informally or in workshops. Richard Koch and Laura Roop present a model of standards-based professional development…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Tse, Linda F. L.; Siu, Andrew M. H.; Li-Tsang, Cecilia W. P.
2017-01-01
Although copying and name writing skills are regarded as the indicators of handwriting development in alphabetic writing systems, there is limited information on logographs such as Chinese. Chinese characters are not only simply a combination of strokes as letters in English, but also place a great demand on visuospatial ability to maintain good…
Technical writing versus technical writing
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
Dillingham, J. W.
1981-01-01
Two terms, two job categories, 'technical writer' and 'technical author' are discussed in terms of industrial and business requirements and standards. A distinction between 'technical writing' and technical 'writing' is made. The term 'technical editor' is also considered. Problems inherent in the design of programs to prepare and train students for these jobs are discussed. A closer alliance between industry and academia is suggested as a means of preparing students with competent technical communication skills (especially writing and editing skills) and good technical skills.
Writing for publication: institutional support provides an enabling environment.
Kramer, Beverley; Libhaber, Elena
2016-04-18
Due to the excessive service delivery loads in public hospitals supported by academic institutions in developing environments, researchers at these institutions have little time to develop scientific writing skills or to write up their research. It is imperative to expand the writing skills of researchers and train the next generation of health sciences academics in order to disseminate research findings. This study reports on the implementation of approaches for writing and publication and the extent of support to staff suffering from the overload of service delivery and of heavy teaching duties. Workshops in scientific writing and writing retreats were initiated and were offered to all staff. Feedback from participants of the writing skills workshops indicated that the workshops provided an injection of confidence and proficiency. Protected writing time resulted in 132 papers submitted to journals and 95 in preparation from 230 participants of the writing retreats over a two year period. Staff commended the off-site, collegial environment, which also supported future collaboration with new-found colleagues. This enabling environment facilitates not only the development of writing skills per se, but also the dissemination of the generated scientific knowledge. In addition, the training in writing skills of this generation will be of value in the training of future cohorts in countries with similar health care deliverables.
Methods of Writing Instruction Evaluation.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Lamb, Bill H.
The Writing Program Director at Johnson County Community College (Kansas) developed quantitative measures for writing instruction evaluation which can support that institution's growing interest in and support for peer collaboration as a means to improving instructional quality. The first process (Interaction Analysis) has an observer measure…
Writing to Learn across the Curriculum. Fastback 209.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Myers, John W.
Intended for use by secondary school teachers in all subject areas, this booklet provides research based information designed to make writing a learning process. Following brief discussions of the writing-to-learn concept, the importance of writing in all curricular areas, and steps in developing a writing across the curriculum program, the…
Writing Bytes: Articulating a Techno-Critical Pedagogy
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Shovlin, Paul W.
2010-01-01
This dissertation examines how "modern literacy" and "contemporary writing" are increasingly influenced by technology from a critical pedagogical perspective. The study develops a definition of literacy that takes into account a reliance on technology, particularly computers, in our writing classes and writing lives. With a focus on one particular…
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Disimoni, Katherine Cecilia
The development of conceptual knowledge, particularly at the elementary level, is one area in which researchers and educators have noted remarkable deficiencies. The purpose of this descriptive study was to observe the impact of the use of writing as a thinking tool on the promotion and development of scientific concepts and science process skills in elementary students in the discipline of science. Reports from some of the publications for science research and educational progress cited the direct links of writing effectiveness to the development of skills in critical thinking. The study consisted of 12 fourth-grade students in the control group and their 12 fourth-grade counterparts in the experimental group. The treatment for the study was the use of learning logs by the experimental group to record their written responses to predesigned prompts related to hands-on science experiences during the intervention period. Their counterparts did no writing. Statistical measures used were Student's t tests to determine if significance was present. A pretest and posttest were given that involved written responses to the same prompt. Three judges used a specially designed rubric to evaluate and score the writing. Significant differences were found when the scores of the experimental group were analyzed between pretest and posttest. Also, a standardized test to assess basic process skills was administered prior to and after the intervention. There were no statistical differences found in either group to demonstrate that writing effected the development of process skills. The researcher determined that perhaps writing is not the best way to promote process skills. Rather, engaging in science is the best way. These skills are built separately but used in tandem, particularly when learning about science and mathematics. The implications of this study impact upon several areas of education which make up paradigms leading to good practice based on sound theory. These components
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Ahmed Helwa, Hasnaa Sabry Abdel-Hamid
2014-01-01
The aim of this research is to investigate the effectiveness of a program based on the combination of relevance and confidence motivational strategies in developing EFL argumentative writing skills and overcoming writing apprehension among students teachers at Faculty of Education. The design of the research is a mixed research methodology. It…
Orientations for the Teaching of Writing: A Legacy of the National Writing Project
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Whitney, Anne Elrod; Friedrich, Linda
2013-01-01
Background/Context: Founded in 1974 by James Gray and a group of teacher colleagues who came together as the Bay Area Writing Project in California, the National Writing Project is a professional development network that has spread from one site to 197 university-based sites across the U.S. After such a long period of time in operation, it becomes…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Marquis, Elizabeth; Mårtensson, Katarina; Healey, Mick
2017-01-01
This article presents the results of research examining an innovative initiative designed to build capacity for international, collaborative scholarship of teaching and learning: the development of international collaborative writing groups (ICWG). The study focusses particularly on the role of leadership within the groups as a significant factor…
Using a Collaborative Critiquing Technique to Develop Chemistry Students' Technical Writing Skills
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Carr, Jeremy M.
2013-01-01
The technique, termed "collaborative critiquing", was developed to teach fundamental technical writing skills to analytical chemistry students for the preparation of laboratory reports. This exercise, which can be completed prior to peer-review activities, is novel, highly interactive, and allows students to take responsibility for their…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Feuer, Avital
2011-01-01
This study examined the effects of a collaborative creative writing project on identity formation and overall language proficiency development among advanced Hebrew students. In an exercise called "The Zoning Committee", college students created the fictional Israeli-American town of Beit Shemesh, located in northern Michigan.…
2010-01-01
Background The ability to write clearly and effectively is of central importance to the scientific enterprise. Encouraged by the success of simulation environments in other biomedical sciences, we developed WriteSim TCExam, an open-source, Web-based, textual simulation environment for teaching effective writing techniques to novice researchers. We shortlisted and modified an existing open source application - TCExam to serve as a textual simulation environment. After testing usability internally in our team, we conducted formal field usability studies with novice researchers. These were followed by formal surveys with researchers fitting the role of administrators and users (novice researchers) Results The development process was guided by feedback from usability tests within our research team. Online surveys and formal studies, involving members of the Research on Research group and selected novice researchers, show that the application is user-friendly. Additionally it has been used to train 25 novice researchers in scientific writing to date and has generated encouraging results. Conclusion WriteSim TCExam is the first Web-based, open-source textual simulation environment designed to complement traditional scientific writing instruction. While initial reviews by students and educators have been positive, a formal study is needed to measure its benefits in comparison to standard instructional methods. PMID:20509946
Effect of Instruction on ESL Students' Synthesis Writing
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Zhang, Cui
2013-01-01
Synthesis writing has become the focus of much greater attention in the past 10 years in L2 EAP contexts. However, research on L2 synthesis writing has been limited, especially with respect to treatment studies that relate writing instruction to the development of synthesis writing abilities. To address this research gap, the present study…
Writing Self-Efficacy and Written Communication Skills
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Mascle, Deanna DeBrine
2013-01-01
Writing is an essential professional skill. The goal of writing instruction in business communication classes is to develop the skills and knowledge necessary to successfully meet future writing challenges. However, many writers struggle to transfer skills and knowledge from one context to another. The primary reason for this struggle is that…
Essentials of Basic Writing Pedagogy for Librarians
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
King, Reabeka
2012-01-01
There is an ongoing paradigm shift in librarianship that prompts the application of pedagogy throughout our professional practice. In light of the special attention to basic writing development in community college curricula, this article provides an overview of basic writing pedagogy. It discusses the overall college-level writing and research…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Richgels, Donald J.
2003-01-01
Discusses four recent writing books: "Teaching to Write: Theory Into Practice" (Jane B. Hughey and Charlotte Slack); "The Writing Teacher's Handbook" (Jo Phenix); "Scaffolding Young Writers: A Writers' Workshop Approach" (Linda J. Dorn and Carla Soffos); and "Directing the Writing Workshop: An Elementary Teacher's Handbook" (Jean Wallace Gillet…
Learning to Write with Interactive Writing Instruction
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Williams, Cheri
2018-01-01
Interactive writing is a process-oriented instructional approach designed to make the composing and encoding processes of writing overt and explicit for young students who are learning to write. It is particularly suitable for students who struggle with literacy learning. This article describes one first-grade teacher's use of interactive writing…
Life-Writing: Writing Workshops and Outreach Procedures.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gillis, Candida; Wagner, Linda
The ongoing project described in this paper seeks to develop an economical, effective means through which communities can establish writing workshops that will provide the aged with constructive environments for life review. It is aimed at identifying the methods and materials useful in a workshop setting for stimulating reminiscence and personal…
Mentoring disadvantaged nursing students through technical writing workshops.
Johnson, Molly K; Symes, Lene; Bernard, Lillian; Landson, Margie J; Carroll, Theresa L
2007-01-01
Recent studies have identified a problematic gap for nursing students between terse clinical writing and formal academic writing. This gap can create a potential barrier to academic and workplace success, especially for disadvantaged nursing students who have not acquired the disciplinary conventions and sophisticated writing required in upper-level nursing courses. The authors demonstrate the need for writing-in-the-discipline activities to enhance the writing skills of nursing students, describe the technical writing workshops they developed to mentor minority and disadvantaged nursing students, and provide recommendations to stimulate educator dialogue across disciplines and institutions.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Sampson, Victor; Enderle, Patrick; Grooms, Jonathon; Witte, Shelbie
2013-01-01
This study examined how students' science-specific argumentative writing skills and understanding of core ideas changed over the course of a school year as they participated in a series of science laboratories designed using the Argument-Driven Inquiry (ADI) instructional model. The ADI model is a student-centered and writing-intensive approach to…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Harward, Stan; Peterson, Nancy; Korth, Byran; Wimmer, Jennifer; Wilcox, Brad; Morrison, Timothy G.; Black, Sharon; Simmerman, Sue; Pierce, Linda
2014-01-01
This qualitative study explored reasons K-6 teachers did or did not engage students regularly in writing. Interviews with 14 teachers, classified as high, transitional, and low implementers of writing instruction, revealed three themes: hindrances and helps, beliefs concerning practice, and preparation and professional development. Both high and…
Developmental and Individual Differences in Chinese Writing
Guan, Connie Qun; Ye, Feifei; Wagner, Richard K.; Meng, Wanjin
2015-01-01
The goal of the present study was to examine the generalizability of a model of the underlying dimensions of written composition across writing systems (Chinese Mandarin vs. English) and level of writing skill. A five-factor model of writing originally developed from analyses of 1st and 4th grade English writing samples was applied to Chinese writing samples obtained from 4th and 7th grade students. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to compare the fits of alternative models of written composition. The results suggest that the five-factor model of written composition generalizes to Chinese writing samples and applies to both less skilled (Grade 4) and more skilled (Grade 7) writing, with differences in factor means between grades that vary in magnitude across factors. PMID:26038631
Gallo, Isabella; Garrino, Lorenza; Di Monte, Valerio
2015-01-01
The emotional distress represents one of the symptoms most frequently reported in the cancer patient in therapy, increasing the risk of developing a disease depressive. Through the analysis of the literature we want to assess whether the use of expressive writing on cancer patients in their care pathway compared to the use of writing neutral reduces emotional distress. The bibliographic search was conducted using the databases CINAHL, PubMed, Cochrane Library and PsycInfo. The results of research conducted on 7 randomized controlled trials, including 3 pilot studies have shown after expressive writing sessions (experimental group) versus neutral writing (control group) a significant reduction in distress in the experimental group early stages of cancer (p = 0,0183); in patients with a diagnosis of metastatic assigned to the group expressive writing there was a statistically significant relevance in the reduction of mood disorders (p = 0,03).Were determined statistically significant group differences also with respect to some measure on the quality of sleep (p = 0,04). The expressive writing did not produce significant reductions in psychological distress and improvements in physical health (p > 0,20) in patients diagnosed with metastatic disease of long duration and, in the palliative care there have been results of feasibility for poor adherence at follow-up. From the results it is evident that the strategies of expressive writing improves the management of the disease, reduce the physical and psychological symptoms related to the tumor while reducing the emotional distress in patients at an early stage of the disease.
Development Revisited: Writing and Knowing in Transition.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Pounds, Buzz R.
A study examined the developmental epistemologies of first-year university students at a comprehensive university, based on the idea that students often come to the university in intellectual transition which may affect their epistemological stances toward writing. The students' comments as reported from a survey fall into seven categories: topic,…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
MacPhee, Angus
1971-01-01
The proper approach to children's writing from an educational point of view is discussed. The point is made that there is something fundamentally wrong with the current approach in children's writing. Current books on children's writing deal only with children's writing. It is recommended that any program which aims to be efficient in the teaching…
Transforming Future Teachers' Ideas about Writing Instruction.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Florio-Ruane, Susan; Lensmire, Timothy J.
A course was developed which offers opportunities for prospective teachers to transform their prior experiences with teaching, writing, and children as they began to assume the role of the teacher. The course breaks with the ordinary understanding of beginning teachers in three ways: (1) instead of placing writing in genre boxes, writing is viewed…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Fontenot, Jennifer; Carney, Karen J.; Hansen, Kay
2015-01-01
A process-writing approach (BW) with novel concepts was developed by the authors to teach writing to elementary-level students. They believed the BW approach was effective but was particularly effective for special-needs students. Consequently, they decided to quantitatively test these assertions. Instead of testing students taught using the BW…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Tischhauser, Karen
2015-01-01
Students need inspiration to write. Assigning is not teaching. In order to inspire students to write fiction worth reading, teachers must take them through the process of writing. Physical objects inspire good writing with depth. In this article, the reader will be taken through the process of inspiring young writers through the use of boxes.…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Grubaugh, Karl
2003-01-01
Lists the following 10 tips for improved sports writing in high school publications: reporting comes before writing; do not try to do too much; show, do not tell; do not do game stories; avoid cliches; avoid "jock-talk"; use the drama of sports; do not write the obvious story; sports is also news; and read great sports writing. (PM)
Preparing Students for Diverse Careers: Developing Career Literacy with Final-Year Writing Students
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Bennet, Dawn; Robertson, Rachel
2015-01-01
Graduates from generalist science and arts degrees can face diverse careers characterised by portfolios of simultaneous, self-managed roles. This paper reports from a study on identity and career literacy in which final-year professional writing and publishing students developed an ePortfolio and engaged in open blogging during their industry…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kervin, Lisa; Comber, Barbara; Woods, Annette
2017-01-01
This article examines the resources, tools, and opportunities children enact as they engage with teacher-devised writing experiences within their classroom space. We begin with discussion about classroom writing time from the perspective of both the teacher and children of one Grade 1/2 composite class. We also reveal resources within the…
Assurance of Learning in a Writing-Intensive Business Course
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Carnes, Lana; Awang, Faridah; Smith, Halie
2015-01-01
Writing intensive courses provide a means of addressing declining student writing proficiency. Programmatic learning goals accomplished through a writing-intensive course can be used to develop students' writing skills. For business communication faculty members to maximize the value of their courses to business programs, they should demonstrate…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Shea, Kelly A.; Balkun, Mary McAleer; Nolan, Susan A.; Saccoman, John T.; Wright, Joyce
2006-01-01
This article describes a writing-across-the-curriculum project that was born of one university's commitment to writing and ubiquitous computing. Faculty members across the disciplines, seeing an opportunity to re-introduce WAC on its campus through a curriculum development initiative funded out of an internal teaching, learning, and technology…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Linh, Nguyen Duy; Suppasetseree, Suksan
2016-01-01
Writing is one of the essential skills that EFL students, specifically in Thailand, need to achieve while their learning English during tertiary education. However, Thai EFL students have few chances to practice writing skills while learning. This study was conducted to develop an instructional design model for assisting students in learning…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Jiménez, Juan E.; Marco, Isaac; Suárez, Natalia; González, Desirée
2017-01-01
This study had two purposes: examining the internal structure of the "Test Estandarizado para la Evaluación Inicial de la Escritura con Teclado" (TEVET; Spanish Keyboarding Writing Test), and analyzing the development of keyboarding skills in Spanish elementary school children with and without learning disabilities (LD) in writing. A…
Translanguaging and the Writing of Bilingual Learners
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Velasco, Patricia; García, Ofelia
2014-01-01
This article makes the case for using translanguaging in developing the academic writing of bilinguals. It reviews the emerging literature on learning and teaching theories of translanguaging and presents theoretical understandings of biliteracy development and specifically on the teaching of writing to bilingual learners. The article analyzes…
THE EFFECTS OF EXPRESSIVE WRITING ON POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION AND POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS SYMPTOMS.
Blasio, Paola Di; Camisasca, Elena; Caravita, Simona Carla Silvia; Ionio, Chiara; Milani, Luca; Valtolina, Giovanni Giulio
2015-12-01
This study investigated whether an Expressive Writing intervention decreased depression and posttraumatic stress symptoms after childbirth. 113 women (M age = 31.26 yr., SD = 4.42) were assessed at Time 1 for depression (Beck Depression Inventory) and PTS (Perinatal PTSD Questionnaire) in the first days after childbirth, then randomized to either expressive writing or neutral writing conditions and reassessed at Time 2, 3 months later. The results (ANCOVAs, regression models) show that at 3 mo. depressive and posttraumatic symptoms were lower in women who performed the expressive writing task than in the neutral writing group. Moreover, the intervention condition was associated significantly with decreased depression at the high and at the mean levels of baseline depression at Time 1. Regarding PTSD, the results showed that the intervention condition was linked significantly to reductions of the symptoms at all levels of baseline PTSD. Mainly, these outcomes suggest that Expressive Writing can be a helpful early and low-cost universal intervention to prevent postpartum distress for women.
A mandatory course in scientific writing for undergraduate medical students.
Roland, C G; Cox, B G
1976-02-01
All students at Mayo Medical School take a course in scientific writing during their sophomore and junior years. Early in the sophomore year they receive a self-instructional text designed to help them avoid 15 common writing faults. Comparison of pretest and posttest results for two classes, with a total of 89 students, indicates significant improvement (p less than .001). Later in his sophomore year, each student writes a minithesis; and during his junior year he reports on work done in a clinical or laboratory research project, preparing it as a paper submissible to a scientific journal. Professional editors work as preceptors with the students, critiquing their manuscripts, which are revised until they receive satisfactory ratings.
From Scribbles to Scrabble: Preschool Children’s Developing Knowledge of Written Language
Puranik, Cynthia S.; Lonigan, Christopher J.
2011-01-01
The purpose of this study was to concurrently examine the development of written language across several writing tasks and to investigate how writing features develop in preschool children. Emergent written language knowledge of 372 preschoolers was assessed using numerous writing tasks. The findings from this study indicate that children possess a great deal of writing knowledge before beginning school. Children appear to progress along a continuum from scribbling to conventional spelling, and this progression is linear and task dependent. There was clear evidence to support the claim that universal writing features develop before language-specific features. Children as young as 3 years possess knowledge regarding universal and language-specific writing features. There is substantial developmental continuity in literacy skills from the preschool period into early elementary grades. Implications of these findings on writing development are discussed. PMID:22448101
Carter, Amanda G; Creedy, Debra K; Sidebotham, Mary
2017-11-01
develop and test a tool designed for use by academics to evaluate pre-registration midwifery students' critical thinking skills in reflective writing. a descriptive cohort design was used. a random sample (n = 100) of archived student reflective writings based on a clinical event or experience during 2014 and 2015. a staged model for tool development was used to develop a fifteen item scale involving item generation; mapping of draft items to critical thinking concepts and expert review to test content validity; inter-rater reliability testing; pilot testing of the tool on 100 reflective writings; and psychometric testing. Item scores were analysed for mean, range and standard deviation. Internal reliability, content and construct validity were assessed. expert review of the tool revealed a high content validity index score of 0.98. Using two independent raters to establish inter-rater reliability, good absolute agreement of 72% was achieved with a Kappa coefficient K = 0.43 (p<0.0001). Construct validity via exploratory factor analysis revealed three factors: analyses context, reasoned inquiry, and self-evaluation. The mean total score for the tool was 50.48 (SD = 12.86). Total and subscale scores correlated significantly. The scale achieved good internal reliability with a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of .93. this study establishedthe reliability and validity of the CACTiM (reflection) for use by academics to evaluate midwifery students' critical thinking in reflective writing. Validation with large diverse samples is warranted. reflective practice is a key learning and teaching strategy in undergraduate Bachelor of Midwifery programmes and essential for safe, competent practice. There is the potential to enhance critical thinking development by assessingreflective writing with the CACTiM (reflection) tool to provide formative and summative feedback to students and inform teaching strategies. Crown Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Some Influences of Greek and Roman Rhetoric on Early Letter Writing.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hildebrandt, Herbert W.
1988-01-01
Describes how letter writing, especially business letters, was influenced by Greek and Roman oral rhetoricians. Discusses three precepts of oral rhetoric--inventio, dispositio, and style--and notes that the classical theories' reflection in written communication can be seen in selected Italian, German, and English epistolographic works. (MM)
Early Writing in the Research Mode via Digital Modeling of Rivers.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Snow, Robin Scott
1991-01-01
Author describes an individual research project involving digital modeling of graded river profiles as part of a sophomore-level geomorphology class. The three-week project gives students the opportunity to choose research topics, design experiments to test ideas, interpret results, and write a research report. (PR)
Kiefer, Markus; Schuler, Stefanie; Mayer, Carmen; Trumpp, Natalie M; Hille, Katrin; Sachse, Steffi
2015-01-01
Digital writing devices associated with the use of computers, tablet PCs, or mobile phones are increasingly replacing writing by hand. It is, however, controversially discussed how writing modes influence reading and writing performance in children at the start of literacy. On the one hand, the easiness of typing on digital devices may accelerate reading and writing in young children, who have less developed sensory-motor skills. On the other hand, the meaningful coupling between action and perception during handwriting, which establishes sensory-motor memory traces, could facilitate written language acquisition. In order to decide between these theoretical alternatives, for the present study, we developed an intense training program for preschool children attending the German kindergarten with 16 training sessions. Using closely matched letter learning games, eight letters of the German alphabet were trained either by handwriting with a pen on a sheet of paper or by typing on a computer keyboard. Letter recognition, naming, and writing performance as well as word reading and writing performance were assessed. Results did not indicate a superiority of typing training over handwriting training in any of these tasks. In contrast, handwriting training was superior to typing training in word writing, and, as a tendency, in word reading. The results of our study, therefore, support theories of action-perception coupling assuming a facilitatory influence of sensory-motor representations established during handwriting on reading and writing.
Writing Disabilities in Spanish-Speaking Children: Introduction to the Special Series.
Jiménez, Juan E
This special issue of the Journal of Learning Disabilities focuses on studies of writing disabilities in Spanish-speaking children. The World Health Organization (2001) included writing difficulties as one of the problems considered to constitute an impediment to school participation, a significant element in the normal developmental process of the child. In this introduction, I describe the background of a larger project promoted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). This special series offers recent findings on writing disabilities in Spanish-Speaking children within the UNESCO project. The pilot study was carried out in the Canary Islands, an autonomous Spanish region located between three continents and composed of seven islands in the Atlantic Ocean. Most of the current empirical evidence on writing disabilities comes from English, a language with deep orthography; therefore, it is very relevant to investigate the writing process in Spanish, a language with shallow, fine-grained orthography. Included are a number of articles that form a conspectus on writing disabilities in the Spanish language. Topics center on early grade writing assessment, prevalence of writing disabilities, handwriting and keyboarding, transcription and text generation, graphonomic and handwriting analysis, and instructional practices with an learning disabled population.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Koffman, Bess G.; Kreutz,Karl J.; Trenbath, Kim
2017-01-01
We present a strategy for using scientific argumentation in an early undergraduate laboratory course to teach disciplinary writing practices and to promote critical thinking, knowledge transformation, and understanding of the scientific method. The approach combines targeted writing instruction; data analysis and interpretation; formulation of a…
Rhetorical Location and the Globalized, First-Year Writing Program
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Willard-Traub, Margaret K.
2017-01-01
The University of Michigan-Dearborn Writing Program and Writing Center serve an increasingly large number of recent immigrants, international students, and students who as children immigrated to the United States. The Writing Program and Writing Center have for a decade developed curriculum and support services geared specifically toward meeting…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Jacobs, Albert Luck, Jr.
In this study, a program for teaching poetry writing in secondary schools is derived from Kenneth Koch's and Theodore Roethke's ideas, and from Erik Erikson's model of adolescent human processes. A review of related literature defines three major approaches to the teaching of poetry writing: models, activities, and models and activities combined.…
Reexamining the Writing Apprehension Measure
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Autman, Hamlet; Kelly, Stephanie
2017-01-01
This article contains two measurement development studies on writing apprehension. Study 1 reexamines the validity of the writing apprehension measure based on the finding from prior research that a second false factor was embedded. The findings from Study 1 support the validity of a reduced measure with 6 items versus the original 20-item…
Promoting Writing and Preventing Writing Failure in Young Children
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kissel, Brian
2008-01-01
In 2003, the National Commission on Writing pleaded for a writing revolution in education. The plea included a call for increased attention on the subject of writing, considered the "most neglected" of the "three "Rs"". Although state tests dictate that schools take an intensive look at the writing of 4th-, 8th-, and 12th-grade students, studying…
Kohrt, Brandon A; Upadhaya, Nawaraj; Luitel, Nagendra P; Maharjan, Sujen M; Kaiser, Bonnie N; MacFarlane, Elizabeth K; Khan, Noreen
2014-01-01
Collaborations among researchers, clinicians, and individuals with mental illness from high-income countries (HICs) and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are crucial to produce research, interventions, and policies that are relevant, feasible, and ethical. However, global mental health and cultural psychiatry research publications have been dominated by HIC investigators. The aim of this review was to present recommendations for collaborative writing with a focus on early career investigators researchers in HICs and LMICs. A workshop was conducted with HIC and LMIC investigators in Nepal to discuss lessons learned for collaborative writing. The researchers had experience in cross-cultural psychiatric epidemiology, health services research, randomized controlled trials, and projects with war and disaster-affected populations in complex humanitarian emergencies including child soldiers and refugees. Additional lessons learned were contributed from researchers engaged in similar collaborations in Haiti. A step-by-step process for collaborative writing was developed. HIC and LMIC writing collaborations will encourage accurate, ethical, and contextually grounded publications to foster understanding and facilitate reduction of the global burden of mental illness. Copyright © 2014 Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Soltani, Azimeh; Kheirzadeh, Shiela
2017-01-01
This study aimed to explore EFL students' use of writing strategies and their attitudes towards reading-to-write and writing-only tasks. The primary purpose of this study was to see whether there was any significant difference between the writing performance of reading-to-write and writing-only task groups of Iranian EFL learners. Also, this study…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Ningrum, Ary Setya Budhi; Latief, Mohammad Adnan; Sulistyo, Gunadi Harry
2016-01-01
The purpose of the study was to determine the impact of mind mapping as a strategy in generating ideas before writing on the EFL students' idea development in argumentative writing as perceived from their gender differences and learning styles. By conducting an experimental investigation at university level in Indonesia, two existing TOEFL classes…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Challob, Ala'a Ismael; Bakar, Nadzrah Abu; Latif, Hafizah
2016-01-01
This study examined the effects of collaborative blended learning writing environment on students' writing apprehension and writing performance as perceived by a selected group of EFL students enrolled in one of the international schools in Malaysia. Qualitative case study method was employed using semi-structured interview, learning diaries and…
A Writing-Intensive Program for Teaching Retail Management.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Darian, Jean C.; And Others
1992-01-01
Presents the writing-intensive design for a retailing management course developed by its instructor in accordance with writing-across-the-curriculum principles. Provides an overview of the semester-long project. Details project procedures for preparatory activities, field research, and writing the marketing plan. (SR)
Teaching Writing through Communicative Approach in Military English
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Likaj, Manjola
2015-01-01
The paper speaks about teaching writing through communicative approach in English for Specific Purposes, especially in Military English. There are presented three different approaches regarding writing in ESP: product, process and social-constructionist approach. The recent developments in ESP writing consider the social-constructionist approach…
Assessing Elementary Students' Writing Skills. Publication No. 78.74.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Friedman, Myron; Fowler, Elaine
An instrument was developed for use in the evaluation of a pilot program to improve the writing skills of elementary school students in the Austin (Texas) Independent School District. Called the "Assessment of Writing Skills" (AWS), the instrument assesses writing maturity, productivity, and writing mechanics by collecting a holistic evaluation…
Reading-Writing Relationships in First and Second Language Academic Literacy Development
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Grabe, William; Zhang, Cui
2016-01-01
Reading and writing relations, as this concept applies to academic learning contexts, whether as a major way to learn language or academic content, is a pervasive issue in English for academic purposes (EAP) contexts. In many cases, this major link between reading/writing and academic learning is true even though explicit discussions of this…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Bigozzi, Lucia; Vettori, Giulia
2016-01-01
In this 1-year longitudinal study, the authors explored the development of narrative skills between the oral and written form. The authors aimed to assess the predictive power of textual narrative competence on early narrative text-writing skills taking into account the impact of spelling ability. Eighty children ("M" age = 5.3 years,…
The problems inherent in teaching technical writing and report writing to native Americans
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
Zukowski/faust, J.
1981-01-01
Teaching technical writing to Native Americans contending with a second language and culture is addressed. Learning difficulties arising from differences between native and acquired language and cultural systems are examined. Compartmentalized teaching, which presents the ideals of technical writing in minimal units, and skills development are considered. Rhetorical problems treated include logic of arrangement, selection of support and scope of detail, and time and space. Specific problems selected include the concept of promptness, the contextualization of purpose, interpersonal relationships, wordiness, mixture of registers, and the problem of abstracting. Four inductive procedures for students having writing and perception problems are included. Four sample exercises and a bibliography of 13 references are also included.
Development of EFL Writing over Three Years in Secondary Education: CLIL and Non-CLIL Settings
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gené-Gil, Maria; Juan-Garau, Maria; Salazar-Noguera, Joana
2015-01-01
Research on writing development in content and language integrated learning (CLIL) settings is still inconclusive. This study intends to make a contribution in this respect by presenting longitudinal findings on the development of written complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF) in secondary education CLIL and non-CLIL learners. Participants in the…
Technical writing in the radiologic technology curriculum.
Bell, R
1979-01-01
Although courses in technical writing are no longer suggested in the Curriculum Guide for Programs in Radiologic Technology, the writer believes that writing is essential to the growth of the profession and development of the professional. Emphasis is placed on some of the benefits that accrue to students who are exposed to technical writing as part of their technology curriculum.
Kids Writing Comic Books: Lessons from the Professionals.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Chilcoat, George W.; And Others
1991-01-01
Provides tips for comic book writing that have been gathered from actual comic book authors and can be used in minilessons for writing workshops in the classroom. Focuses on five specific components of comic book writing: plot development, layout, drawing, narration, and the cover page. (MG)
"Asking Pompeii Questions": A Co-Operative Approach to Writing in the Disciplines
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Somerville, Elizabeth M.; Creme, Phyllis
2005-01-01
This article is an account of a cooperative project to develop student writing within an interdisciplinary human sciences degree, in line with the 'Writing in the Disciplines' approach adopted in the USA that aims to develop student writing within mainstream teaching. The course tutor worked with a writing tutor to introduce a 'writing strand'…
The read-write Linked Data Web.
Berners-Lee, Tim; O'Hara, Kieron
2013-03-28
This paper discusses issues that will affect the future development of the Web, either increasing its power and utility, or alternatively suppressing its development. It argues for the importance of the continued development of the Linked Data Web, and describes the use of linked open data as an important component of that. Second, the paper defends the Web as a read-write medium, and goes on to consider how the read-write Linked Data Web could be achieved.
Effects of Multiple Intelligences Activities on Writing Skill Development in an EFL Context
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gündüz, Zennure Elgün; Ünal, Ismail Dogan
2016-01-01
This study aims at exploring the effects of multiple intelligences activities versus traditional method on English writing development of the sixth grade students in Turkey. A quasi-experimental research method with a pre-test post-test design was applied. The participants were 50 sixth grade students at a state school in Ardahan in Turkey. The…
A Review of Self-Regulated Strategy Development for Writing for Students with EBD
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Sreckovic, Melissa A.; Common, Eric A.; Knowles, Meagan M.; Lane, Kathleen Lynne
2014-01-01
In this systematic review, we evaluated the evidence base of self-regulated strategy development (SRSD; Harris & Graham, 1992) for writing with students with and at risk for emotional or behavioral disorders (EBD). First, we evaluated the quality of studies identified (n 5 13) by applying the quality indicators for single case (Horner et al.,…
Gordon, Felicia
2008-06-01
This paper reviews the early career and psychiatric writings of Madeleine Pelletier (1874-1939), between 1901 and 1906. Pelletier, a committed feminist and socialist, was the first woman to remove the barriers to women entering the French psychiatric profession, successfully passing the examination for the l'internat des hôpitaux psychiatriques in 1903. Her involvement in La Société d'Anthropologie de Paris and the Institut Général de Psychologie provided a forum for her interest in psychology, both normal and abnormal. She turned increasingly to sociological explanations for mental illness, unwilling to accept the determinism inherent in degeneration theory. Although her career in psychiatry was cut short in 1906, her training and her debating skills, honed in the rationalism of the scientific and Free Masonic societies that she frequented, stood her in good stead in her subsequent career as a political militant.
Altemeier, Leah; Jones, Janine; Abbott, Robert D; Berninger, Virginia W
2006-01-01
Results are reported for a study of 2 separate processes of report writing-taking notes while reading source material and composing a report from those notes-and related individual differences in executive functions involved in integrating reading and writing during these writing activities. Third graders (n = 122) and 5th graders (n = 106; overall, 127 girls and 114 boys) completed two reading-writing tasks-read paragraph (mock science text)-write notes and use notes to generate written report, a reading comprehension test, a written expression test, four tests of executive functions (inhibition, verbal fluency, planning, switching attention), and a working memory test. For the read-take notes task, the same combination of variables was best (explained the most variance and each variable added unique variance) for 3rd graders and 5th graders: Wechsler Individual Achievement Test-Second Edition (WIAT-II) Reading Comprehension, Process Assessment of the Learner Test for Reading and Writing (PAL) Copy Task B, WIAT-II Written Expression, and Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System (D-KEFS) Inhibition. For the use notes to write report task, the best combinations of variables depended on grade level: For 3rd graders, WIAT-II Reading Comprehension, WIAT-II Written Expression, D-KEFS Verbal Fluency, and Tower of Hanoi; for 5th graders, WIAT-II Reading Comprehension, D-KEFS Verbal Fluency, WIAT-II Written Expression, and PAL Alphabet Task. These results add to prior research findings that executive functions contribute to the writing development of elementary-grade students and additionally support the hypothesis that executive functions play a role in developing reading-writing connections.
Tracking the "Lizardman": Writing Rotten to Write Well.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Polette, Keith
1995-01-01
Suggests that students can improve their writing by being instructed on how to write badly. Applies the criteria of testability, tunnel-vision, excessive vagueness, flying in the face of established fact, and hazy authority to tabloid newspaper stories. Discusses how students can write their own "rotten" tabloid stories by taking these…
Applications of the Wilkinson Model of Writing Maturity to College Writing.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Sternglass, Marilyn
1982-01-01
Examines the four-category model developed by Andrew Wilkinson at the University of Essex (England) to assess growth in writing maturity. The four measures of development are stylistic, affective, cognitive, and moral. Each has several subcategories. Includes college student essays to illustrate the model. (HTH)
Using Desktop Publishing To Enhance the "Writing Process."
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Millman, Patricia G.; Clark, Margaret P.
1997-01-01
Describes the development of an instructional technology course at Fairmont State College (West Virginia) for education majors that included a teaching module combining steps of the writing process to provide for the interdisciplinary focus of writing across the curriculum. Discusses desktop publishing, the National Writing Project, and student…
Kiefer, Markus; Schuler, Stefanie; Mayer, Carmen; Trumpp, Natalie M.; Hille, Katrin; Sachse, Steffi
2015-01-01
Digital writing devices associated with the use of computers, tablet PCs, or mobile phones are increasingly replacing writing by hand. It is, however, controversially discussed how writing modes influence reading and writing performance in children at the start of literacy. On the one hand, the easiness of typing on digital devices may accelerate reading and writing in young children, who have less developed sensory-motor skills. On the other hand, the meaningful coupling between action and perception during handwriting, which establishes sensory-motor memory traces, could facilitate written language acquisition. In order to decide between these theoretical alternatives, for the present study, we developed an intense training program for preschool children attending the German kindergarten with 16 training sessions. Using closely matched letter learning games, eight letters of the German alphabet were trained either by handwriting with a pen on a sheet of paper or by typing on a computer keyboard. Letter recognition, naming, and writing performance as well as word reading and writing performance were assessed. Results did not indicate a superiority of typing training over handwriting training in any of these tasks. In contrast, handwriting training was superior to typing training in word writing, and, as a tendency, in word reading. The results of our study, therefore, support theories of action-perception coupling assuming a facilitatory influence of sensory-motor representations established during handwriting on reading and writing. PMID:26770286
Influence of Writing Ability and Computation Skill on Mathematics Writing
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Powell, Sarah R.; Hebert, Michael A.
2016-01-01
Mathematics standards expect students to communicate about mathematics using oral and written methods, and some high-stakes assessments ask students to answer mathematics questions by writing. Assumptions about mathematics communication via writing include (a) students possess writing skill, (b) students can transfer this writing skill to…
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Small, J. D.
2007-12-01
Basic science literacy, especially with regards to environmental change science, is often lacking in traditional K- 12 and undergraduate education. This generally leads to broad misconceptions based on distorted presentations of science in the media. Current educational research suggests that the teaching and learning of science can happen in many ways, whether it is through lectures, labs, research, inquiry or informal learning activities. This study was motivated by the desire to investigate the ability to teach environmental change science content in the non-traditional mode of an undergraduate composition and writing course. This technique offers educators another option for the integration of climate and environmental change material into their curriculum. The study incorporates the assessment and evaluation of student writing, in-class participation and student self- evaluations from "Writing about Change: Global Environmental Change and Society" a writing course that fulfils a requirement to graduate from the University of California - Santa Cruz. The course was taught Winter Quarter 2007 with a total of 28 days of instruction and the participation of 20 undergraduate students. The overarching goals of this study can be broadly classified as attitudinal, skills development and content retention. This study was designed to address three broad questions related to the above broad goals: i) Did students leave the class more comfortable and confident with environmental change issues and content? ii) Did students develop skills that are useful for reading and writing about scientific material? iii) What did students learn (retain): more general concepts or specific facts regarding climate and environmental change? Preliminary analysis and coding of student work clearly show that students were successful in developing skills for understanding and utilizing scientific information via writing and making thoughtful judgments regarding the reliability of environmental
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Turner, Thomas; Broemmel, Amy
2006-01-01
Any science teacher who wants his or her students to be engaged in real science is going to engage them in real science writing. Writing in science should begin with clear, imaginative writing purposes and stimuli that are then scaffolded in such a way that students are able to find an organizational structure for their writing. Writing fluency is…
Science + Writing = Super Learning. Writing Workshop.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Bower, Paula Rogovin
1993-01-01
Article presents suggestions for motivating elementary students to learn by combining science and writing. The strategies include planning the right environment; teaching the scientific method; establishing a link to literature; and making time for students to observe, experiment, and write. (SM)
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gooden-Jones, Epsey M.; Carrasquillo, Angela L.
A study followed ten limited-English-proficient (LEP) community college students who were taught English largely using a cooperative learning approach. For four months, the students worked together using brainstorming techniques and collaborative reading and writing tasks. Task emphasis was on development of thinking skills through collaboration…
Towards the Development of a Biliterate Pedagogy: A Case Study of Emerging Biliterate Writing
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Butvilofsky, Sandra Adriana
2010-01-01
More than 60% of children labeled English language learners in U.S. schools today are simultaneous bilinguals, and little is understood about their bilingual and biliterate potential, because theories of sequential bilingualism dominate the field. Most studies exploring bilingual children's writing development have focused almost exclusively on…
Whys and hows of in-house writing
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
Lane, J. C.
1981-01-01
The combining of requisite technical knowledge with requisite writing ability is addressed. Considerations in the development of in-house writing courses, in-plant training, are presented and evaluated. Specific problems in past methodology are also detailed. It is suggested that teachers of technical writing should be technical people themselves, preferably with working experience in industry or business; the training provided should be user-oriented, not theory oriented.
A Developmental Writing Scale. Research Report. ETS RR-08-19
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Attali, Yigal; Powers, Don
2008-01-01
This report describes the development of grade norms for timed-writing performance in two modes of writing: persuasive and descriptive. These norms are based on objective and automatically computed measures of writing quality in grammar, usage, mechanics, style, vocabulary, organization, and development. These measures are also used in the…
Writing: National Results--Writing Mechanics.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Education Commission of the States, Denver, CO.
This is the third National Assessment report on the writing of children aged 9, 13, and 17, and young adults. The three exercises used in the writing assessment were: Age 9: The Forest Fire Exercise; Age 13: The Famous Person Exercise; and Age 17: The Famous Person Exercise. An exercise for young adults (Adults: The Commissioner Stroud Letter)…
Predictors of writing competence in 4- to 7-year-old children.
Dunsmuir, Sandra; Blatchford, Peter
2004-09-01
This longitudinal study sought to improve understanding of the factors at home and school that influence children's attainment and progress in writing between the ages of 4 and 7 years. (i) To investigate the relationship between home variables and writing development in preschool children; (ii) to determine associations between child characteristics and writing development (iii) to conduct an analysis of the areas of continuity and discontinuity between variables at home and at school, and influences on subsequent writing development. Sixty children attending four urban primary schools participated in this study. Semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, observation schedules and standardized assessments were used. Writing samples were collected each term. Associations between measures and continuity over time were assessed using multiple regression analysis. Preschool variables that were found to be significantly associated with writing proficiency at school entry included mother's educational level, family size, parental assessment of writing and a measure of home writing. Child characteristics, skills and competencies were measured at school entry and those found to be significantly associated with writing at 7 years included season of birth, vocabulary score, pre-reading skills, handwriting and proficiency in writing name. The only preschool variable that maintained its significant relationship to writing at 7 years was home writing. Teacher assessments of pupil attitudes to writing were consistently found to be significantly associated with writing competence. This comprehensive study explored the complex interaction of cognitive, affective and contextual processes involved in learning to write, and identified specific features of successful writers. Results are discussed in relation to educational policy and practice issues.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Akcay, Hakan; Hand, Brian; Norton-Meier, Lori
2010-01-01
Science writing opportunities are used as a resource to enable students to understand science concepts. This study represents three different writing-to-learn tasks that enable students to learn science and to demonstrate their developing understanding about the human body system. The teacher and students engaged in a variety of science enquiries…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Porto, Melina
2016-01-01
This article describes a cooperative writing response initiative designed to develop writing skills in foreign/second-language contexts (hereafter L2). The strategy originated from my desire to cater for my learners' need to become better writers in English within a constrained educational environment in Argentina. In this article I describe this…
Theory in/to Practice: Using Dialogic Reflection to Develop a Writing Center Community of Practice
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hall, R. Mark
2011-01-01
Michael Mattison's "Someone to Watch Over Me: Reflection and Authority in the Writing Center" explores the problem of audience for tutors' reflective writing. In Mattison's case, tutoring practices and learning are undermined because reflective writing leads consultants to feel as though they are being spied upon by the writing center director.…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Wilson, Kathleen; Trainin, Guy; Laughridge, Virginia; Brooks, David; Wickless, Mimi
2011-01-01
This study examined first-grade students' journal writing to determine how placing live zoo animals in classrooms for science education links to students' emergent and early writing. Students were asked to write journal entries during the daily language arts period. Although no direct instruction in informational text writing was offered, teachers…
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Chamberlin, Shannon Marie
Scientific literacy is the foundation on which both California's currently adopted science standards and the recommended new standards for science are based (CDE, 2000; NRC, 2011). The Writing for Science Literacy (WSL) curriculum focuses on a series of writing and discussion tasks aimed at increasing students' scientific literacy. These tasks are based on three teaching and learning constructs: thought and language, scaffolding, and meta-cognition. To this end, WSL is focused on incorporating several strategies from the Rhetorical Approach to Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking to engage students in activities designed to increase their scientific literacy; their ability to both identify an author's claim and evidence and to develop their own arguments based on a claim and evidence. Students participated in scaffolded activities designed to strengthen their written and oral discourse, hone their rhetorical skills and improve their meta-cognition. These activities required students to participate in both writing and discussion tasks to create meaning and build their science content knowledge. Students who participated in the WSL curriculum increased their written and oral fluency and were able to accurately write an evidence-based conclusion all while increasing their conceptual knowledge. This finding implies that a discourse rich curriculum can lead to an increase in scientific knowledge.
See, Say, Write: A Writing Routine for the Preschool Classroom
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Copp, Stefanie B.; Cabell, Sonia Q.; Tortorelli, Laura S.
2016-01-01
See, Say, Write is an adaptable classroom writing routine that teachers can use across a range of activities in the preschool classroom. This preschool writing routine offers an opportunity for teachers to build on a shared experience through engagement in rich conversation and writing. After a shared experience, teachers will provide a visual…
Writing for publication Part II--The writing process.
Clarke, L K
1999-01-01
You have selected a topic, gathered resources, and identified your target audience. The next step is to begin to write and organize your ideas. Initiating the actual writing process can be intimidating, especially for a novice author. This portion of the writing for publication series focuses on helping the writer to organize ideas and get started.
Using Popular Culture in Developmental Writing
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Barnes, Sharon L.
2006-01-01
Using popular culture in my developmental writing course has prompted me to reconsider what it means to create successful developmental writing assignments. Having slipped into the questionable habit of assuming that removing complexity makes an assignment appropriate for developing writers, I pared down a fairly open-ended "media…
Writing Plays Using Creative Problem-Solving.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Raiser, Lynne; Hinson, Shirley
1995-01-01
This article describes a project which involved inner city elementary grade children with disabilities in writing and performing their own plays. A four-step playwriting process focuses on theme and character development, problem finding, and writing dialogue. The project has led to improved reading skills, attention, memory skills,…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hampson, Margaret P.
2009-01-01
As part of its Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) reaffirmation process, Caldwell Community College (CCC) and Technical Institute's (TI) Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP), entitled "Enhancing Writing--Write On!" demonstrates the need to improve student writing through multifaceted interventions. The goals of CCC's and TI's…
Integrating Effective Writing Skills in the Accounting Curriculum.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
May, Gordon S.; Arevalo, Claire
1983-01-01
The J. M. Tull School of Accounting at the University of Georgia has developed a program that integrates the teaching of writing skills with the regular accounting courses. Students in a three-course sequence write a total of eight papers--technical, memos, or reports--in assignments that resemble writing tasks encountered by professional…
Writing Matters: Back to the Future with Rhetoric
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Pare, Anthony
2009-01-01
The past four decades have seen dramatic developments in the study and teaching of writing. The result is a body of knowledge about writing that has profound practical and pedagogical implications for teaching, thinking, and learning across the curriculum. This article discusses five things about writing that can have an effect across the…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hussein, Mohamed Abdel Hadi; Al Ashri, Ismail Ibrahim El shirbini Abdel fattah
2013-01-01
The present study aimed at identifying the necessary writing performance skills for the first year secondary stage students. These skills are necessary for writing the compositions. In this study, the writing conferences and peer response groups strategies were used to develop the students' writing skills, improve their achievement and performance…
Reconsiderations: We Got the Wrong Gal--Rethinking the "Bad" Academic Writing of Judith Butler
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Birkenstein, Cathy
2010-01-01
It is hard to think of a writer whose work has been more prominently upheld as an example of bad academic writing than the philosopher and literary theorist Judith Butler. In 1998, Butler was awarded first prize in the annual Bad Writing Contest established by the journal "Philosophy and Literature," and early in 1999, was lampooned in an…
The Utility of Writing Assignments in Undergraduate Bioscience
Libarkin, Julie; Ording, Gabriel
2012-01-01
We tested the hypothesis that engagement in a few, brief writing assignments in a nonmajors science course can improve student ability to convey critical thought about science. A sample of three papers written by students (n = 30) was coded for presence and accuracy of elements related to scientific writing. Scores for different aspects of scientific writing were significantly correlated, suggesting that students recognized relationships between components of scientific thought. We found that students' ability to write about science topics and state conclusions based on data improved over the course of three writing assignments, while the abilities to state a hypothesis and draw clear connections between human activities and environmental impacts did not improve. Three writing assignments generated significant change in student ability to write scientifically, although our results suggest that three is an insufficient number to generate complete development of scientific writing skills. PMID:22383616
2017-01-01
Abstract The aim of the present study was to examine how the social norms shared in a classroom environment influence the development of movement dynamics of handwriting of children who participate in the environment. To look into this issue, the following aspects of the entire period of classroom learning of hiragana letters in Japanese 1st graders who had just entered primary school were studied: First, the structure of classroom events and the specific types of interaction and learning within such environment were described. Second, in the experiment involving 6‐year‐old children who participated in the class, writing movements of children and their changes over the period of hiragana education were analyzed for each stroke composing letters. It was found that writing movement of children became differentiated in a manner specific to the different types of stroke endings, to which children were systematically encouraged to attend in the classroom. The results provide a detailed description of the process of how dynamics of fine motor movement of children is modulated by the social norms of a populated, classroom environment in a non‐Latin alphabet writing system. PMID:28608521
Nonaka, Tetsushi
2017-09-01
The aim of the present study was to examine how the social norms shared in a classroom environment influence the development of movement dynamics of handwriting of children who participate in the environment. To look into this issue, the following aspects of the entire period of classroom learning of hiragana letters in Japanese 1st graders who had just entered primary school were studied: First, the structure of classroom events and the specific types of interaction and learning within such environment were described. Second, in the experiment involving 6-year-old children who participated in the class, writing movements of children and their changes over the period of hiragana education were analyzed for each stroke composing letters. It was found that writing movement of children became differentiated in a manner specific to the different types of stroke endings, to which children were systematically encouraged to attend in the classroom. The results provide a detailed description of the process of how dynamics of fine motor movement of children is modulated by the social norms of a populated, classroom environment in a non-Latin alphabet writing system. © 2017 The Authors. Developmental Psychobiology Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Science Writing and Rhetorical Training: A New Model for Developing Graduate Science Writers
NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Karraker, N. E.; Lofgren, I.; Druschke, C. G.; McWilliams, S. R.; Morton-Aiken, J.; Reynolds, N.
2016-12-01
Graduate programs in the sciences generally offer minimal support for writing and communication, yet there is an increasing need for scientists to engage with the public and policymakers on technological, environmental, and health issues. The traditional focus on gaining particular discipline-related technical skills, coupled with the relegation of writing largely to the end of a student's academic tenure, falls short in equipping them to tackle these challenges. To address this problem, we launched a cross-disciplinary, National Science Foundation-funded training program in rhetoric and writing for science graduate students and faculty at the University of Rhode Island. This innovative program bases curricular and pedagogical support on three central practices, habitual writing, multiple genres, and frequent review, to offer a flexible model of writing training for science graduate students and pedagogical training for faculty that could be adopted in other institutional contexts. Key to the program, called SciWrite@URI, is a unique emphasis on rhetoric, which, we argue, is an essential—but currently lacking—component of science communication education. This new model has the potential to transform graduate education in the sciences by producing graduates who are as adept at the fundamentals of their science as they are at communicating that science to diverse audiences.
The effects of data-driven learning activities on EFL learners' writing development.
Luo, Qinqin
2016-01-01
Data-driven learning has been proved as an effective approach in helping learners solve various writing problems such as correcting lexical or grammatical errors, improving the use of collocations and generating ideas in writing, etc. This article reports on an empirical study in which data-driven learning was accomplished with the assistance of the user-friendly BNCweb, and presents the evaluation of the outcome by comparing the effectiveness of BNCweb and a search engine Baidu which is most commonly used as reference resource by Chinese learners of English as a foreign language. The quantitative results about 48 Chinese college students revealed that the experimental group which used BNCweb performed significantly better in the post-test in terms of writing fluency and accuracy, as compared with the control group which used the search engine Baidu. However, no significant difference was found between the two groups in terms of writing complexity. The qualitative results about the interview revealed that learners generally showed a positive attitude toward the use of BNCweb but there were still some problems of using corpora in the writing process, thus the combined use of corpora and other types of reference resource was suggested as a possible way to counter the potential barriers for Chinese learners of English.
Technical writing practically unified through industry
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
Houston, L. S.
1981-01-01
General background details in the development of a university level technical writing program, based upon the writing tasks of the student's occupations, are summarized. Objectives and methods for unifying the courses of study with the needs of industry are discussed. Four academic course divisions, Industries Technologies, in which preparation and training are offered are: Animal, Horticulture, Agriculture, and Agricultural Business. Occupational competence is cited as the main goal for these programs in which technical writing is to be practically unified through industry. Course descriptions are also provided.
Rethinking Early Childhood Education
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Pelo, Ann, Ed.
2008-01-01
"Rethinking Early Childhood Education" is alive with the conviction that teaching young children involves values and vision. This anthology collects inspiring stories about social justice teaching with young children. Included here is outstanding writing from childcare teachers, early-grade public school teachers, scholars, and parents.…
"Writing Our Stories": An Anti-Violence Creative Writing Program.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Smitherman, Tracy; Thompson, Jeanie
2002-01-01
Juvenile offenders studied creative writing and had their work published in anthologies as part of a therapeutic program that is a partnership between a writers' forum and the Alabama Department of Youth Services. A curriculum was developed to train department staff and writers who participate. (SK)
Getting published: reflections of a collaborative writing group.
Ness, Valerie; Duffy, Kathleen; McCallum, Jacqueline; Price, Lesley
2014-01-01
Writing for publication, in the nursing profession, is considered essential for the development of the profession and individual career advancement. In education there is also the increasing pressure to produce University research output. To develop a collaborative writing group to develop and write articles relating to our teaching practice. The idea of forming a writing group was discussed at a module team meeting where five academics expressed an interest. The process of forming the group involved an initial meeting to discuss and agree to the aims, interests, expertise and areas of responsibility for each member. Regular meetings are held and each member takes on responsibility for an aspect of work towards completing the articles. Three articles and one editorial have been published and another is under peer review. We have endeavoured to develop and maintain a theme, this being supporting nursing students' development with an emphasis on an aspect of their decision making skills. Also, importantly, we have created a supportive environment and friendships. The demands made upon the nurse educator to be clinically, educationally and research active can be difficult to meet. Collaborative writing groups may be one way to fulfil the scholarly activity element. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Early Intervention for Reading Difficulties: The Interactive Strategies Approach
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Scanlon, Donna M.; Anderson, Kimberly L.; Sweeney, Joan M.
2010-01-01
This book presents a research-supported framework for early literacy instruction that aligns with multi-tiered response-to-intervention (RTI) models. The book focuses on giving teachers a better understanding of literacy development and how to effectively support children as they begin to read and write. The authors' interactive strategies…
Is There a "Writing Crisis" in the High School?
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gundlach, Robert A.
1981-01-01
Briefly reviews survey findings on writing achievement, discusses students' difficulties with writing, and suggests that teachers not only provide more opportunities for writing, but help students develop strategies for solving the problems that all writers confront: planning, drafting, revising, and editing. (SJL)
Kim, Sung-Wan; Lee, Ga-Young; Yu, Hye-Young; Jung, Eun-I; Lee, Ju-Yeon; Kim, Seon-Young; Kim, Jae-Min; Shin, Il-Seon; Yoon, Jin-Sang
2017-05-18
This article describes the development of the smartphone application for cognitive-behavioural case management of young individuals with early psychosis and examines the acceptance and potential clinical benefits of this application through a pilot survey. Gwangju Bukgu-Community Mental Health Center developed and launched a smartphone application (Heal Your Mind [HYM]) for cognitive-behavioural case management and symptom monitoring. The HYM application for clients includes 6 main modules including thought record, symptom record, daily life record, official notices, communication and scales. The key module is the "thought record" for self-directed cognitive-behavioural treatment. When the client writes and sends the self-cognitive-behavioural therapy sheet to the case manager, the latter receives a notification and can provide feedback in real time. We conducted a survey to investigate the acceptance and feasibility of this approach among young clients with early psychosis. A total of 24 clients with early psychosis participated in this survey. More than 80% of participants reported that it was easy to learn to use this application, and no one described this application as very complicated or reported that they needed a long time to learn how to use it. About 80% of participants were satisfied with this application, and 70% reported that they received help as a result of using this application. This study suggests that this smartphone application is useful for young individuals with early psychosis and that it may contribute to the development of both young customer- and case manager-friendly systems for this clinical population. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.
The Effect of Using Computer Edutainment on Developing 2nd Primary Graders' Writing Skills
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Mohammed Abdel Raheem, Azza Ashraf
2011-01-01
The present study attempted to examine the effect of using computer edutainment on developing 2nd graders' writing skills. The study comprised thirty-second year primary stage enrolled in Bani Hamad primary governmental school, Minia governorate. The study adopted the quasi-experimental design. Thirty participants were randomly assigned to one…
Early Literacy among Zambian Second Graders: The Role of Adult Mediation of Word Writing in Bemba
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kalindi, Sylvia C.; McBride, Catherine; Dan, Lin
2018-01-01
Considering the importance attached to writing as a life skill, this study investigated the nature and variability of adults' aid to Zambian second graders in the context of shared writing in Bemba (first language), and the relations between this support and students' literacy and cognitive-metalinguistic skills. Fifty-seven children and their…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Kang, Hana
2011-01-01
Chinese writing is one of the most difficult challenges for Chinese learners whose first language writing system is alphabetic letters. Chinese teachers have incorporated computer-based writing into their teaching in the attempt to reduce the difficulties of writing in Chinese, with a particular emphasis on composing (as opposed to simply writing…
Developing a Differentiated Model for the Teaching of Creative Writing to High Performing Students
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Ngo, Thu Thi Bich
2016-01-01
Differentiating writing instruction has been a puzzling matter for English teachers when it comes to teaching creative writing to high potential and high performing (HPHP) students. The lack of differentiation in creative writing pedagogy for HPHP students in Australia is due to two major issues: (1) teachers' lack of high-level linguistic and…
How to Write Effective Resumes and Cover Letters.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Nienkamp, Roger L.
This guide to writing effective resumes and cover letters to employers first emphasizes the value of writing skills in job hunting, and explains what a resume is and why it is important. Next, steps to undertake in preparing to write a resume are reviewed including developing a personal inventory sheet to help determine facts to include in the…
Automated Writing Evaluation Program's Effect on Student Writing Achievement
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Holman, Lester Donnie
2011-01-01
In an ex post facto causal-comparative research design, this study investigated the effectiveness of Automated Writing Evaluation (AWE) programs on raising the student writing achievement. Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) writing achievement scores from the 2010 administration were utilized for this study. The independent variable…
Medical Writing Competency Model - Section 1: Functions, Tasks, and Activities.
Clemow, David B; Wagner, Bertil; Marshallsay, Christopher; Benau, Dan; L'Heureux, Darryl; Brown, David H; Dasgupta, Devjani Ghosh; Girten, Eileen; Hubbard, Frank; Gawrylewski, Helle-Mai; Ebina, Hiroko; Stoltenborg, Janet; York, J P; Green, Kim; Wood, Linda Fossati; Toth, Lisa; Mihm, Michael; Katz, Nancy R; Vasconcelos, Nina-Maria; Sakiyama, Norihisa; Whitsell, Robin; Gopalakrishnan, Shobha; Bairnsfather, Susan; Wanderer, Tatyana; Schindler, Thomas M; Mikyas, Yeshi; Aoyama, Yumiko
2018-01-01
This article provides Section 1 of the 2017 Edition 2 Medical Writing Competency Model that describes the core work functions and associated tasks and activities related to professional medical writing within the life sciences industry. The functions in the Model are scientific communication strategy; document preparation, development, and finalization; document project management; document template, standard, format, and style development and maintenance; outsourcing, alliance partner, and client management; knowledge, skill, ability, and behavior development and sharing; and process improvement. The full Model also includes Section 2, which covers the knowledge, skills, abilities, and behaviors needed for medical writers to be effective in their roles; Section 2 is presented in a companion article. Regulatory, publication, and other scientific writing as well as management of writing activities are covered. The Model was developed to aid medical writers and managers within the life sciences industry regarding medical writing hiring, training, expectation and goal setting, performance evaluation, career development, retention, and role value sharing to cross-functional partners.
Walker, María Rosa; Zúñiga, Denisse; Triviño, Ximena
2012-05-01
Narrative medicine has showed to be a powerful instrument to reinforce relationships, identity, and self-knowledge among health professionals. Subjective issues have been recently recognized as relevant for faculty development in addition to the technical aspects. Since 2006 a creative writing workshop has been included as part of the Diploma in Medical Education at the medical school of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. To describe the experience and results of the creative writing workshop (2006-2010). Descriptive and retrospective study with a qualitative and quantitative design. Thirty-six teachers of the School of Medicine attended a 12-hour workshop. The Kirkpatrick model for evaluation of educational outcomes was used to report the data obtained in the course evaluation survey and in the stories produced. There were positive results at the four levels of Kirkpatrick evaluation model. The learning objectives of the workshop were achieved and 83 stories were created, compiled and published. The creative writing workshop can provide faculty with protected time for reflective practice about academic experiences and produce educational outcomes at different levels of the Kirkpatrick model.
Writing a Review Article: A Graduate Level Writing Class
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Ogunsolu, Omotola O.; Wang, Jamie C.; Hanson, Kenneth
2018-01-01
Despite the importance of scientific writing in a chemists' professional career, their development as scientific writers is often neglected in undergraduate and graduate curricula. Among the courses that do encourage students to generate written documents like proposals, lab reports, or essays, the scientific community rarely benefits from the…
Jiménez, Juan E; Marco, Isaac; Suárez, Natalia; González, Desirée
This study had two purposes: examining the internal structure of the Test Estandarizado para la Evaluación Inicial de la Escritura con Teclado (TEVET; Spanish Keyboarding Writing Test), and analyzing the development of keyboarding skills in Spanish elementary school children with and without learning disabilities (LD) in writing. A group of 1,168 elementary school children carried out the following writing tasks: writing the alphabet in order from memory, allograph selection, word copying, writing dictated words with inconsistent spelling, writing pseudowords from dictation, and independent composition of sentence. For this purpose, exploratory factor analysis for the TEVET was conducted. Principal component analysis with a varimax rotation identified three factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.0. Based on factorial analysis, we analyzed the keyboarding skills across grades in Spanish elementary school children with and without LD (i.e., poor handwriters compared with poor spellers, who in turn were compared with mixed compared with typically achieving writers). The results indicated that poor handwriters did not differ from typically achieving writers in phonological processing, visual-orthographic processing, and sentence production components by keyboarding. The educational implications of the findings are analyzed with regard to acquisition of keyboarding skills in children with and without LD in transcription.
Taiwanese Early Childhood Educators' Professional Development
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hsu, Ching-Yun
2008-01-01
This study was designed based on a qualitative paradigm to explore the professional development of Taiwanese early childhood educators. The method of phenomenology was employed. The main research question addressed was "How do early childhood educators construe their professional development experience?" Seven Taiwanese early childhood…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Galbraith, Jessica
2014-01-01
This study investigated the impact of a self-regulation writing intervention program on the writing self-efficacy and persuasive writing achievement of ninth and tenth grade students. In addition, this study explored whether gender differences in writing may be addressed by the type of writing program that is implemented. Limited empirical studies…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Inkster, Robert P.
The notion of "Personal Writing" has come under sustained attack from several different directions and for a variety of reasons, yet it is a concept that still retains usefulness for writing instructors. One problem with personal writing is that frequently students do not like it or feel it invades their privacy, despite the traditional…
Effective Writing in the Workplace: A Writing Workshop.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Consol, Colleen
This document is the instructor's edition of a learning module that is designed to be presented as an 8-hour workshop to help workers master the skills needed for effective writing in the workplace. It was developed by educators from the Emily Griffith Opportunity School. The workshop materials are designed to enable participants to do the…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Warnock, Scott; Kahn, Michael
2007-01-01
While the importance of "expressive writing," or informal, self-directed writing, has been well established, teachers underutilize it, particularly in technical writing courses. We introduce the term expressive/exploratory technical writing (XTW), which is the use of informal, self-directed writing to problem-solve in technical fields. We describe…
Early Years Practitioners' Views on Early Personal, Social and Emotional Development
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Aubrey, Carol; Ward, Karen
2013-01-01
Current policy guidance stresses the need for early identification of obstacles to learning and appropriate intervention. New standards for learning (Early Years Foundation Stage) place personal, social and emotional development (PSED) as central to learning and development. This paper reports a survey and follow-up interviews with early years…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Leander, Kevin M.
2000-01-01
Looks at online writing centers and their multiple relations to cyber spaces and physical places, as well as to institutional and cultural practices. Notes proliferation of online writing centers, hybrid relations of online and offline writing centers, relation of online writing centers to classrooms, transforming space and practice in online…
Authors "in Residence" Make Writing Fun! Online Mentors Help Fourth Graders Compose Original Stories
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Hagins, Chelsea; Austin, Jackie; Jones, Raven; Timmons, Taylor
2004-01-01
Chelsea pointed to four sentences on her computer screen. "Am I done, Mrs. Weeg?" Writing was not her favorite activity. She and five other fourth-grade classmates were in the early stages of writing a story in the global classroom. For the past four years, 12 students at Delmar Elementary School have taken part in this online mentoring program,…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
C¸etin, Pinar Seda; Eymur, Gülüzar
2017-01-01
In this study, we employed a new instructional model that helps students develop scientific writing and presentation skills. Argument-driven inquiry (ADI) is one of the most novel instructional models that emphasizes the role of argumentation and inquiry in science education equally. This is an exploratory study where five ADI lab activities take…
The Development of Writing Habitus: A Ten-Year Case Study of a Young Writer
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Compton-Lilly, Catherine
2014-01-01
Peter, an African American writer from a low-income community, is followed across a 10-year period as he progresses from first grade through high school. Drawing on writing samples and interviews, the author identifies a set of interrelated dispositions that contribute to his development of "habitus" as a writer. This article considers…
Supervising Writing: Helping Postgraduate Students Develop as Researchers
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Lee, Anne; Murray, Rowena
2015-01-01
Research and enquiry skills are increasingly required of students at all levels of the higher education curriculum, and this requires a sophisticated pedagogical response. The question is: how can we integrate current knowledge about academic writing with current knowledge about supervision? This article integrates different approaches to writing…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Vyatkina, Nina
2012-01-01
This study explores the development of multiple dimensions of linguistic complexity in the writing of beginning learners of German both as a group and as individuals. The data come from an annotated, longitudinal learner corpus. The development of lexicogrammatical complexity is explored at 2 intersections: (a) between cross-sectional trendlines…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Miley, Michelle L.
2013-01-01
This study explores the use of online writing studios housed in the University Writing Center and attached to a Writing in the Disciplines course in the College of Technology and a First Year Composition program. The original goal of the online writing studio, modified from Grego and Thompson's (2009) writing studio approach, was to create an…
Peake, Christian; Diaz, Alicia; Artiles, Ceferino
This study examined the relationship and degree of predictability that the fluency of writing the alphabet from memory and the selection of allographs have on measures of fluency and accuracy of spelling in a free-writing sentence task when keyboarding. The Test Estandarizado para la Evaluación de la Escritura con Teclado ("Spanish Keyboarding Writing Test"; Jiménez, 2012) was used as the assessment tool. A sample of 986 children from Grades 1 through 3 were classified according to transcription skills measured by keyboard ability (poor vs. good) across the grades. Results demonstrated that fluency in writing the alphabet and selecting allographs mediated the differences in spelling between good and poor keyboarders in the free-writing task. Execution in the allograph selection task and writing alphabet from memory had different degrees of predictability in each of the groups in explaining the level of fluency and spelling in the free-writing task sentences, depending on the grade. These results suggest that early assessment of writing by means of the computer keyboard can provide clues and guidelines for intervention and training to strengthen specific skills to improve writing performance in the early primary grades in transcription skills by keyboarding.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Patrick, Amy M.
2010-01-01
This article examines ways in which the fundamentals of both writing studies and sustainability studies overlap and complement each other, ultimately moving toward a theory of writing that not only is sustainable, but that also sustains writing practice across a variety of areas. For example, in order to be sustainable, both writing and…
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Rothschild, Jeffrey
In writing, as with tools, form must always follow function. From this perspective there can be no "good" writing, only effective writing. Unfortunately, in most instructional situations the function of communicating to an audience is often neglected. Most so-called poor writing falls into the category of writer-based prose. Once student writing…
Blogging as a Means of Crafting Writing
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Lacina, Jan; Griffith, Robin
2013-01-01
The purpose of this article is to explore ways in which blogs can support literacy communities while developing a writing community. Examples of how a classroom teacher uses blogs to strengthen the writing process is described. (Contains 2 figures and 1 table.)
Writing for professional publication. Part 6: writing the abstract.
Fowler, John
How to get your work published is the essence of this series on writing for professional publication. The first four articles focused on the preparation required before you start writing a potential article, and the previous article examined the importance of creating interest in the reader's mind. In this sixth part of the series, John Fowler, an experienced nursing lecturer and author, discusses the importance of writing the abstract. It examines the content to include and also the importance of writing it in a way which encourages others to read the full article.
Unpacking the Value of Writing: Exploring College Students' Perceptions of Writing
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Zumbrunn, Sharon; Carter, Yvette M.; Conklin, Sarah
2014-01-01
This study explored college students' beliefs about the value of writing, their past experiences with writing, and the relationship between students' prior experiences with writing and writing value beliefs. One hundred fourteen undergraduates from a public Southeastern university participated in the study. Using expectancy-value theory as a…
Language Supports for Journal Abstract Writing across Disciplines
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Liou, H.-C.; Yang, P.-C.; Chang, J. S.
2012-01-01
Various writing assistance tools have been developed through efforts in the areas of natural language processing with different degrees of success of curriculum integration depending on their functional rigor and pedagogical designs. In this paper, we developed a system, WriteAhead, that provides six types of suggestions when non-native graduate…
Using Structured Questions To Improve Writing Self Evaluation.
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Feagans, Heather
1994-01-01
A second-grade teacher wanted to enable her students to look at several pieces of their own writing, pick the best piece, and write an explanation as to why it was chosen. She began by developing a series of probing questions that the students could ask themselves as they evaluated their own writing. So that students could fully understand the…
Writing Signed Languages: What For? What Form?
Grushkin, Donald A
2017-01-01
Signed languages around the world have tended to maintain an "oral," unwritten status. Despite the advantages of possessing a written form of their language, signed language communities typically resist and reject attempts to create such written forms. The present article addresses many of the arguments against written forms of signed languages, and presents the potential advantages of writing signed languages. Following a history of the development of writing in spoken as well as signed language populations, the effects of orthographic types upon literacy and biliteracy are explored. Attempts at writing signed languages have followed two primary paths: "alphabetic" and "icono-graphic." It is argued that for greatest congruency and ease in developing biliteracy strategies in societies where an alphabetic script is used for the spoken language, signed language communities within these societies are best served by adoption of an alphabetic script for writing their signed language.
Autobiographical Writing in the Technical Writing Course
ERIC Educational Resources Information Center
Gellis, Mark
2011-01-01
Professionals in the workplace are rarely asked to write autobiographical essays. Such essays, however, are an excellent tool for helping students explore their growth as professionals. This article explores the use of such essays in a technical writing class.