Sample records for helping students write

  1. Helping Students with Disabilities Succeed in State and District Writing Assessments. ERIC/OSEP Digest.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Warger, Cynthia

    This digest offers guidelines to help teachers prepare students with disabilities to succeed on state and district writing assessments. Teachers are urged to use the three principles of effective writing instruction: (1) use a basic framework of planning, writing, and revision; (2) instruct students in steps of the writing process and the features…

  2. Toward understanding writing to learn in physics: Investigating student writing

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Demaree, Dedra

    It is received wisdom that writing in a discipline helps students learn the discipline, and millions of dollars have been committed at many universities to supporting such writing. We show that evidence for effectiveness is anecdotal, and that little data-based material informs these prejudices. This thesis begins the process of scientific study of writing in the discipline, in specific, in physics, and creates means to judge whether such writing is effective. The studies culminating in this thesis are an aggressive start to addressing these complex questions. Writing is often promoted as an activity that, when put into classrooms in specific disciplines, not only helps students learn to write in the methods of that discipline but also helps students learn content knowledge. Students at the Ohio State University are being asked to write more in introductory courses, and the Engineering schools want their students to have more writing skills for the job market. Combined with the desire of many educators to have students be able to explain the course content knowledge clearly, it would seem that writing activities would be important and useful in physics courses. However, the question of whether writing helps learning or whether students learn writing within a non-English classroom helps learning in the discipline are open to debate, and data are needed before such claims can be made. This thesis presents several studies aimed at understanding the correlation of writing and content, and tracking and characterizing student writing behaviors to see how they are impacted by writing in physics courses. It consists of four parts: summer and autumn 2005 focus on writing in introductory physics labs with and without explicit instruction, while winter and spring 2006 focus on tracking and analyzing student writing and revising behavior in Physics by Inquiry (PbI). With these related projects, we establish three main results. First, there is a need for quantitative studies of 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.)

  3. Dyslexia, Authorial Identity, and Approaches to Learning and Writing: A Mixed Methods Study

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kinder, Julianne; Elander, James

    2012-01-01

    Background: Dyslexia may lead to difficulties with academic writing as well as reading. The authorial identity approach aims to help students improve their academic writing and avoid unintentional plagiarism, and could help to understand dyslexic students' approaches to writing. Aims: (1) To compare dyslexic and non-dyslexic students' authorial…

  4. A Dose of Writing Reality: Helping Students become Better Writers

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Thompson, Christine Love

    2011-01-01

    When teachers are overly focused on the teaching of grammar instead of the teaching of writing, students' quality of work suffers. Teachers should provide examples of writer's craft and author's voice to help students learn how to write their own stories.

  5. Reaching Resistant Youth through Writing.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Skramstad, Teresa

    1998-01-01

    A teacher recounts her experiences with students who were successful telling their stories through writing and using their writing as a vehicle for expressing their emotions. Explains how helping students "find their voices" through writing can crack tough exteriors and help youth reconnect to school and themselves. (Author/MKA)

  6. Investigation Report on the Teaching of Practical English Writing of English Majors

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Liu, Xiaojuan

    2010-01-01

    The practical writing course aims at helping students have a comprehensive understanding of writing subjects and improve their abilities of analyzing and understanding texts. This paper has explored how writing textbooks are used in the writing course and pointed out that the aim should be to help students improve their ability of analysis and…

  7. Map It Then Write It

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lott, Kimberly; Read, Sylvia

    2015-01-01

    All writing begins with ideas, but young students often need visual cues to help them organize their thoughts before beginning to write. For this reason, many elementary teachers use graphic organizers or thinking maps to help students visualize patterns and organize their ideas within the different genres of writing. Graphic organizers such as…

  8. Until I Write It Down

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bambrick-Santoyo, Paul; Chiger, Stephen

    2017-01-01

    Part of helping students learn to read critically and with comprehension is guiding them to use writing to help think through the content and clarify what they understand--or don't. Looking at students' writing also helps teachers see how much learners are really understanding in their reading and where exactly any learner is struggling. After…

  9. Professional Writing in the English Classroom: Professional Collaborative Writing--Teaching, Writing, and Learning--Together.

    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"…

  10. High School Student Perceptions of First Language Literacy Instruction: Implications for Second Language Writing.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kobayashi, Hiroe; Rinnert, Carol

    2002-01-01

    Investigated Japanese students' first language (L1) writing experience and instruction received in high school in order to help their university English-as-a-Second-Language writing teachers understand their needs. Analysis of interview data suggests ways teachers can draw on students' strengths in terms of their literacy background to help them…

  11. The composing process in technical communications

    NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

    Hertz, V. L.

    1981-01-01

    The theoretical construct under which technical writing exercises operate and results from a survey distributed to a random sample of teachers of technical writing are described. The survey, part of a study to develop materials that did not stress prescriptive formats, drew on diverse elements in report writing to enhance writing as a process. Areas of agreement and disagreement related to problem solving, paper evaluation, and individualizing instruction were surveyed. Areas of concern in contemplating the composition process include: (1) the need to create an environment that helps students want to succeed, (2) the role of peer group activity in helping some students who might not respond through lecture or individual study, and (3) encouraging growth in abilities and helping motivate students' interest in writing projects through relevant assignments or simulations students perceive as relevant.

  12. 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…

  13. The Effectiveness of Internet-Based Peer Feedback Training on Chinese EFL College Students' Writing Proficiency

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Jiang, Jiahong; Yu, Yibing

    2014-01-01

    English writing, an indispensable skill in English learning, plays an important role in improving learners' language proficiency. With the wide spread and use of wired or wireless internet, EFL students can easily help and be helped with English writing. Therefore, the application of internet-based peer feedback training on writing to foreign or…

  14. Writing a Movie.

    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,…

  15. The Writing Experiences and Beliefs of Secondary Teacher Candidates

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Daisey, Peggy

    2009-01-01

    Writing affords students an opportunity to clarify their thinking. Through the process of writing, students recognize what they know and what they still need to learn. Teachers need to provide positive writing experiences that promote student enjoyment, as well as help students to express themselves with clarity and power. The ability of a teacher…

  16. Queering College Writing: Writing Students' Learning of LGB Issues Using the Internet as an Instructional Tool

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Burnes, Theodore R.

    2007-01-01

    How do writing teachers use technology to help students learn about lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) issues? What is the nature of writing students' learning about LGB sexual orientations and academic writing when the Internet is used as a learning tool? Participants completed a questionnaire in which they reflected on a writing assignment…

  17. 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…

  18. Helping Students Write about Science without Plagiarizing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wheeler-Toppen, Jodi

    2006-01-01

    Writing is an integral part of science. The growth of scientific knowledge depends on scientists' ability to record their thoughts and discoveries for future scientists to build on. Everyday literacy is the basis of scientific literacy. In addition, writing about science helps students learn science. In order to transfer science concepts from what…

  19. Helping Students Analyze Business Documents.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Devet, Bonnie

    2001-01-01

    Notes that student writers gain greater insight into the importance of audience by analyzing business documents. Discusses how business writing teachers can help students understand the rhetorical refinements of writing to an audience. Presents an assignment designed to lead writers systematically through an analysis of two advertisements. (SG)

  20. How to Write "How-to" Books with High School Ecology & Horticulture Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Merritt, Maya; Shajira, Natasya; Daisey, Peggy

    2003-01-01

    It is essential for students to think clearly about fundamental biological concepts. One of the benefits of writing is that it promotes and enhances thinking. If students can write clearly, they are thinking clearly. Writing helps to connect new knowledge with prior knowledge and promotes the construction of knowledge. Writing-to-learn activities…

  1. The laboratory report: A pedagogical tool in college science courses

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Ferzli, Miriam

    When viewed as a product rather than a process that aids in student learning, the lab report may become rote, busywork for both students and instructors. Students fail to see the purpose of the lab report, and instructors see them as a heavy grading load. If lab reports are taught as part of a process rather than a product that aims to "get the right answer," they may serve as pedagogical tools in college science courses. In response to these issues, an in-depth, web-based tutorial named LabWrite (www.ncsu.edu/labwrite) was developed to help students and instructors (www.ncsu.edu/labwrite/instructors) understand the purpose of the lab report as grounded in the written discourse and processes of science. The objective of this post-test only quasi-experimental study was to examine the role that in-depth instruction such as LabWrite plays in helping students to develop skills characteristic of scientifically literate individuals. Student lab reports from an introductory-level biology course at NC State University were scored for overall understanding of scientific concepts and scientific ways of thinking. The study also looked at students' attitudes toward science and lab report writing, as well as students' perceptions of lab reports in general. Significant statistical findings from this study show that students using LabWrite were able to write lab reports that showed a greater understanding of scientific investigations (p < .003) and scientific ways of thinking (p < .0001) than students receiving traditional lab report writing instruction. LabWrite also helped students develop positive attitudes toward lab reports as compared to non-LabWrite users (p < .01). Students using LabWrite seemed to perceive the lab report as a valuable tool for determining learning objectives, understanding science concepts, revisiting the lab experience, and documenting their learning.

  2. The Effectiveness of Adopting E-Readers to Facilitate EFL Students' Process-Based Academic Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hung, Hui-Chun; Young, Shelley Shwu-Ching

    2015-01-01

    English as Foreign Language (EFL) students face additional difficulties for academic writing largely due to their level of language competency. An appropriate structural process of writing can help students develop their academic writing skills. This study explored the use of the e-readers to facilitate EFL students' process-based academic…

  3. Dyslexia, authorial identity, and approaches to learning and writing: a mixed methods study.

    PubMed

    Kinder, Julianne; Elander, James

    2012-06-01

    Dyslexia may lead to difficulties with academic writing as well as reading. The authorial identity approach aims to help students improve their academic writing and avoid unintentional plagiarism, and could help to understand dyslexic students' approaches to writing. (1) To compare dyslexic and non-dyslexic students' authorial identity and approaches to learning and writing; (2) to compare correlations between approaches to writing and approaches to learning among dyslexic and non-dyslexic students; (3) to explore dyslexic students' understandings of authorship and beliefs about dyslexia, writing and plagiarism. Dyslexic (n= 31) and non-dyslexic (n= 31) university students. Questionnaire measures of self-rated confidence in writing, understanding of authorship, knowledge to avoid plagiarism, and top-down, bottom-up and pragmatic approaches to writing (Student Authorship Questionnaire; SAQ), and deep, surface and strategic approaches to learning (Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students; ASSIST), plus qualitative interviews with dyslexic students with high and low SAQ scores. Dyslexic students scored lower for confidence in writing, understanding authorship, and strategic approaches to learning, and higher for surface approaches to learning. Correlations among SAQ and ASSIST scores were larger and more frequently significant among non-dyslexic students. Self-rated knowledge to avoid plagiarism was associated with a top-down approach to writing among dyslexic students and with a bottom-up approach to writing among non-dyslexic students. All the dyslexic students interviewed described how dyslexia made writing more difficult and reduced their confidence in academic writing, but they had varying views about whether dyslexia increased the risk of plagiarism. Dyslexic students have less strong authorial identities, and less congruent approaches to learning and writing. Knowledge to avoid plagiarism may be more salient for dyslexic students, who may benefit from specific interventions to increase confidence in writing and understanding of authorship. Further research could investigate how dyslexic students develop approaches to academic writing, and how that could be affected by perceived knowledge to avoid plagiarism. ©2011 The British Psychological Society.

  4. Improvement of Writing at Grades 10 and 11: Does Automated Essay Scoring Software Help Students Improve Their Writing Skills?

    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…

  5. Laptops and Inspired Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Warschauer, Mark; Arada, Kathleen; Zheng, Binbin

    2010-01-01

    Can daily access to laptop computers help students become better writers? Are such programs affordable? Evidence from the Inspired Writing program in Littleton Public Schools, Colorado, USA, provides a resounding yes to both questions. The program employs student netbooks, open-source software, cloud computing, and social media to help students in…

  6. Rubric Use in Formative Assessment: A Detailed Behavioral Rubric Helps Students Improve Their Scientific Writing Skills

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Greenberg, Kathleen P.

    2015-01-01

    A detailed rubric initially designed as a scoring instrument for grading APA-style empirical research reports was tested for its ability to help students improve their scientific writing skills. Students who used the rubric while preparing their reports wrote a higher quality report than did students who did not. Students also improved the quality…

  7. Mini-Thesis Writing Course for International Graduate Students.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wyatt-Brown, Anne M.

    An approach to teaching academic writing to foreign graduate students at the University of Florida is described. The course combines general and technical writing assignments to sharpen students' critical thinking skills while improving their organizational techniques and editing strategies. Assignments are designed to help students discover the…

  8. 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…

  9. The Impact of Digital Tools on Student Writing and How Writing Is Taught in Schools

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Purcell, Kristen; Buchanan, Judy; Friedrich, Linda

    2013-01-01

    A survey of 2,462 Advanced Placement (AP) and National Writing Project (NWP) teachers finds that digital technologies are shaping student writing in myriad ways and have also become helpful tools for teaching writing to middle and high school students. These teachers see the internet and digital technologies such as social networking sites, cell…

  10. Of Groomers and Tour Guides: The Role of Writing in the Fellowships Office

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bickford, Leslie

    2017-01-01

    Making writing less scary for students and focusing on the messy, recursive nature of writing helps students use the writing process to bring forth the thoughts that might otherwise not find their way into essays. Students who revisit their writing also revisit their thinking and are empowered to cultivate and articulate that thinking in clearer…

  11. Writing across the Curriculum: A Hermeneutic Study of Students' Experiences in Writing in Food Science Education

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dzurec, David J.; Dzurec, Laura Cox

    2005-01-01

    Writing can enhance learning by helping students put words to their thinking about course material. The purposes of this study were to assess the influence of a structured academic journal writing exercise on student learning in a food science class and to examine student responses to the experience. Hermeneutics, a philosophy of science and…

  12. 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…

  13. Creating Science Picture Books for an Authentic Audience

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    DeFauw, Danielle L.; Saad, Klodia

    2014-01-01

    This article presents an authentic writing opportunity to help ninth-grade students use the writing process in a science classroom to write and illustrate picture books for fourth-grade students to demonstrate and share their understanding of a biology unit on cells. By creating a picture book, students experience the writing process, understand…

  14. Some Characteristics and Writing Problems of Technically Oriented Students.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ruehr, Ruthann

    An understanding of the writing problems and personalities of some of the technically oriented students at Michigan Technological University may help others who teach similar students. Although their scores on aptitude tests are high, these students have had very little experience in writing. In addition, the majority of the students have had very…

  15. Making Economic Principles Personal: Student Journals and Reflection Papers

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Brewer, Stephanie M.; Jozefowicz, James J.

    2006-01-01

    The authors address two informal writing assignments implemented in introductory economics classes. One assignment involves students writing short reflection papers, and the other assignment involves students writing short journal entries for a designated period of time. Both assignments are designed to help students realize that economics is…

  16. Rethinking the Research Paper in the Writing Center.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    McDonald, James C.

    1994-01-01

    Discusses the problems presented to writing center tutors by traditional research paper assignments. Recounts typical definitions of student research papers according to current-traditional rhetoric. Advocates writing centers helping students transform research papers into meaning-making activities in which students construct knowledge. (HB)

  17. 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)

  18. Harmonizing the Writing Process with Music Training Techniques

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Riecken, Nancy

    2009-01-01

    Can music help students become better thinkers and writers? Over the past three years, the author has incorporated some basic music training techniques in her classrooms to help her teach the writing process to students who would otherwise click her off. The students have developed clearer thinking and organizational skills, and have increased…

  19. Helping Writers Find Power

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Anderson, Jeff

    2006-01-01

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

  20. A Writing Template for Probing Students' Botanical Sense of Place

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wandersee, James H.; Clary, Renee M.; Guzman, Sandra M.

    2006-01-01

    Writing can be a powerful tool for learning biology. Writing assignments in biology could help students personalize and understand the biology knowledge they are studying. In this article, the authors present the "Botanical Sense of Place" (BSP), a convenient and easy-to-use writing template that they developed to elicit and probe students' prior…

  1. The Impact of Blog-Style Writing on Student Learning Outcomes: A Pilot Study

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hansen, Holley E.

    2016-01-01

    Two major goals of teaching include educating students to communicate effectively and encouraging students to critically engage with information. To what extent can student blog writing help us achieve these goals? In this pilot study, I analyze how short "blog-style" writing assignments compare to more traditional short research essays…

  2. "Argument!" Helping Students Understand What Essay Writing Is About

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wingate, Ursula

    2012-01-01

    Argumentation is a key requirement of the essay, which is the most common genre that students have to write. However, how argumentation is realised in disciplinary writing is often poorly understood by academic tutors, and therefore not adequately taught to students. This paper presents research into undergraduate students' concepts of argument…

  3. Writing To Be Read. Revised Second Edition.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Macrorie, Ken

    The free-writing program presented in this book and illustrated with student writing samples emphasizes student writing which is alive and valuable and which is to be read by real persons, who respond. New material in this second edition focuses especially on these points, in three chapters: writing in and for a group of helping commenters…

  4. Reading in the Writing Class: Conventions, Socialization, and Revision.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Werner, Warren W.

    On the premise that the kind of writing done in business and technical writing classes is a social act, the business and technical writing courses at Auburn University (Alabama) use peer interaction, revision, and audience awareness to help students become aware of and internalize the conventions of writing. Students are required to read each…

  5. Helping Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder Express Their Thoughts and Knowledge in Writing: Tips and Exercises for Developing Writing Skills

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    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.…

  6. Social Motives for Writing Psychology: Writing for and with Younger Readers.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Vipond, Douglas

    1993-01-01

    Describes a cooperative writing project involving a college-level psychology class and a ninth-grade English class. Discusses different concepts of psychology held by the two student groups. Concludes with suggestions for improving writing skills and helping students become more authoritative writers. (CFR)

  7. The Good Writing Guide for Education Students. Second Edition

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wyse, Dominic

    2007-01-01

    Whether you are returning to studying after a break, or need help adjusting your writing skills to meet the needs of your education course, this practical, down-to-earth guide will help you improve your literacy skills. Aimed specifically at students in education courses, this book uses examples of students' work to highlight common problems, and…

  8. Teaching with Your Librarian: Reading About Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Meagher, Sandy

    2005-01-01

    This document contains some book suggestions to help introduce all the various parts of writing. Helping students understand figures of speech takes more than a book ? it takes a creative teacher and interested students. One book that teachers and students have had a great time with is Monkey Business by Wallace Edwards, (Kids Can Press, 2004,…

  9. The Impact of Interactive Whiteboard Technology on Medical Students' Achievement in ESL Essay Writing: An Early Study in Egypt

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Albaaly, Emad; Higgins, Steven

    2012-01-01

    This study investigated the impact of the interactive whiteboard on Egyptian medical students' achievement in essay writing in English as a second language (ESL). First, the writing micro-skills judged essential to help these students improve their essay writing were identified, using a questionnaire which investigated experts' views. This gave…

  10. The Deference Due the Oracle: Computerized Text Analysis in a Basic Writing Class.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Otte, George

    1989-01-01

    Describes how a computerized text analysis program can help students discover error patterns in their writing, and notes how students' responses to analyses can reduce errors and improve their writing. (MM)

  11. Writing and Computing across the USM Chemistry Curriculum

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Gordon, Nancy R.; Newton, Thomas A.; Rhodes, Gale; Ricci, John S.; Stebbins, Richard G.; Tracy, Henry J.

    2001-01-01

    The faculty of the University of Southern Maine believes the ability to communicate effectively is one of the most important skills required of successful chemists. To help students achieve that goal, the faculty has developed a Writing and Computer Program consisting of writing and computer assignments of gradually increasing sophistication for all our laboratory courses. The assignments build in complexity until, at the junior level, students are writing full journal-quality laboratory reports. Computer assignments also increase in difficulty as students attack more complicated subjects. We have found the program easy to initiate and our part-time faculty concurs as well. The Writing and Computing across the Curriculum Program also serves to unite the entire chemistry curriculum. We believe the program is helping to reverse what the USM chemistry faculty and other educators have found to be a steady deterioration in the writing skills of many of today's students.

  12. Beyond Checklists and Rubrics: Engaging Students in Authentic Conversations about Their Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dawson, Christine M.

    2009-01-01

    Authentic discussions about writing are the sorts of conversations that professional or experienced writers might have, where writers explore purpose, effect, clarity, and interpretation. These discussions help students develop "writing skills and strategies because students are able to work at progressively higher levels with the guidance and…

  13. Dialogizing Response in the Writing Classroom: Students Answer Back.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Gay, Pamela

    1998-01-01

    Notes that while informed teachers of writing have moved toward more dialogic approaches, they still have colonial tendencies when responding to student writing. Suggests an activity that invites students to talk back to the teacher-reader as a means of helping them move more effectively toward revision. (PA)

  14. Diversity Revisited, or Composition's Alien History.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bender, Daniel

    1993-01-01

    Argues that certain "ancient" writing practices can help attain the objective of making writing instruction truly democratic. Outlines key features in the discredited "old history" of composition to adduce ways of helping students think, feel, and write in heterogeneous ways. (HB)

  15. Effect of Direct Grammar Instruction on Student Writing Skills

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Robinson, Lisa; Feng, Jay

    2016-01-01

    Grammar Instruction has an important role to play in helping students to speak and write more effectively. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of direct grammar instruction on the quality of student's writing skills. The participants in this study included 18 fifth grade students and two fifth grade teachers. Based on the results…

  16. A Class Exercise in Proofreading: Getting Students To Read What They Write.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Conely, James

    Since students enter college with a basic knowledge of the mechanics of writing, including grammar, spelling, and punctuation, most student writing mistakes amount to a failure to see what they have actually written. Thus, instructors must help students to apply knowledge they already have and to see their own errors through careful proofreading.…

  17. Perceptions of Memo Quality: A Case Study of Engineering Practitioners, Professors, and Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Amare, Nicole; Brammer, Charlotte

    2005-01-01

    One goal of college technical writing courses is to prepare students for real-world writing situations. Business writing textbooks function similarly, using guidelines, sample assignments, and model documents to help students develop rhetorical strategies to use in the workplace. Students attend class, or read and perform exercises in a textbook,…

  18. See It, Be It, Write It: Using Performing Arts to Improve Writing Skills and Test Scores

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Blecher-Sass, Hope Sara; Moffitt, Maryellen

    2010-01-01

    Improve students' writing skills and boost their assessment scores while adding arts education, creativity, and fun to your writing curriculum. With this vibrant resource, improving writing skills goes hand-in-hand with improving test scores. Students learn how to use acting and visualization as prewriting activities to help them connect writing…

  19. Helping Preservice Teachers Learn to Assess Writing: Practice and Feedback in a Web-Based Environment

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dempsey, Michael S.; PytlikZillig, Lisa M.; Bruning, Roger H.

    2009-01-01

    Writing is a highly valued skill that is often neglected in the classroom; one reason is that teachers often do not receive adequate training in writing assessment and instruction. Teachers, particularly preservice teachers, need practice making detailed assessments of student writing and to build their confidence for assessing student writing,…

  20. Using Writing Tasks to Elicit Adolescents' Historical Reasoning

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Monte-Sano, Chauncey; De La Paz, Susan

    2012-01-01

    One path to improving adolescents' literacy skills is to integrate reading and writing into the content areas in which such work occurs. Although argumentative writing has been found to help students understand historical content and transform information, scholars do not know the influence of specific task structures on students' writing or…

  1. Writing to Learn by Learning to Write during the School Science Laboratory: Helping Middle and High School Students Develop Argumentative Writing Skills as They Learn Core Ideas

    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…

  2. Is There a Hemingway in the House?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Schmidt, Laurel

    2004-01-01

    Creative warm-up activities help most of the articulate students who hate writing and unblock the most reluctant writers. Some of the warm-up activities for students in elementary grades that help in taking the fright out of writing, or just reduce the initial resistance are described.

  3. Procedures for Obtaining and Analyzing Writing Samples of School-Age Children and Adolescents.

    PubMed

    Price, Johanna R; Jackson, Sandra C

    2015-10-01

    Many students' writing skills are below grade-level expectations, and students with oral language difficulties are at particular risk for writing difficulties. Speech-language pathologists' (SLPs') expertise in language applies to both the oral and written modalities, yet evidence suggests that SLPs' confidence regarding writing assessment is low. Writing samples are a clinically useful, criterion-referenced assessment technique that is relevant to helping students satisfy writing-related requirements of the Common Core State Standards (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010a). This article provides recommendations for obtaining and analyzing students' writing samples. In this tutorial, the authors provide a comprehensive literature review of methods regarding (a) collection of writing samples from narrative, expository (informational/explanatory), and persuasive (argument) genres; (b) variables of writing performance that are useful to assess; and (c) manual and computer-aided techniques for analyzing writing samples. The authors relate their findings to expectations for writing skills expressed in the Common Core State Standards (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010a). SLPs can readily implement many techniques for obtaining and analyzing writing samples. The information in this article provides SLPs with recommendations for the use of writing samples and may help increase SLPs' confidence regarding written language assessment.

  4. Teaching Content with the Help of Writing across the Curriculum

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Peterson, Shelley Stagg

    2007-01-01

    Throughout the decades, writing has been recognized as a process that helps learners to think more deeply about ideas and information they encounter through reading, listening, viewing, and physically experiencing the world around them. "Discovery writing," the type of writing over which students have some control of the format, topic, purpose,…

  5. 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…

  6. The writing process: A powerful approach for the language-disabled student.

    PubMed

    Moulton, J R; Bader, M S

    1985-01-01

    Our understanding of the writing process can be a powerful tool for teaching language-disabled students the "how" of writing. Direct, explicit instruction in writing process helps these students learn to explore their ideas and to manage the multiple demands of writing. A case study of one student, Jeff, demonstrates how we structure the stages of writing: prewriting, planning, drafting, revising, and proofreading. When these stages are clearly defined and involve specific skills, language-disabled students can reach beyond their limitations and strengthen their expression. The case study of Jeff reveals the development of his sense of control and his regard for himself as a writer.

  7. "I'll Take Commas for $200": An Instructional Intervention Using Games to Help Students Master Grammar Skills

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bullard, Sue Burzynski; Anderson, Nancy

    2014-01-01

    Effective writing requires mastering grammar. For journalists, this mastery is critical because research shows poor grammar erodes media credibility. College writing instructors say students do not understand basic grammar concepts, and greater numbers of students are enrolling in remedial writing classes. This quasi-experimental mixed methods…

  8. 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…

  9. ESLl Teachers' Knowledge of and Experience with Written Corrective Feedback

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Cao, Peihong

    2017-01-01

    Written Corrective Feedback (WCF) in writing classes is fundamental to interactions between teachers and students about students' writing and to help students further improve their writing. As one of the main feedback sources, teachers' cognition (e.g., teachers' thoughts, knowledge, and beliefs) needs to be probed to properly understand teachers…

  10. Teaching Writing for the "Real World": Community and Workplace Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Cox, Michelle; Ortmeier-Hooper, Christina; Tirabassi, Katherine E.

    2009-01-01

    In this article, the authors offer an approach to teaching that can help students prepare to write for the workplace and in the community: a case study of community-based writing. In this case-study project, students work in groups to study the writing needs and practices of a community-based group or organization, such as a local public library,…

  11. Writing Instruction in Elementary Classrooms: Why Teachers Engage or Do Not Engage Students in Writing

    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…

  12. English 308J: Organizational Report and Letter Writing.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Pytlik, Betty P.

    The organizational report and letter writing course at Ohio University (Athens) is an advanced composition course designed to help students who expect to do such writing in their future jobs, but for whom technical writing and business communication courses are either inappropriate or insufficient. Students work in groups of four, investigating a…

  13. 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…

  14. Construction of meaning in the authentic science writing of deaf students.

    PubMed

    Lang, H G; Albertini, J A

    2001-01-01

    This study examines how students construct meaning through writing during authentic science activities. To determine how well students understood science concepts, we analyzed 228 writing samples from deaf students in grades 6 through 11 as well as the explanatory and reflective comments of their teachers. The analyses indicate that certain process writing strategies were differentially useful in helping deaf students to construct meaning and in allowing teachers to evaluate the constructed meaning. Three instructional conditions and two teacher variables were found to play roles in determining the accuracy and adequacy of the writing: (1) the writing prompts the teachers used, (2) the focus for the writing, (3) follow-up to the initial writing activity, (4) the teacher's content knowledge, and (5) the teacher's ability to interpret student writing. The authors recommend future applications of writing-to-learn strategies and suggest directions for further research and changes in teacher education.

  15. Using Student Scholarship To Develop Student Research and Writing Skills.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ware, Mark E.; Badura, Amy S.; Davis, Stephen F.

    2002-01-01

    Focuses on the use of student publications in journals as a teaching tool. Explores the use of this technique in three contexts: (1) enabling students to understand experimental methodology; (2) teaching students about statistics; and (3) helping students learn more about the American Psychological Association (APA) writing style. (CMK)

  16. Laying the Foundation for Successful Non-Academic Writing: Professional Communication Principles in the K-5 Curricula of the McKinney Independent School District

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Trevino, Marlea

    2009-01-01

    Traditionally, K-5 students' writing has had a primarily academic aim--to help students master concepts and express themselves. Even if students take a professional writing course later, they typically do not have the opportunity to practice--over the long period of time mastery requires--the non-academic writing skills they will be required to…

  17. Setting the Stage for Creative Writing: Plot Scaffolds for Beginning and Intermediate Writers

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    O'Day, Shannon

    2006-01-01

    Standardized writing tests focus more on content than mechanics, but writing instruction typically focuses more on mechanics than content. Plot scaffolds, can help teachers fix the balance and help foster creativity and originality in students' writing. In this practical guide, elementary and middle school teachers will find: (1) a research-based…

  18. When I Whisper, Nobody Listens: Helping Young People Write about Difficult Issues.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Frost, Helen

    This book offers guidance on how teachers can help their students write about sensitive topics or provide pragmatic suggestions for developing the skill and sensitivity necessary to venture into such difficult terrain. The book addresses students' need to articulate their thoughts and feelings about violence, anger, drug use, peer pressure, and…

  19. Everyday Reading and Writing: English. 5112.24.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Knowles, Marlene; Wardell, Arlene

    A curriculum guide to help students improve their everyday English skills has been designed for the Dade County Public Schools. The course, for grades 8 through 12, is to help students learn to read, write, and interpret letters, business forms, instructions, signs, maps, and magazines. The practical subject matter emphasizes basic reading and…

  20. Story Mapping and Its Effects on the Writing Fluency and Word Diversity of Students with Learning Disabilities

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Li, Daqi

    2007-01-01

    Students with learning disabilities (LD) often experience difficulties in writing fluently and using a diversity of words. To help these students, specific and effective writing strategies must be incorporated into instruction and demonstrated to them through modeling. This study examined the effectiveness of using a story map and story map…

  1. Writing for Publication While in Graduate School: An Accessible Reality

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Collins, Joshua C.

    2015-01-01

    The purpose of this Writer's Forum is to share eight tips about writing for publication as a graduate student. These tips demonstrate writing for publication as an accessible reality for students. This Writer's Forum advances ideas, advice, and anecdotes focused on helping graduate students to see themselves as valued experts who are…

  2. Popular Science Writing Bringing New Perspectives into Science Students' Theses

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Pelger, Susanne

    2018-01-01

    This study analyses which perspectives occur in science students' texts at different points in time during the process of writing a popular science article. The intention is, thus, to explore how popular science writing can help students discover and discuss different perspectives on science matter. For this purpose, texts written by 12 bachelor…

  3. Getting Students Excited about Learning: Incorporating Digital Tools to Support the Writing Process

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Saulsburry, Rachel; Kilpatrick, Jennifer Renée; Wolbers, Kimberly A.; Dostal, Hannah

    2015-01-01

    Technology--in the form of digital tools incorporated into writing instruction--can help teachers motivate and engage young children, and it may be especially critical for students who do everything they can to avoid writing. Technology may bolster student involvement, foster the engagement of reluctant or struggling writers, and support writing…

  4. Writing Marathons Help Build Middle School Students' College Aspirations and Strengthen Their Literacy Skills

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Radcliffe, Rich A.; Stephens, Liz C.

    2010-01-01

    Young adolescents' low scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) force the question of whether these students will be ready for college in four years. Our efforts to build a college-going culture emphasize strengthening students' writing skills by using preservice teachers to lead writing marathons for at-risk middle school…

  5. Motivation and Connection: Teaching Reading (and Writing) in the Composition Classroom

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bunn, Michael

    2013-01-01

    Teaching reading in terms of its connections to writing can motivate students to read and increase the likelihood that they find success in both activities. It can lead students to value reading as an integral aspect of learning to write. It can help students develop their understanding of writerly strategies and techniques. Drawing on qualitative…

  6. Riding the RAFT

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Gunter, Melissa D.

    2016-01-01

    Writing about mathematics holds a wealth of benefits for students. When students are given opportunities to write in math class, it helps develop mathematical thinking and language, encourages self-reflection, and provides a better way to organize ideas. Many teachers incorporate journaling and other types of reflective writing into their…

  7. “Writing in Neuroscience”: A Course Designed for Neuroscience Undergraduate Students

    PubMed Central

    Adams, Joyce

    2011-01-01

    Although neuroscience students may learn to write in a generic fashion through university writing courses, they receive little training in writing in their field. Here I describe a course that was created at the request of a Neuroscience Department with the intent to teach neuroscience students how to write well in their discipline. I explain the purpose for creating the “Writing in Neuroscience” course and offer a brief overview of the course curriculum, including pertinent pedagogical outcomes for such a course. I describe in depth the major assignment for the course, the literature review, and provide examples of paper titles that students wrote to fulfill the assignment. I briefly describe other relevant course assignments. I evaluate the course and include an overview of who should teach such a course, what support might be helpful, and what can be learned from formative assessment of the course. Using these insights can help others determine whether such a course is a good fit for them. PMID:23626493

  8. Can Games Help Creative Writing Students to Collaborate on Story-Writing Tasks?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Jackson, David

    2017-01-01

    Story writing is a complex semantic and creative task, and the difficulty of managing it is made greater by attempting to write in collaboration with others. This complication can deter students from experimenting with collaboration before mastering their own practice in relative privacy. Such reticence is in spite of the fact that there are many…

  9. Women and Writing: A New Course for the Creative Writing Curriculum.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mallinger, Anita E.

    The promotion of sexual stereotypes that portray girls as passive, dependent, and nurturing appears to have resulted in the socialization of females into roles that run counter to the function of creative imagination; women have been socialized not to write. A college course for students majoring in creative writing is helping women students to…

  10. Developing Technical Writing Skills in the Physical Chemistry Laboratory: A Progressive Approach Employing Peer Review

    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…

  11. 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…

  12. Small Change, Big Difference: Heightening BSW Faculty Awareness to Elicit More Effective Student Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Moor, Kelly S.; Jensen-Hart, Staci; Hooper, Richard I.

    2012-01-01

    Concerns about social work students' writing are well documented, but the cost of specialized writing programs leaves budget-stressed programs confronting a problem they may feel they have few means to address. However, a valuable resource is already available: faculty expertise in social work writing. The challenge is helping faculty realize…

  13. Student perception of writing in the science classroom

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Deakin, Kathleen J.

    This study examines factors that shape four student's perceptions of writing tasks in their science classroom. This qualitative retrospective interview study focuses on four students concurrently enrolled in honors English and honors biology. This research employs a phenomenological perspective on writing, examining whether the writing strategies students acquire in the Language Arts classroom manifest in the content areas. I also adopt Bandura's theoretical perspective on self-efficacy as well as Hillock's notion of writing as inquiry and meaning making. This study concludes that students need ample opportunity to generate content and language that will help reveal a purpose and genre for writing tasks in the content areas. Although all four students approached the writing tasks differently in this study, the tasks set before them were opportunities for replication rather than inquiry Through the case studies of four students as well as current research on content writing, this project works to inform all content area teachers about student perceptions of writing in the content areas.

  14. From Fake to Fiction: Young Children Learn about Writing Fiction.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Taberski, Sharon

    1987-01-01

    Presents five strategies for helping elementary school students learn to write fiction: (1) stress topic selection; (2) use literature to teach fiction writing; (3) stress main character change or problem solving; (4) emphasize reality-based stories; and (5) encourage students to research their fiction. (SKC)

  15. The Most Important Thing: Students with Reading and Writing Difficulties Talk about Their Experiences of Teachers' Treatment and Guidance

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Nielsen, Cecilia

    2011-01-01

    Dyslexia is a well-known phenomenon and help and assistance are offered to pupils and students who experience literacy difficulties on a regular basis. But what help do they need and want? In this article the responses people with reading and writing difficulties/dyslexia give to this question are discussed. What, if we take the student's own…

  16. Persuasive Writing and the Student-Run Symposium

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mayer, James C.

    2007-01-01

    High school teacher James C. Mayer explains how a student-run symposium can promote "risk-taking and participation" and help students practice effective persuasion skills before demonstrating them in writing. The symposium places students in roles that encourage responsibility and ownership for discussion and learning, shifting the classroom…

  17. Systemic Functional Linguistic Genre Pedagogy ((SFL GP) in a Tertiary EFL Writing Context in Indonesia

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Emilia, Emi; Hamied, Fuad Abdul

    2015-01-01

    This article reports on the results of a study aiming to investigate whether systemic functional linguistic genre pedagogy (SFL GP) can help students develop their writing ability in English and the students' opinions about the teaching program using SFL GP. The study was conducted in one semester with 19 student teachers taking a writing course…

  18. How Writing Instruction, Interventions, and Assessment Can Improve Student Outcomes. Middle School Matters Program No. 5

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Santangelo, Tanya; Graham, Steve

    2015-01-01

    The ability to write effectively and use writing as a tool for learning is essential for students' success in the middle grades--and beyond. This practice guide highlights several research-based practices that can be used school-wide to help middle grades students become better writers. This paper presents four questions middle grades educators…

  19. Peer Mentoring Experiences of Psychology Students at the London Metropolitan University Writing Centre

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bakhshi, Savita; Harrington, Kathy; O'Neill, Peter

    2008-01-01

    "It really helps knowing that you are going to have someone around to help you..." This short article reports on research taking place into peer writing tutorials at London Metropolitan University and examines in particular, the experiences of psychology students who have taken part in the scheme. Some of the implications of this…

  20. Scientific writing: strategies and tools for students and advisors.

    PubMed

    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.

  1. The Instructional Practices of Teachers Who Score a State Writing Assessment: A Case Study

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Anderson, Susan Lee

    2009-01-01

    The merits and shortcomings of formalized assessments of student writing have been debated by critics who maintain they are not valid measures of writing proficiency, often result in a narrowing effect on the local school curriculum and elicit predictable or formulaic writing by students and by proponents who argue they help to inform teacher…

  2. A Self-Assessment Checklist for Undergraduate Students' Argumentative Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Nimehchisalem, Vahid; Chye, David Yoong Soon; Jaswant Singh, Sheena Kaur A/P; Zainuddin, Siti Zaidah; Norouzi, Sara; Khalid, Sheren

    2014-01-01

    With a growing emphasis on students' ability to assess their own written works in teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) writing courses, self-assessment checklists are today regarded as useful tools. These checklists can help learners diagnose their own weaknesses and improve their writing performance. This necessitates development of…

  3. Do Writers Really Revise? Encouraging Unnatural Acts in Your Classroom.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Balajthy, Ernest

    Unless students have an appropriate attitude toward revision--the keystone of the writing process--teachers who institute writing process approaches face frustration and failure. Implementing the following suggestions may help increase revision in the classroom. First, while the mature writing process is not strictly linear, students developing…

  4. Writing as a Design Discipline: Exploring the Relationship between Composition and Programming.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Walton, Richard E.; Balestri, Diane

    1987-01-01

    Examines similarities between composition and programming processes, and reviews two studies that linked instruction in computer programming and freshman composition to help students understand writing as a design discipline. Projects at the University of Montana and Bryn Mawr College which improved students' writing abilities are described. (LRW)

  5. Writing-to-Learn Activities to Provoke Deeper Learning in Calculus

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Jaafar, Reem

    2016-01-01

    For students with little experience in mathematical thinking and conceptualization, writing-to-learn activities (WTL) can be particularly effective in promoting discovery and understanding. For community college students embarking on a first calculus course in particular, writing activities can help facilitate the transition from an "apply…

  6. Ethical Reasoning: A Heuristic Approach for Business Educators.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Molberg, Diane R.

    For the teaching of business report writing, ethical reasoning can be used as a heuristic for thinking that will encourage a more effective communication pattern for business students. Writing processes can be applied to thinking processes to help students approach theoretical concepts, make decisions, and write more effective business reports. A…

  7. Becoming Environmentally Literate Citizens

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Groenke, Susan L.; Puckett, Randall

    2006-01-01

    The RAFT technique (Santa 1988) is a writing strategy that helps students understand their "Role" as a writer, the "Audience" they will address, various "Formats" for writing, and the expected "Topic" or content. This article discusses the RAFT writing strategy used by the students to address land development issues. The authors facilitated…

  8. Before the Outline--The Writing Wheel.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Rae, Colleen

    1986-01-01

    To help students write more effectively, a technique for writing from thesis statements is described that requires students to create a picture of a wheel. The hub is a word that is the essence of the topic; the spokes are concrete examples; and the tire is the thesis statement. (MLW)

  9. An Introduction to "Re-search" Writing.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Duke, Charles R.

    To change the perceptions that research writing is somehow different from other writing, teachers need to place more emphasis on the "search" in student research papers. An intermediate assignment can help bridge the gap between the totally personal search and the more formal and traditional research paper approach. The assignment asks students to…

  10. University Student Conceptions of Learning Science through Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ellis, Robert A.; Taylor, Charlotte E.; Drury, Helen

    2006-01-01

    First-year undergraduate science students experienced a writing program as an important part of their assessment in a biology subject. The writing program was designed to help them develop both their scientific understanding as well as their written scientific expression. Open-ended questionnaires investigating the quality of the experience of…

  11. Mark Twain, Fenimore Cooper, and Batman.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Crick, Robert Alan

    1992-01-01

    Describes how Mark Twain's essay "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses" helped students to get interested in writing and inspired them to write a similar essay critiquing the movie "Batman." Provides excerpts from students' essays. (PRA)

  12. Teaching Elementary School Students to Be Effective Writers. Practice Guide Summary

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    What Works Clearinghouse, 2017

    2017-01-01

    An early foundation in writing offers students a valuable tool for learning, communication, and self-expression. Authored by a panel of experts, the "Teaching Elementary School Students to Be Effective Writers" practice guide presents four recommendations educators can use to help elementary students strengthen their writing skills. The…

  13. Why Students Find Writing to be Torture.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Newkirk, Thomas

    Five pressures make writing difficult for freshman composition students: the pressure of perfectionism, the pressure of interesting an audience, the pressure of length, the pressure of finding an appropriate topic, and the pressure of time. Teachers can help students deal with these pressures through individual conferences with each student and by…

  14. The Evolution of a Writing Program.

    PubMed

    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.

  15. Creating Successful Campus Partnerships for Teaching Communication in Biology Courses and Labs.

    PubMed

    Hall, Susanne E; Birch, Christina

    2018-01-01

    Creating and teaching successful writing and communication assignments for biology undergraduate students can be challenging for faculty trying to balance the teaching of technical content. The growing body of published research and scholarship on effective teaching of writing and communication in biology can help inform such work, but there are also local resources available to support writing within biology courses that may be unfamiliar to science faculty and instructors. In this article, we discuss common on-campus resources biology faculty can make use of when incorporating writing and communication into their teaching. We present the missions, histories, and potential collaboration outcomes of three major on-campus writing resources: writing across the curriculum and writing in the disciplines initiatives (WAC/WID), writing programs, and writing centers. We explain some of the common misconceptions about these resources in order to help biology faculty understand their uses and limits, and we offer guiding questions faculty might ask the directors of these resources to start productive conversations. Collaboration with these resources will likely save faculty time and effort on curriculum development and, more importantly, will help biology students develop and improve their critical reading, writing, and communication skills.

  16. Creating Successful Campus Partnerships for Teaching Communication in Biology Courses and Labs

    PubMed Central

    Hall, Susanne E.; Birch, Christina

    2018-01-01

    Creating and teaching successful writing and communication assignments for biology undergraduate students can be challenging for faculty trying to balance the teaching of technical content. The growing body of published research and scholarship on effective teaching of writing and communication in biology can help inform such work, but there are also local resources available to support writing within biology courses that may be unfamiliar to science faculty and instructors. In this article, we discuss common on-campus resources biology faculty can make use of when incorporating writing and communication into their teaching. We present the missions, histories, and potential collaboration outcomes of three major on-campus writing resources: writing across the curriculum and writing in the disciplines initiatives (WAC/WID), writing programs, and writing centers. We explain some of the common misconceptions about these resources in order to help biology faculty understand their uses and limits, and we offer guiding questions faculty might ask the directors of these resources to start productive conversations. Collaboration with these resources will likely save faculty time and effort on curriculum development and, more importantly, will help biology students develop and improve their critical reading, writing, and communication skills. PMID:29904537

  17. Using Writing as a Constructivist Instructional Tool

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Narayanan, M.

    2006-12-01

    Researchers in the area of cognitive science and educational psychology have shown that instructors who encourage student writing are actually helping in motivating a reluctant pupil. It has also been reported that writing indirectly rewards an individual with dynamic interest. Furthermore, it is believed that writing strengthens the self-confidence of a lethargic learner. (Kosakowski, 1998). All in all, promoting writing helps and supports learners cultivate a positive attitude toward the subject matter in question. The constructivist approach promotes a learning paradigm and helps individuals learn and understand by "constructing" knowledge. Learners are effectively encouraged to generate and build their own knowledge base. Learners document progress by constructing new concepts based on previously gained knowledge. The role of the teacher is actually to facilitate the creation of a learning environment. The constructivist approach when used in the classroom enables the students to become more active, independent thinkers of knowledge. Education World writer Gloria Chaika (Chaika, 2000) states that "Talent is important, but practice creates the solid base that allows that unique talent to soar. Like athletes, writers learn by doing. Good writing requires the same kind of dedicated practice that athletes put in. Young writers often lack the support they need to practice writing and develop their talent to the fullest, though." The author has successfully utilized some of these principles and techniques in a senior level course he teaches. He has encouraged students to try to solve problems their own way and has asked them to observe, document, assess and evaluate the results. In the classroom, the author takes the role of a coach and helps the students approach the problem with a different viewpoint. Eventually the students document their conclusions in a page-long essay. This type of writing assignment not only builds critical thinking abilities but also generates improved written communication skills among learners. References: Kosakowski, John, (1998). The Benefits of Information Technology. ERIC Digests; Technology Integration; Technology Role, ED0-IR-98-04 Chaika, Gloria (2000),Encourage Student Writing: Published on the Web, Education World http://www.education-world.com/a_tech/tech042.shtml

  18. New Software to Help EFL Students Self-Correct Their Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lawley, Jim

    2015-01-01

    This paper describes the development of web-based software at a university in Spain to help students of EFL self-correct their free-form writing. The software makes use of an eighty-million-word corpus of English known to be correct as a normative corpus for error correction purposes. It was discovered that bigrams (two-word combinations of words)…

  19. Composing Science: A Facilitator's Guide to Writing in the Science Classroom

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Elliott, Leslie Atkins; Jaxon, Kim; Salter, Irene

    2016-01-01

    Offering expertise in the teaching of writing (Kim Jaxon) and the teaching of science (Leslie Atkins Elliott and Irene Salter), this book will help instructors create classrooms in which students use writing to learn and think scientifically. The authors provide concrete approaches for engaging students in practices that mirror the work that…

  20. Writing for Beginning Readers.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hawkins, Carria

    This guide contains 15 units designed to help adult basic education or literacy education students write materials used in everyday life. The first section of the guide contains an introduction to the writing/teaching process and suggestions for teachers. The 15 units that follow serve as a workbook for students. They cover the following topics:…

  1. 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.

  2. Emphasis: Five Ways to Cure Boring Student Writing.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Foster, Mary Ellen

    A careful use of emphasis by students in their writing can be promoted by some exercises assigned by composition teachers. A drawing exercise can help students learn that changing the length of sentences makes paragraphs more interesting. Using Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's five categories of grief to consider times of depression in students' lives…

  3. Using the Science Writing Heuristic to Improve Students' Understanding of General Equilibrium

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Rudd, James A., II; Greenbowe, Thomas J.; Hand, Brian M.

    2007-01-01

    This study compared the performance of students using the Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) approach and students using a standard or traditional laboratory curriculum on lecture exams and a laboratory practical exam on a specific topic, chemical equilibrium. The SWH helps students do inquiry science laboratory work by structuring the laboratory…

  4. Writing Center Tutors Have the Luxury to Focus on Individual Student "Care Giving" as Opposed to Formal Classroom Settings That Are Less "Care" Centered

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Pistone, Renee A.

    2010-01-01

    Undergraduate and graduate students come to the writing center for consultations with peer tutors in order to improve their communication skills. During peer tutoring sessions (over the course of one semester) it became clear that these students were meeting with the tutors that I supervised, for more than just help with their writing. I observed…

  5. Using Magazine Ads to Teach Sales Writing.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Halper, Cheryl A.

    1980-01-01

    Notes that using magazine advertisements to teach sales letter writing can help students understand sales techniques they see daily, but do not think much about. Presents a four-point strategy to help them put together effective sales letters. (FL)

  6. Teaching Writing: Support Material for Text Level Objectives. The National Literacy Strategy.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Department for Education and Skills, London (England).

    These 10 fliers focus on strategies to improve students' writing. The fliers are: (1) Improving Writing (covers general points related to all types of writing); (2) Writing Narrative (covers the main points to writing narrative, helping children to build up a repertoire of different types of narrative); (3) Writing Poetry (covers the main points…

  7. Do Peer Reviews Help Improve Student Writing Abilities in an EFL High School Classroom?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kurihara, Noriko

    2017-01-01

    Several studies have reported the benefits of peer reviews in English as a second language (ESL) and English as a foreign language (EFL) writing classrooms. However, there has been little empirical research on whether such peer reviews improve students' writing abilities. The current study investigated the effects of peer review on the development…

  8. Using Parody to Read and Write Original Poetry

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bintz, William P.

    2012-01-01

    This article describes an instructional lesson the author developed to help students use parody to read and write original poetry. The author begins this article with an introduction to parody and a rationale for using it as an instructional strategy. Then, he describes materials and procedures he used and he shares samples of student writing. He…

  9. Frozen by Fear: Can Digital Scaffolding Help Students Start Writing?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mills, Daniel; Kennedy, Olivia

    2013-01-01

    Despite having studied English for some 33 months, the students at the private junior high school in Japan described in this paper had never before been asked to write original compositions in the language. The researchers undertook a quasi-experimental pilot study in which the 156 (n= 156) participants were each asked to write four compositions,…

  10. Missing: Electronic Feedback in Egyptian EFL Essay Writing Classes

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Seliem, Soheir; Ahmed, Abdelhamid

    2009-01-01

    EFL essay writing is considered one of the most important academic courses in the teacher education programmes that should help develop students' skills to write cohesively and coherently. Teachers' feedback plays a crucial role in improving and enhancing the quality of students' written essays. The aim of the current study was to shed light on…

  11. Towards an Integrated Graduate Student (Training Program)

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Shapiro, Elliot

    2015-01-01

    This article argues that teaching writing can help graduate students become better writers. Each year, more than 100 graduate students from more than thirty departments participate in one of two training courses offered through Cornell's John S. Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines. This article describes some of how these courses…

  12. The Four-Part Literature Review Process: Breaking It Down for Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Price, Rebecca H.

    2017-01-01

    Both undergraduate and graduate students face similar challenges when tasked with writing literature reviews. Breaking down the literature review into a four-part process helps students decrease frustration and increase quality. This article provides usable advice for anyone teaching or writing literature reviews. Tips and illustrations illuminate…

  13. They All Have Something To Say: Helping Learning Disabled Students Write.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Schwartz, Shirley S.; MacArthur, Charles A.

    1990-01-01

    A process approach to writing instruction with learning-disabled students is presented, in which students are guided through the processes of planning, drafting, and revising text. The model emphasizes the interaction of the teacher and learner through such activities as conferences, prompting, modeling, peer collaboration, and dialogues about…

  14. Linguistic Audacity: Shakespeare's Language and Student Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Goodman, Barbara A.

    2011-01-01

    Shakespeare molded language to meet his needs. Can students learn from his example? In this article, the author suggests studying Shakespeare's creative use of functional shift, spelling, and vocabulary to help students develop greater control of their own writing. The author is advocating that teachers approach Shakespeare as descriptive…

  15. Autobiography and Intertextuality.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Smith, Michael W.

    To understand literature, it is necessary for a reader to make connections between the text of the literary work and the text of the reader's life. Student autobiographical writing before reading can be used to enhance students' ability to make such connections. Autobiographical writing helps students apply relevant life experience that might not…

  16. The Effectiveness of Professional Development in Teaching Writing-to-Learn Strategies for Science: An Evaluative Case Study

    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.

  17. Teachers' Corrective Feedback in Writing Classes: The Impact of Collaborating with a Peer during the Editing Process on Students' Uptake and Retention

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kahyalar, Eda; Yilmaz, Figen

    2016-01-01

    Language teachers devote a lot of time and energy to provide corrective feedback (CF) to help student writers improve the accuracy of their writing. However, regardless of the CF approach adopted, similar types of errors usually appear in students' new pieces of writing. Thus, most teachers have some doubt about the impact of CF, and some see it…

  18. Argument-Driven Inquiry as a Way to Help Undergraduate Students Write to Learn by Learning to Write in Chemistry

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Sampson, Victor; Phelps Walker, Joi

    2012-07-01

    This exploratory study examined how undergraduate students' ability to write in science changed over time as they completed a series of laboratory activities designed using a new instructional model called argument-driven inquiry. The study was conducted in a single section of an undergraduate general chemistry lab course offered at a large two-year community college located in the southeast USA. The intervention took place over a 15-week semester and consisted of six laboratory activities. During each laboratory activity, the undergraduates wrote investigation reports, participated in a double-blind group peer review of the reports, and revised their reports based on the reviews. The reports written during each laboratory activity were used to examine changes in the students' writing skills over time and to identify aspects of scientific writing that were the most difficult for the undergraduates in this context. The reviews produced by the students during each report were used to evaluate how well undergraduates engage in the peer-review process. The results of a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the reports and reviews indicate that the participants made significant improvements in their ability to write in science and were able to evaluate the quality of their peers' writing with a relatively high degree of accuracy, but they also struggled with several aspects of scientific writing. The conclusions and implications of the study include recommendations for helping undergraduate students learn to write by writing to learn in science and new directions for future research.

  19. Reach Out and Write Someone.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Arnold, Vanessa D.; Roach, Terry D.

    1993-01-01

    Writing letters to elected officials and letters to the editor helps students articulate their thoughts based on sound evidence and valid reasoning, avoiding "sounding off" and emotional appeals. Writing skills, critical thinking, and civic values are reinforced. (SK)

  20. The use of writing assignments to help students synthesize content in upper-level undergraduate biology courses.

    PubMed

    Sparks-Thissen, Rebecca L

    2017-02-01

    Biology education is undergoing a transformation toward a more student-centered, inquiry-driven classroom. Many educators have designed engaging assignments that are designed to help undergraduate students gain exposure to the scientific process and data analysis. One of these types of assignments is use of a grant proposal assignment. Many instructors have used these assignments in lecture-based courses to help students process information in the literature and apply that information to a novel problem such as design of an antiviral drug or a vaccine. These assignments have been helpful in engaging students in the scientific process in the absence of an inquiry-driven laboratory. This commentary discusses the application of these grant proposal writing assignments to undergraduate biology courses. © FEMS 2017. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

  1. Essay writing in biology: An example of effective student learning?

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Zeegers, Petrus; Giles, Lynne

    1996-12-01

    The views of first-year biology students ( N=337) on an essay writing assignment were evaluated by means of a questionnaire. The students were asked to reflect on the strategies they employed, the number and type of resources used, their areas of difficulty and to evaluate their own performance. The data were used to elucidate possible areas of discrepancy between the approach taken by the students and that suggested by the Biology Department via information in student manuals and evaluation criteria. The data were also compared to similar studies on student writing previously reported for students of psychology and history. Finally a series of recommendations is made to help staff to allow their students to develop improved writing strategies, minimise the possible difficulties encountered and allow the writing exercise to fulfil its desired outcome, that of being an integral part of the process of learning.

  2. Calibrating Genre: Metacognitive Judgments and Rhetorical Effectiveness in Academic Writing by L2 Graduate Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Negretti, Raffaella

    2017-01-01

    Several strands of applied linguistic research have emphasized the importance of genre awareness for academic writing students. Although metacognitive behaviors have been linked to L2 writing proficiency and performance, there is still the need for an account of how and why different metacognitive behaviors can help L2 academic writers to apply…

  3. From Muddleton Manor to Clarity Cathedral: Improving Year 12's Extended Writing through an Enhanced Sense of the Reader

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Brown, Mary

    2013-01-01

    Mary Brown recognised that her A-level students were finding extended writing difficult, particularly in terms of guiding the reader through the argument with appropriate "signposting". To help her students manage this, Brown devised a metaphor to represent the construction of a piece of argumentative writing which she deployed over a…

  4. Argument-Driven Inquiry as a Way to Help Undergraduate Students Write to Learn by Learning to Write in Chemistry

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sampson, Victor; Walker, Joi Phelps

    2012-01-01

    This exploratory study examined how undergraduate students' ability to write in science changed over time as they completed a series of laboratory activities designed using a new instructional model called argument-driven inquiry. The study was conducted in a single section of an undergraduate general chemistry lab course offered at a large…

  5. British Students' Academic Writing: Can Academia Help Improve the Writing Skills of Tomorrow's Professionals?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sultan, Nabil

    2013-01-01

    The problem of poor academic writing among British university students is a major cause of concern for universities and their tutors; and it is also of concern to employers struggling to recruit individuals able to communicate clearly and accurately. This article reports on a study designed to highlight some of the reasons for the lack of writing…

  6. "Real Women" Essay Writing Competition Guide. National Women's History Week, March 3-9, 1985.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ruthsdotter, Mary, Ed.

    Step-by-step guidelines to help educators and community groups implement a National Women's History Week essay contest, in which elementary and secondary students write about women, are provided. Students are encouraged to write about a woman they personally know so that they can conduct an oral history interview. An alternate approach would be to…

  7. Using Cases in Graduate-Level Professional Writing Classes.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Graves, Heather Brodie

    1999-01-01

    Discusses the incorporation of cases to help students understand the issues inherent in corporate communication. Finds that the cases significantly improve the quality of education gained by the students. Concludes that cases provide a variety of contexts and examples for professional writing that enlighten students as to the range of documents,…

  8. Incorporating A Structured Writing Process into Existing CLS Curricula.

    PubMed

    Honeycutt, Karen; Latshaw, Sandra

    2014-01-01

    Good communication and critical thinking are essential skills for all successful professionals, including Clinical Laboratory Science/Medical Laboratory Science (CLS/MLS) practitioners. Professional programs can incorporate writing assignments into their curricula to improve student written communication and critical thinking skills. Clearly defined, scenario-focused writing assignments provide student practice in clearly articulating responses to proposed problems or situations, researching and utilizing informational resources, and applying and synthesizing relevant information. Assessment rubrics, structured feedback, and revision writing methodologies help guide students through the writing process. This article describes how a CLS Program in a public academic medical center, located in the central United States (US) serving five centrally-located US states has incorporated writing intensive assignments into an existing 11-month academic year using formal, informal and reflective writing to improve student written communication and critical thinking skills. Faculty members and employers of graduates assert that incorporating writing intensive requirements have better prepared students for their professional role to effectively communicate and think critically.

  9. Using Mentor Texts to Teach Writing in Science and Social Studies

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Pytash, Kristine E.; Morgan, Denise N.

    2014-01-01

    This article explores how the research-based practice of using mentor texts can support students' writing within their subject areas. Specifically, this article examines the writing demands of the Common Core Writing Standards and how using mentor texts helps teachers meet these writing standards. We share guiding principles for using mentor…

  10. Riding Elvis's Motorcycle: Using Self-Regulated Strategy Development To PLAN and WRITE for a State Writing Exam.

    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)

  11. Ten Basic Suggestions to Social Studies Students for Improving Your Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Roselle, Daniel

    1977-01-01

    Ten guidelines to help students improve their writing include clear expression, specificity, originality, avoiding stereotyping, linking paragraphs, setting time by parallel events, linking past and present, use of primary sources, giving evidence for generalizations, and reading to increase sensitivity. (AV)

  12. A mandatory course in scientific writing for undergraduate medical students.

    PubMed

    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.

  13. Using Self-Regulated Strategy Development to Help High School Students with EBD Summarize Informational Text in Social Studies

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ennis, Robin Parks

    2016-01-01

    Students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) often struggle to be effective writers. Self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) is one approach to writing instruction that has demonstrated success for students with EBD. However, there is little research exploring its utility to teach writing to students with EBD in social studies. The…

  14. The Use of Poetry in Exploring the Concepts of Difference and Diversity for Gifted/Talented Students.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Gustavson, Cynthia Blomquist

    1999-01-01

    Lists characteristics of gifted and talented (G/T) students and analyzes how these characteristics show how G/T students can excel in writing and understanding poetry. Describes techniques for poetry writing that can help these students understand their own difference and diversity, and notes specific poetry to read about the subject. (SR)

  15. The Power of Photography as a Catalyst for Teaching Informational Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lilly, Elizabeth; Fields, Charla

    2014-01-01

    Writing and photography are composition processes that help develop children's linguistic and visual competencies, respectively. Using photography in teaching writing has been found to enhance students' literacy skills by naturally invoking their interest and motivation, and eventually strengthening the reading-writing relationship. Children can…

  16. Peer Mentoring Roles

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ashman, Marinda; Colvin, Janet

    2011-01-01

    Because students starting college are not always prepared to succeed, colleges and universities frequently offer courses designed to help students who need remediation in mathematics, reading, and writing. At Utah Valley University (UVU), peer mentors are integrated into the University Student Success course to help first-year students learn the…

  17. Classroom Applications: Will Taping and Replaying Their Speeches Help My Fourth Grade Students with Organizing Their Written Work?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wirth, Harold E.

    A fourth-grade teacher developed a unit on writing designed to help his students go from oral to written text after finding that only 4 of the 22 in his classroom had the organizational and writing skills to get their ideas on paper. The basis of the unit was a unique problem which the teacher himself was trying to solve in real life; namely, how…

  18. Putting Ideas on Paper

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Allen, Jared; Rogers, Meredith Park

    2015-01-01

    Many students find it easier to express their ideas about science through talking rather than writing. However, writing in science promotes new learning, helps students consolidate and review their scientific ideas, and aids in reformulating and extending their scientific knowledge. These practices lead to formulating and defending scientific…

  19. Writing the True Self: Case Studies of Eng 101 Students Responding to a Peter Elbow-Inspired Curriculum

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Stansell, Jon W.

    2012-01-01

    My fulfillment in life comes through helping others develop their potential, work through their troubles, and follow their dreams. I have found that my college students embrace this aspect as I teach them expressive, author-involved writing. Peter Elbow's work asserts that this type of writing fits into his theory of personal development, which is…

  20. Defining and Redefining Boundaries in the Creative Writing Workshop.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Reichert, Nancy L.

    Acting as a team, a graduate research methods class at Florida State University studied a first-year imaginative writing course, "Writing from Life," designed to help students write autobiography, fiction, and poetry. In the course of this study, intriguing differences became apparent between the attitudes and approaches in this class…

  1. The Zine Project: Writing with a Personal Perspective

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Cohen, Barbara

    2004-01-01

    How can teachers help their students write effectively and purposefully in a variety of genres despite the challenges of increased testing and curriculum mandates? Working within the writing workshop framework, a group of elementary school teachers participated in The Zine Project, a personalized approach to writing, in which they created their…

  2. 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…

  3. A Simple Approach to Improving Student Writing: An Example from Hydrology

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Carlson, Catherine A.

    2007-01-01

    Using the simple approach described in this article, college science instructors can help students become independent thinkers and writers in science. The unique character of this approach is that it shows students how to formulate the questions they need to answer in their writing, as well as how to answer them. Rather than using a cookbook…

  4. Scaffolding Singaporean Students to Write Vividly in the Chinese "Mother Tongue", Mandarin

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Chung, Tzemin; Anderson, Neil; Leong, Munkew; Choy, Waiyin

    2014-01-01

    This paper details results from a three-year study investigating how to help students in Singapore write vivid compositions in Mandarin, the Chinese "mother tongue". Mastery of the mother tongue by Singaporean students has become an important government priority in recent years. The strategies employed by this study included the use of…

  5. Using Art Media during Prewriting: Helping Students with Dysgraphia Manage Idea Generation before Encoding Text

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dunn, Michael

    2013-01-01

    Many students struggle with writing skills. This study focuses on three students (second and fourth grades) who were classified with a learning disability by their school. These children had writing goals and objectives (i.e., characteristics of having dysgraphia) included in their Individual Education Plan. In a single case design format, each…

  6. FIX: A Strategic Approach to Writing and Revision for Students with Learning Disabilities

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sherman, Cindy K.; De La Paz, Susan

    2015-01-01

    Teaching students in upper elementary school to revise their papers effectively requires a three-pronged approach. First, teachers provide instruction on a relevant genre or writing form (using the Common Core State Standards for English language arts or other relevant standards as a guide). Second, teachers help students to use four basic…

  7. Helping Vocational and Academic Teachers Collaborate To Improve Students' Reading and Writing Skills: An Over-Time Inservice Activity.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Schmidt, B. June; Beeken, Lois A.

    Staff development was provided for academic and vocational teachers interested in improving their students' reading and writing skills. The first step was to examine the need. Survey data collected from students and vocational program completers from Southern Regional Education Board-Vocational Education Consortium pilot site schools revealed a…

  8. Why Assign Themes and Topics To Teach Writing? A Reply to Tony Silva.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Jones, Nathan B.

    Responds to Tony Silva's 1997 article, which asserted that English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) writing teachers should prevent themes and topics from dominating or controlling the curriculum. This paper argues that it is sometimes helpful for writing teachers to control why and what students write, focusing on university-level English writing in…

  9. Scaffolded Writing and Rewriting in the Discipline: A Web-Based Reciprocal Peer Review System

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Cho, Kwangsu; Schunn, Christian D.

    2007-01-01

    This paper describes how SWoRD (scaffolded writing and rewriting in the discipline), a web-based reciprocal peer review system, supports writing practice, particularly for large content courses in which writing is considered critical but not feasibly included. To help students gain content knowledge as well as writing and reviewing skills, SWoRD…

  10. Wishing on a Star: Many Are Homeless. A Third Are Learning English as a Second Language. Most Are Growing Up amid Poverty. At an Anchorage Elementary School Where Students Face Extraordinary Challenges, Teachers Focus on Writing as a Skill That Can Transform Lives.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Weeks, Denise Jarrett

    2002-01-01

    The "6+1" model of writing assessment, which identifies six traits of good writing, is applicable to any language. In an Anchorage (Alaska) elementary school with a high proportion of English language learners, homeless children, and other disadvantaged youth, the model helps students write about their own ideas and experiences, thereby…

  11. Want to Improve Undergraduate Thesis Writing? Engage Students and Their Faculty Readers in Scientific Peer Review

    PubMed Central

    Reynolds, Julie A.; Thompson, Robert J.

    2011-01-01

    One of the best opportunities that undergraduates have to learn to write like a scientist is to write a thesis after participating in faculty-mentored undergraduate research. But developing writing skills doesn't happen automatically, and there are significant challenges associated with offering writing courses and with individualized mentoring. We present a hybrid model in which students have the structural support of a course plus the personalized benefits of working one-on-one with faculty. To optimize these one-on-one interactions, the course uses BioTAP, the Biology Thesis Assessment Protocol, to structure engagement in scientific peer review. By assessing theses written by students who took this course and comparable students who did not, we found that our approach not only improved student writing but also helped faculty members across the department—not only those teaching the course—to work more effectively and efficiently with student writers. Students who enrolled in this course were more likely to earn highest honors than students who only worked one-on-one with faculty. Further, students in the course scored significantly better on all higher-order writing and critical-thinking skills assessed. PMID:21633069

  12. Want to improve undergraduate thesis writing? Engage students and their faculty readers in scientific peer review.

    PubMed

    Reynolds, Julie A; Thompson, Robert J

    2011-01-01

    One of the best opportunities that undergraduates have to learn to write like a scientist is to write a thesis after participating in faculty-mentored undergraduate research. But developing writing skills doesn't happen automatically, and there are significant challenges associated with offering writing courses and with individualized mentoring. We present a hybrid model in which students have the structural support of a course plus the personalized benefits of working one-on-one with faculty. To optimize these one-on-one interactions, the course uses BioTAP, the Biology Thesis Assessment Protocol, to structure engagement in scientific peer review. By assessing theses written by students who took this course and comparable students who did not, we found that our approach not only improved student writing but also helped faculty members across the department--not only those teaching the course--to work more effectively and efficiently with student writers. Students who enrolled in this course were more likely to earn highest honors than students who only worked one-on-one with faculty. Further, students in the course scored significantly better on all higher-order writing and critical-thinking skills assessed.

  13. Interior Design: Revision as Focus.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Smede, Shelly D.

    2000-01-01

    Describes how the author teaches her eighth-grade students to revise their writing, providing "working revision days" in class, offering direction and structure, and thereby helping students learn how much impact going back to a piece of writing and making sweeping changes can have on the end result. (SR)

  14. Literary Magazines: To Censor or Not?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mossman, Robert C.

    2007-01-01

    High school teacher Robert C. Mossman asserts that literary magazines reflect and elevate school communities' values. As adviser of his school literary magazine, Mossman encourages students to uphold certain standards for decency, while helping students learn to distinguish between original writing that is specific and thoughtful and writing that…

  15. A Double-Focused Orientation in Teaching Expository Writing.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Muhyidin, Tatang Setia

    1990-01-01

    Emphasizing expository writing, this paper describes the writing instruction approaches used in IKIP Bandung, an Indonesian institute. The syntax-to-rhetoric approach is discussed along with strategies to help students practice topic development with appropriate linguistic forms. (Contains three references.) (LB)

  16. Connellys' Classroom Cutaway

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Connelly, John; Connelly, Marilyn

    2008-01-01

    This article aims to help teachers looking for an exciting major unit designed to help their students meet educational standards in these areas: (1) library research skills, (2) preparing and writing a standard, (3) research paper, in this case on a significant figure in world history, (4) writing a creative story, including adaptation of…

  17. Helping Students Write Better Conclusions

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Berber-Jimenez, Lola; Montelongo, Jose; Hernandez, Anita C.; Herter, Roberta; Hosking, David

    2008-01-01

    Unlike the vocabulary used in language arts and social studies, knowledge of expository text (text written to inform) and the language of science are required for reading and writing in science (Carrier 2005). This vocabulary, along with expository text structures, often is not taught in middle and high school classrooms, thus hindering students,…

  18. Using Portfolio Assignments to Assess Students' Mathematical Thinking

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Fukawa-Connelly, Timothy; Buck, Stephen

    2010-01-01

    Writing in mathematics can improve procedural knowledge and communication skills and may also help students better understand and then remember problems. The majority of mathematics teachers know that they ought to include some writing assignments in their instructional plans, but the challenge of covering the curriculum and the time required to…

  19. 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…

  20. Helping Students to Write Well-Developed and Detailed Paragraphs and Essays Using "QUEEN FRANCIS."

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Backman, Brian

    1996-01-01

    Explains how to get middle school through college students to write detailed paragraphs with the QUEEN FRANCIS method--an acronym that stands for "Qu"otes, "E"xamples, "E"xperts, "N"ames, "F"acts, "R"easons, "A"necdotes, "N"umbers, "C"oncrete words,…

  1. Inventing Geography: Writing as a Social Justice Pedagogy

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Heyman, Rich

    2004-01-01

    A critical geographic pedagogy of writing can help students participate in public life by gaining access to the means of knowledge production. Drawing on pedagogical and composition theory, this article analyzes student papers from an introductory-level geography course to show how geography teachers can create assignments that broaden the scope…

  2. Learning to Read and Write the Woodworking Way.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    California State Dept. of Education, Sacramento. Div. of Vocational Education.

    This curriculum guide, one of 15 volumes written for field test use with educationally disadvantaged industrial education students needing additional instruction in the basic skill areas, deals with helping students to develop basic reading and writing skills while studying woodworking. Addressed in the individual units of the guide are the…

  3. Picturing Words: Using Photographs and Fiction to Enliven Writing for ELL Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Haines, Shana J.

    2015-01-01

    This article describes a teacher-research project in which a class of fifth-grade English language learners demonstrated that learning about photography and using it as inspiration for their creative writing authenticated their writing task, helped them bring their outside-school worlds inside school, increased their enthusiasm for writing, and…

  4. Using Simulation to Teach Project Management in the Professional Writing Classroom

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Krause, Tim

    2010-01-01

    It hardly bears noting that when writing instructors teach professional writing they focus on helping students learn to analyze complex communication scenarios, conduct careful research to support their position, and to responsibly and succinctly apply the process of writing any number of supporting documents. Developing these skills are essential…

  5. I Hear America Writing: NCTE's National Day on Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hayes, Sandy, Ed.

    2009-01-01

    When the National Gallery of Writing opens to the public on October 20, Hayes is hoping to hear from every profession, every socioeconomic group, every race, and ... your students. Hayes offers ideas for the many forms that writing might take, as well as a list of resources to help make writing for the gallery a unique experience for each writer.

  6. Special Research Column: Empathetic Genres, Empathetic Spaces, and Mentoring: Examining Contemporary Research on First-Generation College Students in First-Year Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Borchert, Jessica Jorgenson

    2017-01-01

    This article focuses on contemporary research on first-generation college students bringing to light pedagogical interventions that can be used in the classroom to help engage and retain these students. The pedagogical interventions focus on reflective and personal writing in the classroom, creating safe spaces, and opening up opportunities for…

  7. Using HeLa Cell Stress Response to Introduce First Year Students to the Scientific Method, Laboratory Techniques, Primary Literature, and Scientific Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Resendes, Karen K.

    2015-01-01

    Incorporating scientific literacy into inquiry driven research is one of the most effective mechanisms for developing an undergraduate student's strength in writing. Additionally, discovery-based laboratories help develop students who approach science as critical thinkers. Thus, a three-week laboratory module for an introductory cell and molecular…

  8. The Effects of a Modified Cover, Copy, Compare on Spelling Tests and in Written Compositions for Three Students with Specific Learning Disabilities

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Goodman, Ashley; McLaughlin, T. F.; Derby, K. Mark; Everson, Mary

    2015-01-01

    Spelling skills are vital in teaching students to read and write effectively. One method to help students learn to spell words correctly is called cover, copy, and compare (CCC). This study was designed to evaluate the effects of using CCC on the spelling and writing skills of three students with learning disabilities. These skills were measured…

  9. Solving Tommy's Writing Problems.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Burdman, Debra

    1986-01-01

    The article describes an approach by which word processing helps to solve some of the writing problems of learning disabled students. Aspects considered include prewriting, drafting, revising, and completing the story. (CL)

  10. Effects of attributional retraining on writing performance and perceived competence of Taiwanese university nursing students.

    PubMed

    Tai, Hung-Cheng; Pan, Mei-Yu; Lee, Bih-O

    2016-09-01

    Attributional retraining (AR) has been applied in various professional fields. The application of AR in nursing education is rarely seen. This study explores the effects of AR on university nursing students' writing performance, perceived competence, and the relationship between writing performance and perceived competence using a blended platform of online and face-to-face approaches. A single-group experimental study was used. A total of 187 students participated in this study. The setting was the two-year vocational nursing course in a university. The Scale for Rating Composition Tasks and the Perceived Competence Scale were used before and after the AR intervention. The students' writing performance showed significant improvement after the intervention. AR had effectively influenced the students' perceived competence. The perceived competence of the students interacted with the writing performance improvements after the AR intervention. The AR intervention suggests an alternative teaching approach that can help enhance students' English writing performance as well as perceived competence. The AR programme may be applied in English language teaching and professional courses. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  11. Writing for Real Audiences.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Shugert, Diane P., Ed.

    1983-01-01

    The focus of the articles in this journal issue is helping students write for real audiences. The document contains the following articles: "Real Audiences: The Only Kind We Write For" (Margaret Queenan); "A Literary Magazine for Middle Grades" (Anthony R. Angelo and Marie-Jeanne Laurent); "Rewarding Understanding and…

  12. Writing Next: Effective Strategies to Improve Writing of Adolescents in Middle and High Schools. A Report to Carnegie Corporation of New York

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Graham, Steve; Perin, Dolores

    2007-01-01

    This report offers a number of specific teaching techniques that research suggests will help 4th- to 12th-grade students in this nation's schools. The report focuses on all students, not just those who display writing difficulties, although this latter group is deservedly the focus of much attention. The premise of this report is that all students…

  13. Reflective Writing in the Competency-Based Curriculum at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine

    PubMed Central

    Isaacson, J Harry; Salas, Renee; Koch, Carl; McKenzie, Margaret

    2008-01-01

    The Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University is a five-year medical school where the major emphasis is to train physician investigators. In this article we describe our experience with reflective writing in our competency-based medical school, which has reflective practice as one of the nine core competencies. We outline how we use reflective writing as a way to help students develop their reflective practice skills. Reflective writing opportunities, excerpts of student pieces, and faculty and student perspectives are included. We have experienced the value of reflective writing in medical school education and believe elements of our program can be adapted to other training environments. PMID:21364819

  14. Overcoming Fear and Loathing in Advertising Copywriting Courses.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Pearce, R. Charles

    Writing techniques espoused by Peter Elbow, applied to the teaching of writing in advertising copywriting classes can help students develop into better writers, generating better copy ideas. The shift of focus from writing a finished piece the first time to concentrating on the process of writing allows for a freer flow of ideas and creativity.…

  15. Using the Word Processor in Writing Groups.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Melia, Josie

    Writing groups can use word processors or microcomputers in many different types of writing activities. Four hour-long sessions at a word processor with the help of a skilled word processing tutor have been found to be sufficient to provide a working knowledge of word processing. When two or three students enrolled in a writing class are assigned…

  16. The Quarterly of the National Writing Project, 2001.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bauman, Amy, Ed.; Peterson, Art, Ed.

    2001-01-01

    Articles in this publication address the writing process, teaching writing, and research on the teaching of writing, and take the form of personal experience or opinion, or explore the work of others who have contributed to the field. Articles in the first issue of this volume include: "It's a Frame-Up: Helping Students Devise Beginnings and…

  17. Interdisciplinary Research in a Dense Summer Bridge: The Role of a Writing Intensive Chemistry Seminar

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Waratuke, Stephen; Kling, Thomas

    2016-01-01

    We describe the structure of a writing-intensive, chemistry first year seminar designed to support a three week, research focused summer bridge program. Writing assignments in the seminar helped students understand their research activities, learn to conduct themselves as scientists, and reflect upon their lab work. The writing intensive seminar…

  18. Studies and Suggestions on Prewriting Activities

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Zheng, Shigao; Dai, Weiping

    2012-01-01

    This paper studies and suggests the need for writing instruction by which students can experience writing as a creative process in exploring and communicating meaning. The prewriting activities generate ideas which can encourage a free flow of thoughts and help students discover both what they want to say and how to say it on paper. Through the…

  19. Digitalk: A New Literacy for a Digital Generation

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Turner, Kristen Hawley

    2010-01-01

    Digitalk, the language that teenagers use when writing texts and other electronic communications, is not deficient. It is just a different language used in special contexts. However, some students have difficulty with Standard English and mistakenly use the conventions of digitalk in academic writing. By helping students to be aware of those…

  20. Blog-Based Peer Response for L2 Writing Revision

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Pham, Vu Phi Ho; Usaha, Siriluck

    2016-01-01

    Few studies have been conducted to see how blog-based peer response helps students to improve their writing revisions. The present study investigates peer comments made through blogs, the nature of the comments and their areas of focus, and the ratios of students incorporating suggestions made through blog-based comments into revisions of their…

  1. Prioritizing Elementary School Writing Instruction: Cultivating Middle School Readiness for Students with Learning Disabilities

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ciullo, Stephen; Mason, Linda

    2017-01-01

    Helping elementary students with learning disabilities (LD) prepare for the rigor of middle school writing is an instructional priority. Fortunately, several standards-based skills in upper elementary school and middle school overlap. Teachers in upper elementary grades, specifically fourth and fifth grades, have the opportunity to provide…

  2. Shades of Meaning: Using Color to Enhance Reading.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Viau, Elizabeth Anne

    1998-01-01

    Shows how word processors and color printers are promising tools for helping students to think more clearly as they read. Discusses how students can use different colored lettering to identify topic sentences; to separate descriptive from narrative or informational writing; to separate information from emotion in writing; and to make changes if…

  3. Helping Students to Add Detail and Flair to Their Stories

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Patel, Pooja; Laud, Leslie

    2009-01-01

    This action research case study measured the effectiveness of a writing strategy designed to enhance imagery in stories that 3 students with severe writing difficulties (2 were identified as learning disabled, 1 was undergoing assessment) produced during their resource room sessions. The authors combined the use of the self-regulated strategy…

  4. The Effect of Topical Structure Analysis Instruction on University Students' Writing Quality

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Liangprayoon, Somlak; Chaya, Walaiporn; Thep-ackraphong, Tipa

    2013-01-01

    Coherence is considered one of the characteristics of effective writing. Topical structure analysis (TSA) has been taught to students as a revision strategy to raise their awareness of importance of textual coherence and helps them clearly understand its concept. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of TSA instruction in improving…

  5. "Pieces of a Puzzle": Seeing the Light in a Darkened Room.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lang, Frederick K.

    The film "Pieces of a Puzzle" (part of the series "Writers Writing" that was coproduced by WNET and Learning Designs and televised by WNET in 1985), helped students become better writers and facilitated the discovery of material and techniques appropriate to academic writing. First, students were introduced to reader response…

  6. Critical Thinking Activities To Improve Writing Skills: Arguments A-1.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Baker, Michael O.

    Emphasizing real-life communication skills, this book offers cooperative activities to help teachers supplement their writing programs with easy-to-use critical thinking activities. The 16 activities in the book are suitable for grades 4 through 8, for gifted younger students, or as a remediation tool for older students. The activities expose…

  7. Comprehending, Composing, and Celebrating Graphic Poetry

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Calo, Kristine M.

    2011-01-01

    The use of graphic poetry in classrooms is encouraged as a way to engage students and motivate them to read and write poetry. This article discusses how graphic poetry can help students with their comprehension of poetry while tapping into popular culture. It is organized around three main sections--reading graphic poetry, writing graphic poetry,…

  8. Key Works on Teacher Response: An Anthology

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Straub, Richard, Ed.; Lunsford, Ronald, Ed.

    2006-01-01

    There is a special three-way balance in responding to student writing: one must be compassionate, have a vision for improvement, and be capable of confronting and cajoling students to help them maximize the possibilities of revision. This book presents some of the best examples of how writing teachers approach the delicate equilibrium of student…

  9. Surprising the Writer: Discovering Details through Research and Reading.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Broaddus, Karen; Ivey, Gay

    2002-01-01

    Describes how students parallel the process of author Megan McDonald in conducting research and collecting information to provide ideas for the form and content of their writing. Notes that guiding students to record and organize information in a graphic format helps them to transfer those interesting details to new types of writing. (SG)

  10. Virtually Being There: Creating Authentic Experiences through Interactive Exchanges.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sipe, Rebecca Bowers

    2000-01-01

    Describes an email writing partner exchange between preservice teachers and high school students in a tenth-grade English class and from various disciplines across the school, designed to help students develop conversations about writing as a tool for learning across the curriculum. Outlines ground rules for the project, and discusses issues that…

  11. Ordinary Lives Illuminated: Writing Oral History.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Gandesbery, Jean

    1990-01-01

    Describes how writing oral history can help students to feel that they are participating in a lively intellectual and cultural process that travels beyond the limits of the classroom. Says students claim that their obligations to the assignment are surpassed by their feelings of gratification in having created living works with lasting vitality.…

  12. Helping Students with Dyslexia and Dysgraphia Make Connections: Differentiated Instruction Lesson Plans in Reading and Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Berninger, Virginia W.; Wolf, Beverly

    2009-01-01

    Students in Ginger Berninger's research studies "showed significant improvement in their reading and writing" after using these lessons--now available to teachers for the first time ever in one convenient book! A state-of-the-art set of lesson plans that can be used for differentiated instruction of students with dysgraphia, dyslexia, and OWL LD,…

  13. The Mock Research Paper

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Clark, Carlton

    2008-01-01

    The mock research paper combines creative writing with academic writing and, in the process, breaks down that binary. This article describes a writing assignment that offers an introduction to the college research paper genre. This assignment helps students focus on crafting an argument and learning genre conventions while postponing until the…

  14. De-Coding Writing Assignments.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Simon, Linda

    1991-01-01

    Argues that understanding assignments is the first step toward successful college writing. Urges instructors to support students by helping them to decode assignments. Breaks down instructions into individual tasks including (1) writing an essay, (2) examining an issue, (3) reviewing articles and books, and (4) focusing on some texts. Defines each…

  15. Debate on the Draft--Helping Students Decide Where They Stand.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Victory, James

    1981-01-01

    Presents four exercises to help secondary school social studies students understand the complex issues of the draft. Students participate in a mock draft lottery, analyze Phil Och's Draft Dodger Rag, examine how individual experiences affect attitudes, and compare writings by Bill Mauldin and Ron Kovic. (KC)

  16. Re-learning how to write: student successes and challenges in a targeted geoscience communication course

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Elwood Madden, M.; Miller-Deboer, C.; Eodice, M.; Miller, J.; Johnson, J.; Rifenburg, M.

    2013-12-01

    Students in OU's Geology and Geophysics (G&G) program must complete either English Technical Writing or a major-specific Geowriting class as sophomores or juniors. We asked students in Geowriting and students in a G&G colloquium course (required for G&G scholarship students and an elective for others) to complete surveys reporting their writing experiences and attitudes, as well as write an abstract for a Scientific American story to assess writing skills at the beginning and end of the semester. Geowriting students had stronger writing skills and more positive attitudes towards writing at the beginning of the semester than their colloquium peers, suggesting that students who were already interested and skilled in writing were self-selecting into the class. During the semester, Geowriting focused on improving the clarity, organization, efficiency, and mechanics of student writing and discussed how science writing is similar in some ways (argument, sentence structure, etc.), but also different in many aspects (concise, forthright, repetitive, etc) from writing tactics taught in high school and some college composition courses. Colloquium students attended the weekly scientific talks, but did not write in the class; however, some students were enrolled in freshman-level composition courses and Technical Writing. End-of-semester surveys showed Geowriting students had a more positive change in attitude and expectations towards writing than their colloquium peers. However, one significant difference in attitude towards writing was indicated by negative feelings towards in-class writing, which may be a result of 'writing fatigue' within the Geowriting group. This writing fatigue could be explained by student end-of -semester cognitive overload. Through other measures, colloquium students showed a greater improvement in writing skills (concise, clear, organized, etc) compared to Geowriting students; however, Geowriting students maintained higher skill levels than the Colloquium group at the end of the semester. Geowriting students reported in self-assessments that they had 're-learned' how to write as geoscientists in the class and had developed new writing tactics that they could apply to writing projects in other science courses. Based on these reports, we assessed abstract samples to determine if students were employing commonly taught prose style techniques (catchy intro, final summary statement, etc.), which are not usually appropriate in abstracts. Results show that Geowriting students used fewer prose style techniques at the end of the semester, resulting in more professional abstracts, while Colloquium students used more prose style techniques compared to the initial sample, resulting in less appropriate writing for the genre. In other words, Colloquium students may have lacked an explicit introduction to the genre conventions of abstracts and thus relied on a familiar genre and its stylistic devices. These results highlight the effectiveness of science-specific writing instruction within the major to guide students into the norms of the geoscience discourse community and help students learn how to 'write like a geoscientist.' However, as an elective course, only students already interested and skilled in writing were affected.

  17. Reflective Writing's Synecdochic Imperative: Process Descriptions Redescribed

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Jung, Julie

    2011-01-01

    Scholars and teachers within the field of composition have long heralded the merits of reflective writing. Whether written intermittently throughout a course or near the end (typically in the genre of portfolio cover letter), reflective writing assignments are thought to promote cognitive development by helping students become more aware of their…

  18. Writing in the Senior Capstone: Theory and Practice

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Masiello, Lea; Skipper, Tracy L.

    2013-01-01

    Surveys of employers continually highlight the need for better communication skills among recent college graduates. Yet, writing instruction in higher education serves far more than a transactional purpose. Writing facilitates learning, helps students gain skills in analysis and synthesis, and supports a range of other personal and intellectual…

  19. Understanding the Writing Process through Brain Hemisphere Neurology.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hogge, Joan Ellet

    Acknowledging that ordering, spatial orientation, and synthesis are important properties in achieving clarity in writing, a study investigated the biological influences on students' writing processes and ways to help writers produce more coherent written products. Subjects, two males and four females ranging in age from 19 to 40, were tested using…

  20. Intersectional Computer-Supported Collaboration in Business Writing: Learning through Challenged Performance

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Remley, Dirk

    2009-01-01

    Carter (2007) identifies four meta-genres associated with writing activities that can help students learn discipline-specific writing skills relative to standards within a given field: these include problem solving, empirical approaches to analysis, selection of sources to use within research, and production of materials that meet accepted…

  1. Write from the Start: Writing to Learn Science.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Rillero, Peter; And Others

    1996-01-01

    Describes the Write Now approach that allows teachers to transform the first few minutes of class into a powerful learning experience by helping students reflect on the previous day's lessons and encouraging them to construct their own knowledge of the concepts being studied. Discusses Quasar questions, reviewing responses, constructing…

  2. Writing I--A Senior High Course.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hermann, Bonita A.; Cameron, Dale

    Intended for use in teaching a senior high school writing course, this curriculum guide uses career related activities to help students clarify their career goals, practice some common adult writing experiences, and, in general, prepare for the future. Four areas from "real life" experiences are included and may be used separately as…

  3. Spelling for Writing: Student Activity Book. Level 5.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Peet, Howard

    The Level 5 activity book is designed to help children learn that writing messages and stories will help them see the value of learning to spell. The workbook's program is based on the ideas that accurate spelling contributes to the clarity of written messages; spelling accuracy shows attention to detail, sending a positive message to teachers and…

  4. The People's Republic of China: A Sampler of Contemporary Chinese Writing for the Masses

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Crown, Bonnie R.

    1973-01-01

    The selections of Chinese writing included in this feature are an attempt to help listen to the collective voice of China, to provide teachers with materials which will help students place themselves within the Chinese culture. The article is divided into sections entitled Poetry, Peking Opera, Picture Story Books, Crosstalk, Kuaiban (Chinese…

  5. E-BEST Principles: Infusing Technology into the Writing Workshop

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Coskie, Tracy L.; Hornof, M. Michelle

    2013-01-01

    As teachers work to move their writing workshop into the 21st century and to help students meet new standards expectations, they are ramping up their use of technology. This article lays out a set of guiding principles (E-BEST) to help teachers make reflective choices, so that the digital technologies in their workshops will enhance and extend…

  6. Technical Writing and Communication in a Senior-Level Seminar

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Wallner, A. S.; Latosi-Sawin, Elizabeth

    1999-10-01

    To prepare chemistry majors for entry into graduate school and professional life, a senior-level seminar has been designed at Missouri Western State College that introduces students to scientific journals and aspects of professional communication. Students select topics, conduct research, report progress, write summaries for technical and nontechnical audiences, prepare abstracts, organize outlines, and present a formal research paper. At semester's end, each student delivers a 45-minute seminar to peers and departmental faculty, using easily learned presentation software. Faculty who would adopt this approach need to guide student research, emphasize purpose and audience, illustrate a synthesis of sources, support writing as a process, and help students overcome their fear of public speaking.

  7. Writing-Reading Relationships: Effectiveness of Writing Activities as Pre-Reading Tasks to Enhance L2 Inferential Reading Comprehension

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wickramaarachchi, Thilina Indrajie

    2014-01-01

    The study examines the interaction between reading and writing processes in general and more specifically the impact of pre-reading tasks incorporating writing tasks (referred to as "prw tasks") in helping the development of inferential reading comprehension. A sample of 70 first year ESL students of the University of Kelaniya were…

  8. Increasing Writing Self-Efficacy of Adult Learners: Different Approaches, Different Results

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Plakhotnik, Maria S.; Rocco, Tonette S.

    2016-01-01

    To help graduate students with academic writing, a college of education at a large university implemented a new service, Writing Support Circles. Based on the results of the first series of this service, we changed its design. The purpose of this article is to share how changes in the design affected these adult learners' writing self-efficacy and…

  9. Helping Students with Cognitive Disabilities Improve Social Writing Skills through Email Modeling and Scaffolding

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wang, Xiao-lei; Eberhard, Dominique; Voron, Mike; Bernas, Ronan

    2016-01-01

    The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of email modeling and scaffolding on the social writing quality of students with cognitive disabilities. Ten students from a university-affiliated lab school (mean age = 19.3; SD = 1.2) with an average of IQ of 55.30 (SD = 5.98) and 10 teacher candidates in a university teacher education…

  10. Critical Thinking Activities To Improve Writing Skills: Descriptive Mysteries A-1.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Albertus, Karen; And Others

    Emphasizing real-life communication skills, this book offers cooperative activities to help teachers supplement their writing programs with easy-to-use critical thinking activities. The activities in the book are suitable for grades 4 through 8, for gifted younger students, or as a remediation tool for older students. The activities in the book…

  11. "Freeing Students to Do Their Best": Examining Writing in First-Year Seminars

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Thaiss, Chris; Moloney, Kara; Chaozon-Bauer, Pearl

    2016-01-01

    First-Year Seminars (FYS) are among the high-impact practices described by AAC&U. We studied the long-standing First-Year Seminar Program at our public research university for the ways in which writing assignments--individualized for each seminar--help faculty and students achieve program objectives in critical and analytical thinking, the…

  12. Writing for Business: A Graduate-Level Course in Problem-Solving

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Seifert, Christine

    2009-01-01

    This paper details an assignment sequence that requires graduate students in an applied communication program to identify problems that clients may not be aware of. Good writing and good problem-solving are "inextricably linked to [a student's] ability to frame an issue, gather, and analyze information, and to structure a helpful response" (Musso,…

  13. Developing Students' Scientific Writing and Presentation Skills through Argument Driven Inquiry: An Exploratory Study

    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…

  14. EmPOWERing Children with Learning Disabilities: A Practitioner-Based Reflection

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Cass, Richard J.

    2011-01-01

    Recent reports indicate that the expressive writing needs of students who struggle have become a critical and life-influencing problem. This article provides an overview of current research on the writing needs of students with LD and a practitioner-based reflection on the Singer and Bashir EmPOWER approach, a resource that can help teachers meet…

  15. But Isn't This the Land of the Free? Resistance and Discovery in Student Responses to Manzanar.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Chappell, Virginia A.

    "Farewll to Manzanar" (Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James Houston), autobiographical account of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, might be used in a writing class to help students think deliberately about race and ethnicity. Writing about the book and researching the history surrounding it could serve to…

  16. Learning to Write Like a Scientist: A Writing-Intensive Course for Microbiology/Health Science Students †

    PubMed Central

    Grzyb, Kimi; Snyder, Wesley; Field, Katharine G.

    2018-01-01

    Learning the tools and conventions of expert communication in the sciences provides multiple benefits to bioscience students, yet often these skills are not formally taught. To address this need, we designed a writing-intensive microbiology course on emerging infectious diseases to provide upper-division students with science-specific writing skills along with disciplinary course content. The course followed the guidelines of our university’s Writing Intensive Curriculum (WIC) program. Students wrote a press release, a case study, a controversy/position paper, and a grant prospectus, and revised drafts after feedback. To assess the course, in 2015 and 2016 we administered pre-post surveys and collected writing samples for analysis. Students reported on their experience, training, skills, and knowledge before taking the course. They then rated the extent to which the assignments, lectures, in-class activities, and writing activities contributed to their attainment of the learning outcomes of the course. Students entering the class were inexperienced in tools of science writing and the specific genres covered by the class. Their confidence levels rose in both skills and knowledge. Feedback from instructors was cited as most helpful in the majority of the areas where students reported the most gains. The survey provided evidence that discipline-specific knowledge had been acquired through writing activities. Teaching science writing by allowing the students to write “fiction” (e.g., a case report about a fictional patient) was effective in maintaining a high level of interest, both in learning the conventions of the genre and in seeking out detailed information about emerging infectious diseases. Both the course structure and the specific assignments would be useful at other institutions to teach science writing. PMID:29904515

  17. Helping Adults to Spell.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Moorhouse, Catherine

    This book presents a range of strategies for adult literacy tutors and offers a wealth of practical advice on teaching spelling within the context of writing. Chapters 1-3 offer basic information on talking with the student about spelling, finding out how the student spells and helping the student to see himself/herself as a "good" speller, and…

  18. Embedding the Teaching of Academic Writing into Anthropology Lectures

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mostert, Linda Ann; Townsend, Rodwell

    2018-01-01

    This paper lends support to the argument that students require a variety of teaching strategies to help them improve their academic writing. The study described here took place in 2014 in the context of embedding the teaching of academic writing into anthropology modules. The strategies implemented were microthemes, peer feedback, annotated…

  19. 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…

  20. Writing in the Majors: A Guide for Disciplinary Faculty.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Brand, Alice G.

    At the intersection of teaching and learning, this guide is intended to introduce and update disciplinary faculty on contemporary writing principles and pedagogy. In addition, it is designed to: alert faculty to the ways in which effective writing helps students not only show what they have learned but also to learn, generate, and communicate…

  1. TeenACE for Science: Using Multimedia Tools and Scaffolds to Support Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hitchcock, Caryl H.; Rao, Kavita; Chang, Chuan Chinn; Yuen, Joann W. L.

    2016-01-01

    TeenACE for Science (TAS) is a writing intervention that combines components of Multimedia Technology, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), and Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) to help students develop expository writing skills in science. This developmental study examined the effect of the TAS intervention with two groups of culturally…

  2. Real Readers for Real Writers.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dieterich, Dan

    In the business writing class, teachers should consider the following suggestions: (1) capture students' interest and involve them, (2) prepare them for life outside the English classroom, (3) help them better understand the writing process, and (4) show them that writing occurs in a context that includes a writer, one or more readers, and a host…

  3. Team-Designed Improvement of Writing and Critical Thinking in Large Undergraduate Courses

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bernstein, Daniel; Greenhoot, Andrea Follmer

    2014-01-01

    Helping students achieve advanced critical thinking and writing skills in large undergraduate classes is a challenge faced by many university faculty members. We addressed this challenge in a three-year project using team course design, built around a cognitive apprenticeship model, to enhance undergraduates' writing, critical thinking, and…

  4. Perfect Pitch.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Myers, Judith G.

    1985-01-01

    When the product is education, enthusiastic college students make ideal salespeople. Student recruiters use various marketing strategies including helping with recruitment literature; hosting visitors; and telephoning, writing, or visiting interested students. Some sales techniques are described. (MLW)

  5. Literacy, science, and science education

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    McVittie, Janet Elizabeth

    In examining the connections between literacy, science and science education, I laid out a number of questions. For example, what sorts of literate tools might facilitate writing to learn, and do children who are just becoming literate use these tools? I then examined the writing of children in science class in an attempt to determine if their writing can indeed facilitate their learning. The results of this research could help teachers make decisions about the use of writing in the learning of science. The kinds of literate tools I identified as being potentially helpful were transitionals---those words or grammatical devices which demonstrate how ideas are connected. Also, I suggested that data tables, sentences and paragraphs were also useful for students to learn. I found that grade 5/6 students used a wide range of literate tools, but that they were much more competent with those tools which were both oral and literate than those which could only be used for writing (punctuation, sentences, paragraphs, and data tables). When I attempted to determine if the children used their writing to learn, I found very little evidence that this was certainly so. However, there was some evidence that paragraphs had the potential to create a "dialogue" between student writing and thinking, so the students could make more explicit connections between science ideas. Lastly, I noticed certain gender difference in the classroom. Because of this, I contrasted the writing of the girls with the writing of the boys. I learned the girls were generally much more capable writers than the boys. More interesting, however, was that the girls generally attempted to explain their science concepts in different ways than did the boys. The girls were more likely to rely on their own reasoning, whereas the boys were more likely to persist in using culturally created science explanations. The research findings have important implications for analyzing students' learning and for finding ways to facilitate learning for both girls and boys.

  6. [Students assessment of teaching method used in the module "Help thesis writing": intended for interns at the Armed Forces Hospitals and held at the Army Center for Epidemiology and Public Health, Marseilles].

    PubMed

    Kasouati, Jalal; Velut, Guillaume; Deparis, Xavier; Touloune, Farida

    2016-01-01

    Educational assessment focuses on training institutions, programs, teachers or students. It may be predictive, summative or formative. Assessment of teaching by students (ATS) is one of the assessment tools included in the last category. Assessing teaching of the first part of the "Help thesis writing" training course. This is a cross-sectional study classified under the "ATS" agreement and focused on the "Help thesis writing" module provided to 27 participants preparing their end-of-study at CESPA. Participant representativeness was 100%. F/M sex ratio was 2, the average age was 25.5 years +/- 2.7 years, the respondents were mainly students serving as interns in general medicine. Over 85% of students said he had received no prior training in the treated areas. The participants had expectations that roughly met the objectives of the training. Apart from teaching rhythm which was deemed unsuitable by more than half of participants, 80% of participants were satisfied with the other aspects evaluated and 95.8% of them were planning to attend the second part of training. All the participants judged the training as helpful to significantly improve their knowledge and were certain it might have a positive impact on their research projects. Our study aimed to develop teacher-student complicity in order to achieve a common goal: "IMPROVING THE FORMATION".

  7. An Author's Storyboard Technique as a Prewriting Strategy.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Harrington, Suzanne L.

    1994-01-01

    Describes an author's storyboard technique which elementary school students used as a prewriting strategy to roughly sketch out stories on the storyboard frames. Suggests that the technique helps students to plan and organize their stories and helps reluctant writers find the motivation to write. (SR)

  8. Providing Management Assistance to Clients of a Small Business Development Center while Helping to Prepare Students for Business.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Roebuck, Deborah Britt

    1993-01-01

    Describes a project that helps students solve real business problems, share leadership roles, delegate duties, write collaboratively, present orally as a team, and manage conflict as they serve as consultants to small business owners. (RS)

  9. Creating a Residency Application Personal Statement Writers Workshop: Fostering Narrative, Teamwork, and Insight at a Time of Stress.

    PubMed

    Campbell, Bruce H; Havas, Nancy; Derse, Arthur R; Holloway, Richard L

    2016-03-01

    Every graduating medical student must write a personal statement for the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS), yet there are no widely available resources designed to aid the writing process, causing stress among applicants. The authors offered every Medical College of Wisconsin senior student in the Classes of 2014 and 2015 a voluntary self-contained two-hour Residency Application Personal Statement Writers Workshop. The session included the selection of writing prompts, speedwriting, and a peer-edit critique. Data were gathered before and after each workshop and at the time of ERAS submission. One hundred nine students elected to participate. Of the 96 participants completing a preworkshop questionnaire, only 28 (29%) were comfortable with creative and reflective writing. Fifty-four students completed a follow-up survey after submitting their ERAS application. Fifty-one (94%) found the session effective in getting their personal statement started, and 65 (70%) were surprised by the quality of their writing. Almost all could trace some of their final statement to the workshop. Forty-six (85%) found working with other students helpful, and 49 (91%) would recommend the session to future students; 47 (87%) agreed that the workshop was "fun." The full workshop will be repeated yearly. Workshops will also be offered to residents preparing fellowship applications. A shorter version (without the peer-edit critique) was used successfully with the entire Class of 2016 to help them reflect on their initial clinical encounters. The authors will seek further opportunities to enhance reflection for students, residents, and faculty with these techniques.

  10. Calibrated Peer Review Assignments in Science Courses: Are They Designed to Promote Critical Thinking and Writing Skills?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Reynolds, Julie; Moskovitz, Cary

    2008-01-01

    Calibrated Peer Review (CPR), an online program that purportedly helps students develop as writers and critical thinkers, is being increasingly used by science educators. CPR is an enticing tool since it does not require instructors to grade student writing, and instructors can adopt assignments directly from a library. To determine the extent to…

  11. Writing: The Research Paper. Postsecondary Intervention Model for Learning Disabilities. Study Manual #3.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Friedman, Brenda G.; And Others

    The manual is intended to help students with language learning disabilities master the academic task of research paper writing. A seven-step procedure is advocated for students and their tutors: (1) select a workable topic, then limit and focus it; (2) use library references to identify sources from which to prepare a working bibliography; (3)…

  12. A Garden of Poets: Poetry Writing in the Elementary Classroom.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Glover, Mary Kenner

    Written for elementary school teachers who want to help their students delve into poetry, this book grows out of a comparison between gardening and writing poetry. Students at the alternative school founded by the book's author work and play on a plot of land near the school; inside, they work and play with words and imagery. Many examples of…

  13. Blended Learning and Student Satisfaction: An Investigation into an EAP Writing Course

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Abbas, Zainab Ibrahim

    2018-01-01

    This paper investigates students satisfaction in a blended English writing course for Academic Purposes in Iraq. Blended learning is a novel mode of approaching education and learning in Iraq so it is very relevant to attempt to determine what factors can help it its success. Its novelty comes not from its use of online platforms such as Moodle…

  14. A Content Analysis of Choral Students' Participation Perceptions: Implications for Lifelong Learning

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Rohwer, Debbie; Rohwer, Mark

    2009-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to describe students' perceptions of their high school choral experience. The participants in the study were 57 choral musicians attending a north Texas high school. Each participant was asked to complete a broad writing task: to write a letter to the incoming varsity choir members in order to help the musicians to…

  15. Study of Frequency of Errors and Areas of Weaknesses in Business Communications Classes at Kapiolani Community College.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Uehara, Soichi

    This study was made to determine the most prevalent errors, areas of weakness, and their frequency in the writing of letters so that a course in business communications classes at Kapiolani Community College (Hawaii) could be prepared that would help students learn to write effectively. The 55 participating students were divided into two groups…

  16. Understanding the Press Kit and Its Use by the Media: When PR Material Becomes News

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Weisgerber, Corinne

    2006-01-01

    This activity helps students understand the relationship between public relations (PR) writing and news writing by demonstrating how PR material gets used in the production of news stories. Considering that "more than 70 percent of daily newspaper copy emanates from PR-generated releases," it is important for students to learn how PR professionals…

  17. Resources and practices to help graduate students and postdoctoral fellows write statements of teaching philosophy.

    PubMed

    Kearns, Katherine D; Sullivan, Carol Subiño

    2011-06-01

    Graduate students and postdoctoral fellows currently encounter requests for a statement of teaching philosophy in at least half of academic job announcements in the United States. A systematic process for the development of a teaching statement is required that integrates multiple sources of support, informs writers of the document's purpose and audience, helps writers produce thoughtful statements, and encourages meaningful reflection on teaching and learning. This article for faculty mentors and instructional consultants synthesizes practices for mentoring graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty members as they prepare statements of teaching philosophy. We review background information on purposes and audiences, provide writing resources, and synthesize empirical research on the use of teaching statements in academic job searches. In addition, we integrate these resources into mentoring processes that have helped graduate students in a Health Sciences Pedagogy course to collaboratively and critically examine and write about their teaching. This summary is intended for faculty mentors and instructional consultants who want to refine current resources or establish new mentoring programs. This guide also may be useful to graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty members, especially those who lack mentoring or who seek additional resources, as they consider the many facets of effective teaching.

  18. Fostering critical thinking and collaborative learning skills among medical students through a research protocol writing activity in the curriculum.

    PubMed

    Sahoo, Soumendra; Mohammed, Ciraj Ali

    2018-06-01

    This intervention was aimed to analyse the effect of academic writing and journal critiquing as educational approaches in improving critical thinking and collaborative learning among undergraduate medical students. A research proposal writing format was created for the 4th year medical students of Melaka Manipal Medical College, Malaysia during their ophthalmology clinical postings. The students worked in small groups and developed research protocols through an evidence based approach. This was followed by writing reflective summaries in academic portfolios about the activity undertaken. A mixed methods study was designed to explore the possible role of collaborative research proposal writing in enhancing critical thinking and collaborative learning. Analysis of reflections submitted by 188 medical students after the intervention indicate that majority of them found an improvement in their skills of critical thinking and collaborative learning as a result of research protocol writing. All participants agreed that the model helped in applying concepts to new situations in the form of designing their own study, which reflected in enhanced higher order cognitive skills. This study shows that the introduction of a structured module in the core medical curriculum that focuses on research writing skills embedded with collaborative and reflective practices can enhance collaborative learning, critical thinking, and reasoning among medical students.

  19. My Favorite Assignment.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hebert, Margaret; And Others

    1991-01-01

    Contains seven brief articles which offer assignments designed to help students perform job searches, write job application letters, answer difficult questions, write letters of resignation, alleviate fears of public speaking, use the interview effectively in the business communication, and develop listening skills. (PRA)

  20. Reading about Real Scientists

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Cummins, Sunday

    2015-01-01

    Although students do need hands-on experiences to master key skills in science, technology, and engineering, Cummins asserts, K-12 teachers should also help students understand key STEM concepts by reading, writing, and talking about the work of professional scientists and engineers. Cummins lists high-quality texts that help young people…

  1. An active-learning assignment requiring pharmacy students to write medicinal chemistry examination questions.

    PubMed

    Kolluru, Srikanth

    2012-08-10

    To implement and assess the effectiveness of an assignment requiring doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) students to write examination questions for the medicinal chemistry sections of a pharmacotherapeutics course. Students were divided into groups of 5-6 and given detailed instructions and grading rubrics for writing multiple-choice examination questions on medicinal chemistry topics. The compiled student-written questions for each examination were provided to the entire class as a study aid. Approximately 5% of the student-written questions were used in course examinations. Student appreciation of and performance in the medicinal chemistry portion of the course was significantly better than that of the previous year's class. Also, students' responses on a qualitative survey instrument indicated that the assignment provided students' guidance on which concepts to focus on, helped them retain knowledge better, and fostered personal exploration of the content, which led to better performance on examinations. Adding an active-learning assignment in which students write examination questions for the medicinal chemistry portion of a pharmacotherapeutics course was an effective means of increasing students engagement in the class and knowledge of the course material.

  2. Audience, Purpose, and Civic Engagement: A Reassessment of Writing Instruction in Political Science

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Anson, Ian G.

    2017-01-01

    In the present study I examine meaning-making as an integral aspect of successful writing assignments in political science. Results of a semester-long quasi-experimental pilot study show that meaning-making writing tasks help students in Introduction to American Politics courses become more politically engaged through the inculcation of civic…

  3. Fun While Showing, Not Telling: Crafting Vivid Detail in Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Del Nero, Jennifer Renner

    2017-01-01

    This teaching tip highlights three writing minilessons that help students construct vivid sensory detail (textual detail related to the five senses) in their fiction and creative nonfiction writing. Learning to show, not tell, is a difficult task for novice writers. The author explores reasons why this is the case and provides directions for the…

  4. The Variables of Composition: Process and Product in a Business Setting. Studies in Writing & Rhetoric Series.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Broadhead, Glenn J.; Freed, Richard C.

    Describing the variables of composition, offering researchers a methodology with which to investigate how the variables interact in specific writing strategies, and suggesting how teachers might make use of the variables of revision to help students learn successful writing strategies appropriate to a business setting, this book reports a research…

  5. Metadiscourse Use in the Persuasive Writing of Malaysian Undergraduate Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Tan, Helen; Eng, Wong Bee

    2014-01-01

    Metadiscourse is a prevalent linguistic resource that helps writers to manage the flow of the propositional contents and to direct their stance towards their contents and readers. Its dominance in persuasive writings has motivated this study which is to examine the occurrences and forms of metadiscourse use in the writing of both the high (HEP)…

  6. Reflective Writing for a Better Understanding of Scientific Concepts in High School

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    El-Helou, Joseph; Kalman, Calvin S.

    2018-01-01

    Science teachers can always benefit from efficient tools that help students to engage with the subject and understand it better without significantly adding to the teacher's workload nor requiring too much of class time to manage. Reflective writing is such a low-impact, high-return tool. What follows is an introduction to reflective writing, and…

  7. Doing Peer Review and Receiving Feedback: Impact on Scientific Literacy and Writing Skills

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Geithner, Christina A.; Pollastro, Alexandria N.

    2016-01-01

    Doing peer review has been effectively implemented to help students develop critical reading and writing skills; however, its application in Human Physiology programs is limited. The purpose of the present study was to determine the impact of peer review on Human Physiology majors' perceptions of their scientific literacy and writing skills.…

  8. The Effect of Using Cooperative and Individual Weblog to Enhance Writing Performance

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Karsak, H. Gulhan Orhan; Fer, Seval; Orhan, Feza

    2014-01-01

    Academic writing, whether individual or cooperative, is an essential skill for today's graduates. However, motivating and helping students to learn to write effectively, either in cooperative or individual scenarios, poses many challenges, many of which can be overcome by technical means. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of using…

  9. An "Odd Couple" for Teaching Writing: The Tutorial Takes in the Committee Meeting

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Williamson, Dugald; McDougall, Russell; Brien, Donna Lee

    2008-01-01

    Writing courses are increasingly popular in higher education. This paper presents a pedagogic approach that combines theory and practice, in an accessible way, to help students appreciate the interrelation of styles and contexts, and develop skills for writing in a range of genres. The approach is characterised as "adaptive application".…

  10. Peer-Editing Practice in the Writing Classroom: Benefits and Drawbacks

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Deni, Ann Rosnida Md.; Zainal, Zainor Izat

    2011-01-01

    Small scale studies have shown that peer-editing is beneficial to students as it increases their awareness of the complex process of writing, it improves their knowledge of and skills in writing and helps them become more autonomous in learning. Teachers too may benefit from peer-editing as this practice discloses invaluable information on…

  11. Helping the Graduate Thesis Writer through Faculty and Writing Center Collaboration.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Powers, Judith K.

    Last year, the Writing Center at the University of Wyoming saw a 100% increase in conferences held with graduate student research writers. Reactions of writing center staff to this development were not entirely positive because: (1) writers came with documents that were too long to discuss in a 30-minute conference and still expected a "quick…

  12. Upgrading the Research Paper toward "Real Writing" by Using Prewriting Ploys, Critical Probe-Questions, and Audience-Relating.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Beck, James

    Prewriting, critical probe questions, and post-writing-recasting for plural audiences-(audience-relating) are three tactics that can be used in research paper instruction to help college students gain skill in "real world" writing and in critical assessment of issues and evidence. The prewriting tactics of freewriting, listing specifics,…

  13. Holistic Evaluation of Writing Samples for Placement in Post-Secondary English Composition Courses.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Guerrero, Barry J.; Robison, Ruth E.

    A study was conducted by the Student Development Center of the University of Hawaii at Hilo to develop a writing placement procedure in a community college setting which would be practical, reliable, and valid. The key to this procedure was an English composition placement device that could help readers rate, holistically, writing samples written…

  14. P. S. Write Soon! All about Letters (Grades 4-8).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Post Office Dept., Washington, DC.

    A joint project of the United States Postal Service and the National Council of Teachers of English, this book provides ideas and activities to help students in grades 4 through 8 get into the letter writing habit. Section 1 stresses the joy of writing letters to friends, relatives, pen pals, and celebrities. The second section describes letters…

  15. Reflective Writing about the Utility Value of Science as a Tool for Increasing STEM Motivation and Retention -- Can AI Help Scale Up?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Beigman Klebanov, Beata; Burstein, Jill; Harackiewicz, Judith M.; Priniski, Stacy J.; Mulholland, Matthew

    2017-01-01

    The integration of subject matter learning with reading and writing skills takes place in multiple ways. Students learn to read, interpret, and write texts in the discipline-relevant genres. However, writing can be used not only for the purposes of practice in professional communication, but also as an opportunity to reflect on the learned…

  16. Helping New Grads Become Successful New Hires.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Nardo, Jeff

    1999-01-01

    Describes a program developed as a transitional tool for students at Coastal Carolina Community College. The career services office coordinates a forum for students majoring in business and related fields to: expose them to different occupations; provide information about interviewing; help with resume writing and job-search tips; and allow them…

  17. Relevant ESL for the Teenager.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wheatley, Iris Alicia Velez

    This guide was prepared for the ESL teacher to help bilingual students learn the English reading and writing skills necessary to acquire a summer job. These lessons are relevant to students' needs, an important factor in generating interest and motivation. General objectives are: to design a relevant ESL program for teenagers; to help monolingual…

  18. The Writing of the Scientific Paper To Help Students Process Water Quality Data.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Friday, Gerald

    This paper describes how a water monitoring program uses a science research paper to help students apply knowledge learned from the field, the lab, and class discussion. The application consists of examining water quality data of a river and determining what factors had an impact on the river, either biotic or abiotic. Students are asked to…

  19. Application of 'writing for healing' in premedical humanities education.

    PubMed

    Ban, Jae Yu; Yeh, Byung Il

    2012-09-01

    There has been a recent tendency to attach special importance to writing education. Books on 'writing to heal' are being written in or translated into Korean. According to these texts, writing is a valuable tool for internal healing, depending on the mode of application. Writing can have positive effects and give hope to an individual or group, but it can also be a source of frustration and despair. Based on the distinct effects of writing, we cannot overemphasize the significance of writing education. Writing is generally taught during a premedical course that targets students who will eventually practice medicine. Many reports have examined immorality in medical students and health care providers, which is a reason that writing education is important for medical systems. 'Writing for Healing' is open to freshmen at Yonsei University Wonju College of Medicine. The aim of this subject is to help students identify and acknowledge internal diseases to lead a healthier life and eventually become positive and responsible health care providers. However, in addition to the vague definition of what 'healing' is, the concept of 'writing for healing' has not been defined. This paper attempts to define the concept of 'writing for healing' and considers what influences it can have on a humanities curriculum in medical colleges.

  20. Learning autonomy in writing class: Implementation of project-based learning in english for spesific purposes

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Ayu Sukerti, G. N.; Yuliantini, Ny

    2018-01-01

    This research was aimed to analyze students’ attitude on learning autonomy through the implementation of project-based learning (PBL). Writing has been considered one of the most difficult competencies to master as it incorporates several integrated language skills. Thus, teaching writing in English for Specific Class posts a huge challenge as students often feel discouraged by the complex series of processes involved in producing a well-structured piece of writing. This research implemented PBL as the learning model to boost students’ learning outcomes and construct self-directed learning. Participants were 25 second semester students enrolled in a three-year undergraduate program in Informatics Management. The implementation of PBL in writing class contributed real advantages since it allowed students to collaboratively arrange outline in order to produce individual drafts and final essays. The study revealed that students were able to be involved in a more deep and autonomous learning as they helped each other during group discussion. The students autonomously engaged in the completion of the project in a more positive attitude. They also acquired more knowledge in the aspect of grammar and learned how to use language in proper context based on the feedbacks they got during revising their writing.

  1. Reflections on how to write and organise a research thesis.

    PubMed

    Hardy, Sally; Ramjeet, Janet

    2005-01-01

    Writing up research projects and presenting a thesis are among the most challenging and time-consuming elements of the research process. The authors provide a structured guideline to help students, particularly those undertaking Master's degrees while still practising in clinical areas, to overcome the challenges of writing their thesis and produce a cogent, logical and reflective piece of work.

  2. Librarians, Faculty, and the Writing Center Partnering to Build an Interdisciplinary Course: A Case Study at the University of Houston, USA

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Simons, Alexandra C.

    2017-01-01

    This article covers how an interdisciplinary course was developed using the expertise and resources of a history professor, the history and psychology subject librarians, and the university's writing center. The course, supported by a grant, was aimed at helping students improve their research, information literacy, and writing skills across…

  3. Writing to Learn the Reformation: Or, Who Was Ulrich Zwingli and Why Should I Care?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Jordon, Sherry

    2014-01-01

    This article describes the use of "Writing to Learn" assignments in a course on the Theology of the Protestant and Catholic Reformations. These short, informal assignments promote active learning by focusing on writing as a process for critical thinking and as a way to learn the content of the course. They help students creatively engage…

  4. Employing Concept Mapping as a Pre-Writing Strategy to Help EFL Learners Better Generate Argumentative Compositions

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Al-Shaer, Ibrahim M. R.

    2014-01-01

    The purpose of this research was to examine the impact of employing concept mapping at a pre-writing stage on English as a foreign language (EFL) students' ability to generate better argumentative essays. Thirty-eight participants were randomly assigned to two groups participating in Writing II course at Al-Quds Open University (QOU). Both groups…

  5. Fostering critical thinking and collaborative learning skills among medical students through a research protocol writing activity in the curriculum

    PubMed Central

    2018-01-01

    Purpose This intervention was aimed to analyse the effect of academic writing and journal critiquing as educational approaches in improving critical thinking and collaborative learning among undergraduate medical students. Methods A research proposal writing format was created for the 4th year medical students of Melaka Manipal Medical College, Malaysia during their ophthalmology clinical postings. The students worked in small groups and developed research protocols through an evidence based approach. This was followed by writing reflective summaries in academic portfolios about the activity undertaken.A mixed methods study was designed to explore the possible role of collaborative research proposal writing in enhancing critical thinking and collaborative learning. Results Analysis of reflections submitted by 188 medical students after the intervention indicate that majority of them found an improvement in their skills of critical thinking and collaborative learning as a result of research protocol writing. All participants agreed that the model helped in applying concepts to new situations in the form of designing their own study, which reflected in enhanced higher order cognitive skills. Conclusion This study shows that the introduction of a structured module in the core medical curriculum that focuses on research writing skills embedded with collaborative and reflective practices can enhance collaborative learning, critical thinking, and reasoning among medical students. PMID:29860777

  6. La Mancha Plus Two--1970: Proceedings of the Annual Model Secondary School Conference (3rd, University of Vermont, April 24-25, 1970).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Manchel, Frank, Ed.; Clark, Virginia, Ed.

    Ten papers assess 3 years of the La Mancha Project whose basic objectives are to devise methods and materials to help students write more effectively, to coordinate the students' writing experiences in English with their other academic classes and life outside school, to provide an in-service training program for secondary school teachers on the…

  7. Introduction to Communication, Grades PreK-2. The Math Process Standards Series

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    O'Connell, Susan; O'Connor, Kelly

    2007-01-01

    In this book, the authors offer suggestions for teachers to help students explore, express, and better understand mathematical content through talking and writing. They offer an array of entry points for understanding, planning, and teaching, including strategies that help students put their ideas into words, clarify them, elaborate on them, and…

  8. A Week for Space

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Comstock, Diane

    2008-01-01

    Space Week focuses on concepts that enable students to make concrete observations in the early grades (K-2) and move to concepts that help students develop their internet research and writing skills in middle and upper grades (Grades 3-5), and culminates with the development of science investigation design skills (Grade 6). To help launch your…

  9. Requiring Writing, Ensuring Distance-Learning Outcomes.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mulligan, Roark; Geary, Susan

    1999-01-01

    Discussion of the quality of distance learning programs focuses on a study of Christopher Newport University (CPU ONLINE) that showed learning outcomes in online courses were as good as outcomes in traditional courses. Describes online writing requirements that helped students develop critical thinking skills. (Author/LRW)

  10. Strengthening the Reading-Writing Connection: A Plan for Implementing Young Author's Conferences.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Gorsuch, Sarah; Furnas, Judy

    1989-01-01

    Discusses how workshops for young authors help to cement the reading-writing connection for students and build their motivation and enthusiasm. Provides a step-by-step outline for educators who are interested in planning and implementing a young author's conference. (MG)

  11. The Tricks of the Trade.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Cross, Mary

    1982-01-01

    Teaching students copywriting gives them writing techniques that will help them boil a 100-word message down to 20 for a letter, write a memo that is memorable because of its clarity and word choice, or produce a report that offers findings in a readable, believable way. (HOD)

  12. Documentation as Problem Solving for Literacy Outreach Programs

    DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

    Girill, T R

    2004-07-06

    Age-appropriate technical writing lessons for underperforming high-school students can offer them an innovative, ''authentic'' way to improve how they read and write. Thus the techniques and principles of effective technical communication routinely applied at work also provide a positive response to one of today's great educational challenges. This workshop shows participants how to (1) introduce English and science teachers to the value of technical writing as a response to school literacy problems, (2) prepare plausible practice exercises to help students improve their basic literacy, and (3) recognize and respond to known literacy outreach pitfalls. Every effective literacy outreach project basedmore » on technical writing needs to address four key problems.« less

  13. The Influence of an Intensive Faculty-Guided Mentoring Program on the College Adjustment of At-Risk Students: A Qualitative Assessment.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Harter, James L.; Jones-Walker, Judy

    Mercy College (Ohio) has expanded its services for at-risk students, due to the fact that many of these students are not functioning at college level in writing, math, and reading. The hope of attaining a college education among at-risk students is high, and it is important that they receive help in their areas of need. To help accomplish this…

  14. "Dear Teacher, Johnny Copied."

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Jackson, Louise A.; And Others

    1987-01-01

    Presents the problem of intentional or unintentional plagiarism on the part of young students, several possible causes for it, and offers ways teachers can help students avoid copying and understand the value of owning one's writing. (JC)

  15. 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,…

  16. An Investigation of the Relationship between Cohesion and Syntactic Complexity of Take-Away Writing and Advanced Content Complexity and Depth

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Gardner, Matthew Thomas

    2017-01-01

    In secondary and post-secondary content courses, the use of writing to facilitate complex learning in advanced content areas, which is called writing to learn content, can help students to evaluate their understanding, higher order cognition, and thinking about the content to learned (Carifio, 2005; Hayes, 2006; Carifio, 2015). The primary focus…

  17. Creating a Critical Thinker

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Piergiovanni, Polly R.

    2014-01-01

    A college education is expected to improve students' critical thinking skills. Keeping students active in class--through writing activities and class discussion--has been shown to help students think critically. In this article, creative hands-on activities, which are common in engineering courses, are shown to improve students' critical thinking…

  18. Rap and Technology Teach the Art of Argument

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Fink, Rosalie

    2017-01-01

    How can teachers integrate rap and technology strategies to teach students with learning disabilities the art of persuasive argument writing? This teacher research study presents creative new approaches for teaching argument writing. Strategies used in the study helped college freshmen with learning disabilities (LD) succeed in developing…

  19. Noam Chomsky Writes to Mrs. Davis about Grammar and Education.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    English Education, 1984

    1984-01-01

    In a personal letter, Chomsky suggests that while the study of grammar has little detectable effect on writing ability, it can, as a branch of science, help students learn how (and why) to think about hard and intriguing questions and to develop natural curiosity. (HOD)

  20. Chemistry, Poetry, and Artistic Illustration: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Teaching and Promoting Chemistry

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Furlan, Ping Y.; Kitson, Herbert; Andes, Cynthia

    2007-10-01

    This article describes a successful interdisciplinary collaboration among chemistry, humanities and English faculty members, who utilized poetry and artistic illustration to help students learn, appreciate, and enjoy chemistry. Students taking general chemistry classes were introduced to poetry writing and museum-type poster preparation during one class period. They were then encouraged to use their imagination and creativity to brainstorm and write chemistry poems or humors on the concepts and principles covered in the chemistry classes and artistically illustrate their original work on posters. The project, 2 3 months in length, was perceived by students as effective at helping them learn chemistry and express their understanding in a fun, personal, and creative way. The instructors found students listened to the directives because many posters were witty, clever, and eye-catching. They showed fresh use of language and revealed a good understanding of chemistry. The top posters were created by a mix of A-, B-, and C-level students. The fine art work, coupled with poetry, helped chemistry come alive on campus, providing an aesthetic presentation of materials that engaged the general viewer.

  1. Close Reading and Creative Writing in Clinical Education: Teaching Attention, Representation, and Affiliation

    PubMed Central

    Charon, Rita; Hermann, Nellie; Devlin, Michael J.

    2015-01-01

    Medical educators increasingly have embraced literary and narrative means of pedagogy, such as the use of learning portfolios, reading works of literature, reflective writing, and creative writing, to teach interpersonal and reflective aspects of medicine. Outcomes studies of such pedagogies support the hypotheses that narrative training can deepen the clinician's attention to a patient and can help to establish the clinician's affiliation with patients, colleagues, teachers, and the self. In this article, the authors propose that creative writing in particular is useful in the making of the physician. Of the conceptual frameworks that explain why narrative training is helpful for clinicians, the authors focus on aesthetic theories to articulate the mechanisms through which creative and reflective writing may have dividends in medical training. These theories propose that accurate perception requires representation and that representation requires reception, providing a rationale for teaching clinicians and trainees how to represent what they perceive in their clinical work and how to read one another's writings. The authors then describe the narrative pedagogy used at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University. Since faculty must read what their students write, they receive robust training in close reading. From this training emerged the Reading Guide for Reflective Writing, which has been useful to clinicians as they develop their skills as close readers. This institution-wide effort to teach close reading and creative writing aims to equip students and faculty with the pre-requisites to provide attentive, empathic clinical care. PMID:26200577

  2. Close Reading and Creative Writing in Clinical Education: Teaching Attention, Representation, and Affiliation.

    PubMed

    Charon, Rita; Hermann, Nellie; Devlin, Michael J

    2016-03-01

    Medical educators increasingly have embraced literary and narrative means of pedagogy, such as the use of learning portfolios, reading works of literature, reflective writing, and creative writing, to teach interpersonal and reflective aspects of medicine. Outcomes studies of such pedagogies support the hypotheses that narrative training can deepen the clinician's attention to a patient and can help to establish the clinician's affiliation with patients, colleagues, teachers, and the self. In this article, the authors propose that creative writing in particular is useful in the making of the physician. Of the conceptual frameworks that explain why narrative training is helpful for clinicians, the authors focus on aesthetic theories to articulate the mechanisms through which creative and reflective writing may have dividends in medical training. These theories propose that accurate perception requires representation and that representation requires reception, providing a rationale for teaching clinicians and trainees how to represent what they perceive in their clinical work and how to read one another's writings. The authors then describe the narrative pedagogy used at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University. Because faculty must read what their students write, they receive robust training in close reading. From this training emerged the Reading Guide for Reflective Writing, which has been useful to clinicians as they develop their skills as close readers. This institution-wide effort to teach close reading and creative writing aims to equip students and faculty with the prerequisites to provide attentive, empathic clinical care.

  3. How To Proofread and Edit Your Writing: A Guide for Student Writers.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Morgan, M.C.

    Proofreading can be tedious and boring, especially if it is approached as correcting errors. But proofreading is not correcting errors so much as reviewing the paper for ideas and for readability. Sometimes classmates can help a student proofread--they can help assess the draft, propose some alternative solutions, and make some choices. This paper…

  4. Writing Stories to Enhance Scientific Literacy

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Ritchie, Stephen M.; Tomas, Louisa; Tones, Megan

    2011-03-01

    In response to international concerns about scientific literacy and students' waning interest in school science, this study investigated the effects of a science-writing project about the socioscientific issue (SSI) of biosecurity on the development of students' scientific literacy. Students generated two BioStories each that merged scientific information with the narrative storylines in the project. The study was conducted in two phases. In the exploratory phase, a qualitative case study of a sixth-grade class involving classroom observations and interviews informed the design of the second, confirmatory phase of the study, which was conducted at a different school. This phase involved a mixed methods approach featuring a quasi-experimental design with two classes of Australian middle school students (i.e., sixth grade, 11 years of age, n = 55). The results support the argument that writing the sequence of stories helped the students become more familiar with biosecurity issues, develop a deeper understanding of related biological concepts, and improve their interest in science. On the basis of these findings, teachers should be encouraged to engage their students in the practice of writing about SSI in a way that integrates scientific information into narrative storylines. Extending the practice to older students and exploring additional issues related to writing about SSI are recommended for further research.

  5. The Balanced Literacy Diet.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Willows, Dale

    2002-01-01

    Describes professional development program in Ontario school district to improve student reading and writing skills. Program used food-pyramid concepts to help teacher learn to provide a balanced and flexible approach to literacy instruction based on student needs. (PKP)

  6. The Wellspring: Historical Writing Project.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    McCarthy, Megan

    2003-01-01

    Describes a service learning project at Onekama Middle School (Michigan), that involves students from English, Computer Applications, Social Studies, and Michigan History courses. Students meet with senior citizens who share their life stories while the students teach them how to use computers. The project helps students develop pride in and a…

  7. Cactus: Writing an Article

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hyde, Hartley; Spencer, Toby

    2010-01-01

    Some people became mathematics or science teachers by default. There was once such a limited range of subjects that students who could not write essays did mathematics and science. Computers changed that. Word processor software helped some people overcome huge spelling and grammar hurdles and made it easy to edit and manipulate text. Would-be…

  8. Learning Strategy Instruction in the Foreign Language Classroom: Writing.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Chamot, Anna Uhl; And Others

    This resource guide is designed to provide foreign language teachers with suggestions for helping students learn how to become better language learners. The five chapters of the guide for teaching writing skills are as follows: (1) Teaching Learning Strategies (e.g., rationale for teaching, types, useful strategies, guidelines, instructional…

  9. Automatic Summary Assessment for Intelligent Tutoring Systems

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    He, Yulan; Hui, Siu Cheung; Quan, Tho Thanh

    2009-01-01

    Summary writing is an important part of many English Language Examinations. As grading students' summary writings is a very time-consuming task, computer-assisted assessment will help teachers carry out the grading more effectively. Several techniques such as latent semantic analysis (LSA), n-gram co-occurrence and BLEU have been proposed to…

  10. Using Curriculum-Based Measurement for Struggling Beginning Writers

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    McMaster, Kristen L.; Du, Xiaoqing; Parker, David C.; Pinto, Viveca

    2011-01-01

    Many students struggle with writing, which impacts their school and lifelong success, but early identification and intervention can help prevent long-term writing problems. Reliable and valid assessment tools are needed for early identification of struggling writers, as well as to monitor their progress and evaluate the effects of early…

  11. STAR: A Number Writing Strategy.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Boom, Susan E.; Fine, Elaine

    1995-01-01

    The STAR (Stop, Think, Ask, Recite) strategy was developed to help a kindergarten student write numerals. The child was encouraged to recite a "saying" while he formed each numeral. For example, to make a "5," the child would say "the man went down the street, around the corner, and his hat blew off." (JDD)

  12. An Approach to the Teaching of Academic Writing.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Johnston, Sue Ann

    1985-01-01

    Discusses solutions to problems in teaching research paper writing skills to English as a second language students in developing countries where library resources are inadequate. Suggests the use of interviews as an alternative research source and shows how an oral report on research results can help to develop synthesizing skills. (SED)

  13. Exploring Nonfiction through Depression-Era Letter Writing.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ousley, Denise M.

    2002-01-01

    Notes that by exploring Depression-era teens' letter writing, language arts teachers can enjoy more fruitful uses of nonfiction with their students. Discusses how reading, analyzing, and responding to the letters could help minimize the widening gap between the 1930s and the twenty-first century. Concludes that researching everyday Americans'…

  14. Empowering Rhetoric: Black Students Writing Black Panthers.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Pough, Gwendolyn D.

    2002-01-01

    Examines Black student responses to Black Panther Party documents and how those documents moved the students toward change. Maintains that by allowing the classroom to function as a public space which students can discuss the issues that matter to them, teachers can help to foster and encourage student activism and ultimately their empowerment.…

  15. Using a Blog to Guide Beginner Students to Use Adjectives Appropriately When Writing Descriptions in English (El uso de una bitácora o "blog" para guiar a estudiantes principiantes en el uso apropiado de los adjetivos cuando escriben descripciones en inglés)

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lizarazo Jara, Omar Yesid

    2012-01-01

    Beginner students often have difficulties using adjectives when they write descriptions in English. This article focuses on the procedures used to help my sixth grade students understand and use adjectives in the correct order by using a blog. To achieve the objective of the project I decided to implement an innovation in and out of class…

  16. The Acquisition of Written Language: Response and Revision. Writing Research: Multidisciplinary Inquiries into the Nature of Writing Series.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Freedman, Sarah Warshauer, Ed.

    Viewing writing as both a form of language learning and an intellectual skill, this book presents essays on how writers acquire trusted inner voices and the roles schools and teachers can play in helping student writers in the learning process. The essays in the book focus on one of three topics: the language of instruction and how response and…

  17. Doing peer review and receiving feedback: impact on scientific literacy and writing skills.

    PubMed

    Geithner, Christina A; Pollastro, Alexandria N

    2016-03-01

    Doing peer review has been effectively implemented to help students develop critical reading and writing skills; however, its application in Human Physiology programs is limited. The purpose of the present study was to determine the impact of peer review on Human Physiology majors' perceptions of their scientific literacy and writing skills. Students enrolled in the Scientific Writing course completed multiple writing assignments, including three revisions after receiving peer and instructor feedback. Students self-assessed their knowledge, skills, and attitudes related to science and writing in pre- and postcourse surveys (n = 26 with complete data). Seven survey items related to scientific literacy and writing skills impacted by peer review were selected for analysis. Scores on these survey items were summed to form a composite self-rating score. Responses to two questions regarding the most useful learning activities were submitted to frequency analysis. Mean postcourse scores for individual survey items and composite self-rating scores were significantly higher than precourse means (P < 0.05). Peer review was the most frequently noted among 21 learning activities for increasing scientific literacy and in the top 5 for improving writing skills. In conclusion, peer review is an effective teaching/learning approach for improving undergraduate Human Physiology majors' knowledge, skills, and attitudes regarding science and scientific writing. Copyright © 2016 The American Physiological Society.

  18. Applying Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) model to develop an online English writing course for nursing students.

    PubMed

    Tai, Hung-Cheng; Pan, Mei-Yu; Lee, Bih-O

    2015-06-01

    Learning English as foreign language and computer technology are two crucial skills for nursing students not only for the use in the medical institutions but also for the communication needs following the trend of globalization. Among language skills, writing has long been ignored in the curriculums although it is a core element of language learning. To apply the TPACK (Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge) model to design an online English writing course for nursing students, and to explore the effects of the course to the students' learning progress as well as their satisfactions and perceptions. A single-group experimental study, utilizing the CEEC (College Entrance Examination Center) writing grading criteria and a self-designed course satisfaction questionnaire, is used. Fifty one nursing students who were in their first/four semesters of the two year vocational pre-registration nursing course in a Taiwan university were selected using convenience sampling. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and repeated measure MANOVA. Qualitative data were analyzed by content analysis. Students' writing competence had been improved significantly in every dimension after the instruction. Only half of the learners preferred online writing compared to the traditional way of writing by hand. Additionally, participants reported that they would prefer to receive feedback from the teacher than peers, yet they did not like the indirect feedback. The teacher perceived the course as meaningful but demanding for both learning and teaching sides. To implement the peer review activities and give feedback on time were two major challenges during the cycles. The TPACK model suggests a comprehensive and effective teaching approach that can help enhance nursing students' English writing performance. Teachers are advised to consider its implementation when designing their syllabus. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  19. Learning Science Process Through Data Exploration and Writing

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Prothero, W. A.

    2007-12-01

    One of the most effective ways of teaching science process is to have students take part in the same activities that practicing scientists engage in. These activities include studying the current research in the field, discussing ideas with colleagues, formulating a research problem, making a proposal defining the problem and plan of attack, presenting and writing about the results of the study, and critically reviewing the work of others. An inquiry curriculum can use these activities to guide the scaffolding of assignments and learning experiences that help students learn science process. At UCSB, students in a large general education oceanography class use real Earth data to study plate tectonics, the Indian Monsoon, climate change, and the health of the world fisheries. The end product for each subject has been a science paper based on Earth data. Over a period of approximately 15 years, the scaffolding of activities to prepare each student for the written assignments has been modified and improved, in response to student feedback and their success with the assignments. I have found that the following resources and sequence of activities help the oceanography students write good science papers. 1. Lecture: motivation and the opportunity for feedback and questions. 2. Textbook: background information. It is also possible to get the information from the internet, but unless the scope of reading is strictly defined, students don't know when to stop reading and become unhappy. 3. Online assignments: automatically graded assignments that force the student to keep up with reading. 4. Questions of the day: in-class handouts, with diagrams that the students either complete, or answer questions about. They are handed in and tallied, but not graded. They also inform the instructor of misconceptions. 5. Thought questions: student answers are posted on a threaded discussion list, and are due prior to lecture. The answers provide instructor feedback and guide the lecture. Students see their peers' answers only after entering their own. They can then improve their own answer ("Just In Time Teaching"). 6. Laboratory section activities: these introduce students to the course software, especially the data browsers, and the meaning of the data for the next writing assignment. For each meeting, a group inquiry activity results in a short class presentation by each group. This informs the teaching assistant (who teaches the lab section) of student understanding of the material, helps students become comfortable with the software, and supports students helping each other. 7. Written assignments. The assignments each require an approximately 1100-1600 word paper that includes abstract, introduction, data, interpretation, summary, and references. Images are captured from the data browser and included in the paper. The writing technology has evolved from papers handed in and graded by hand, to fully online hand-in and grading, to calibrated peer review, which was incorporated in the 2005 course. Calibrated peer review has the advantage that students see and evaluate their peers' papers. About 20% of the papers are graded by the instructor, resulting in a much lower instructor grading workload. Also, I suspect that a greater number of very short writing assignments in response to thought questions or min- inquiries might be an effective modification. The new "Learning With Data Workshop" will support many of the inquiry activities described here.

  20. Teaching Genre with Purpose

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Duke, Nell K.; Caughlan, Samantha; Juzwik, Mary M.; Martin, Nicole M.

    2012-01-01

    Readers use different processes to read different kinds of text. Three principles can guide teachers in helping their students better understand the nuances of different genres. Teachers should engage students in reading and writing for real-world reasons, develop students' knowledge of specific genre features, and teach strategies tailored to…

  1. Mentor Texts Squared: Helping Students Explore Voice through Readings That Promote Critical Consciousness

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Molina, Sarina Chugani; Manasse, Mark

    2015-01-01

    Much research has been conducted documenting the reading and writing challenges students in pre-college courses face (Crosby, 2007; Masterson, 2007). Some colleges label these courses "developmental," "remedial," or "basic skills" courses. These "developmental" students comprise both US-born and immigrant…

  2. Creating an Opera with Seventh Graders.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hower, Eileen

    1999-01-01

    Discusses the collaboration between an art and a music teacher whose seventh grade students wrote an opera based on the children's story "The Egyptian Cinderella." Addresses familiarizing students with composing music, student roles, and writing the compositions. Provides helpful hints and considers the benefits of this project. (CMK)

  3. Helping Students Improve Citation Performance

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Nienhaus, Brian

    2004-01-01

    During the author's final year in graduate school, he began teaching business communication. Without much forethought, he asked students to write a report with a sources requirement. When students turned their reports in, he learned that they were worlds apart on the practice of citing such sources. As a student in a rarefied academic environment,…

  4. Student Teacher Reflective Writing: What Does It Reveal?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mena-Marcos, Juanjo; Garcia-Rodriguez, Maria-Luisa; Tillema, Harm

    2013-01-01

    Some researchers claim that reflection helps student teachers to better understand their practice teaching. This study aims to explore how deliberate reflection by student teachers is encouraged as a way to prepare, analyse and evaluate their practice. A total of 104 student teachers in primary education participated in this study during their…

  5. Implementing a writing course in an online RN-BSN program.

    PubMed

    Stevens, Carol J; D'Angelo, Barbara; Rennell, Nathalie; Muzyka, Diann; Pannabecker, Virginia; Maid, Barry

    2014-01-01

    Scholarly writing is an essential skill for nurses to communicate new research and evidence. Written communication directly relates to patient safety and quality of care. However, few online RN-BSN programs integrate writing instruction into their curricula. Nurses traditionally learn how to write from instructor feedback and often not until midway into their baccalaureate education. Innovative strategies are needed to help nurses apply critical thinking skills to writing. The authors discuss a collaborative project between nursing faculty and technical communication faculty to develop and implement a writing course that is 1 of the 1st courses the students take in the online RN-BSN program.

  6. Opportunity Matters: The Ithuba Writing Project in South African Schools

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Sailors, Misty; Makalela, Leketi; Hoffman, James V.

    2010-01-01

    Our lead article explores the impact the authors witnessed when they helped South African teachers create culturally relevant books written in their students' languages. Through participation in the Ithuba Writing Project, these teachers were able to relate transformative stories about their lives through books that they subsequently shared in the…

  7. Writing in the Elementary Classroom: A Reconsideration.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Evans, Janet, Ed.

    This book presents 15 essays that consider writing development from many different angles, creating a collage that focuses on how to help students develop into competent writers. The first section of the book consists of four chapters on how to support young writers. In the second section, the essays explore how a variety of issues influence…

  8. "All Quiet on the Western Front."

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Soderquist, Alisa

    Based on Erich Maria Remarque's novel "All Quiet on the Western Front" and other war literature, this lesson plan presents activities designed to help students understand that works of art about war can call up strong emotions in readers; and that the writing process can be applied to writing poems. The main activity of the lesson involves…

  9. Literature and the Land: Reading and Writing for Environmental Literacy, 7-12.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Rous, Emma Wood

    Not only inspiring teachers to help students become environmentally literate, this book also provides the tools to make it happen in the literature classroom. Beginning with readings and exercises about perception, it explores a wealth of nature writing activities, the history of people's relationship with nature from mythological times to the…

  10. Why Historical Fiction Writing? Helping Students Think Rigorously and Creatively

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hughes, Ryan

    2013-01-01

    The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) lays out "a vision of what it means to be a literate person in the twenty-first century." Among educators, conversations about reading and writing have shifted to reflect the CCSS emphasis on informational, technical, opinion, and other non-narrative forms. Yet, these standards also demand that…

  11. Writing Dear Abby: An Interim Report to Teachers of Spelling.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Allen, Virginia French

    New spellers, adults just beginning to learn to read and write, face daunting problems with English vocabulary. Teachers use varying approaches to help these students, including published lists of Words Most Frequently Used. This paper provides an inventory of words used in letters to syndicated columnist "Dear Abby" as published in a…

  12. Applying Toulmin: Teaching Logical Reasoning and Argumentative Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Rex, Lesley A.; Thomas, Ebony Elizabeth; Engel, Steven

    2010-01-01

    To learn to write well-reasoned persuasive arguments, students need in situ help thinking through the complexity and complications of an issue, making inferences based on evidence, and hierarchically grouping and logically sequencing ideas. They rely on teachers to make this happen. In this article, the authors explain the framework they used and…

  13. Writing with Basals: A Sentence Combining Approach to Comprehension.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Reutzel, D. Ray; Merrill, Jimmie D.

    Sentence combining techniques can be used with basal readers to help students develop writing skills. The first technique is addition, characterized by using the connecting word "and" to join two or more base sentences together. The second technique is called "embedding," and is characterized by putting parts of two or more base sentences together…

  14. "Come on Guys, What Are We Really Trying to Say Here?" Using Google Docs to Develop Year 9 Pupils' Essay-Writing Skills

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Moonen, Lucy

    2015-01-01

    Lucy Moonen set out to explore whether collaborative writing in small groups, facilitated by the use of Google Docs, would help to sustain students' focus on essay writing as the development of an historical argument. She explains how she set up an essay on the League of Nationals as a collaborative task and demonstrates how the technology enabled…

  15. Reflective Writing for a Better Understanding of Scientific Concepts in High School

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    El-Helou, Joseph; Kalman, Calvin S.

    2018-02-01

    Science teachers can always benefit from efficient tools that help students to engage with the subject and understand it better without significantly adding to the teacher's workload nor requiring too much of class time to manage. Reflective writing is such a low-impact, high-return tool. What follows is an introduction to reflective writing, and more on its usefulness for teachers is given in the last part of this article.

  16. Mind the gap! Automated concept map feedback supports students in writing cohesive explanations.

    PubMed

    Lachner, Andreas; Burkhart, Christian; Nückles, Matthias

    2017-03-01

    Many students are challenged with the demand of writing cohesive explanations. To support students in writing cohesive explanations, we developed a computer-based feedback tool that visualizes cohesion deficits of students' explanations in a concept map. We conducted three studies to investigate the effectiveness of such feedback as well as the underlying cognitive processes. In Study 1, we found that the concept map helped students identify potential cohesion gaps in their drafts and plan remedial revisions. In Study 2, students with concept map feedback conducted revisions that resulted in more locally and globally cohesive, and also more comprehensible, explanations than the explanations of students who revised without concept map feedback. In Study 3, we replicated the findings of Study 2 by and large. More importantly, students who had received concept map feedback on a training explanation 1 week later wrote a transfer explanation without feedback that was more cohesive than the explanation of students who had received no feedback on their training explanation. The automated concept map feedback appears to particularly support the evaluation phase of the revision process. Furthermore, the feedback enabled novice writers to acquire sustainable skills in writing cohesive explanations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

  17. Enhancing Students' Written Mathematical Arguments

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Lepak, Jerilynn

    2014-01-01

    Writing in mathematics is complex. The purpose of this article is to share how one teacher, Ms. Hill, used peer-review activities involving rubrics to explicitly communicate mathematical resources that students could draw from when justifying a claim. She found that helping students understand which type of statements could be used in…

  18. Overcoming Student Resistance to a Teaching Innovation

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Keeney-Kennicutt, Wendy; Baris Gunersel, Adalet; Simpson, Nancy

    2008-01-01

    This mixed-methods study investigated student perceptions of an innovative educational tool and the instructor strategies that helped change initial student resistance into acceptance and engagement. The educational tool in this study is Calibrated Peer Review (CPR)™, a web-based program that uses writing as a learning and assessment tool.…

  19. Toward a Pedagogy of Materially Engaged Listening

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    LaVecchia, Christina M.

    2017-01-01

    As writing teachers increasingly engage students with audio media, it has become crucial to coach listening explicitly in the classroom, activities that students may otherwise approach passively. In this article I suggest that a rhetorical approach applicable to (or derived from) print texts is not enough to help students listen actively, and…

  20. Prairie Stories

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Robertson, Amy; Blake, Kathryn

    2011-01-01

    Stories read aloud or written by students help science come alive and engage students as active participants in their learning. Students gain a sense of place by learning about their local ecosystem by listening to stories read aloud, doing prairie-related activities, and writing stories of their own. This article describes a prairie unit that…

  1. Incorporating Formative Assessment in Iranian EFL Writing: A Case Study

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Naghdipour, Bakhtiar

    2017-01-01

    Undergraduate students' experience of assessment in universities is usually of summative assessment which provides only limited information to help students improve their performance. By contrast, formative assessment is informative and forward-looking, possessing the leverage to inform students of their day-to-day progress and inform teachers of…

  2. Teaching to What Students Have in Common

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Willingham, Daniel; Daniel, David

    2012-01-01

    Although students vary in their abilities and interests, "hyper-individualizing" the curriculum in an attempt to accommodate these differences is not the best way to help each student excel, write Willingham and Daniel. Drawing on educational research, the authors give examples of several cognitive must haves (things that the cognitive system…

  3. Documentaries: Motivating the Tech Generation to Research and Write

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Price, Dallas

    2012-01-01

    This article describes the process, tools, and benefits of engaging highly gifted middle-school age students in producing historical documentaries. Dallas Price, a sixth-grade teacher in a self-contained public school program for highly gifted students, highlights the project components that help students develop twenty-first-century skills within…

  4. "The Role's the Thing": The Power of Persona in Shakespeare.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Burnett, Rebecca E.; Foster, Elizabeth

    1993-01-01

    Suggests that using personas helps students to engage as active learners in their study of William Shakespeare. Describes how students can assume an invisible metaphoric mask in their writing about a play. Argues that the persona approach aids students in recognizing Shakespeare's relevance for their lives. (HB)

  5. Beyond the Write Answer: Mathematical Connections

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Haltiwanger, Leigh; Simpson, Amber M.

    2013-01-01

    As math teachers, the authors often encountered students who could ace a test but not explain their reasoning. This phenomenon was disturbing to them, and they fought for years to help students both understand mathematical concepts and develop meaning for them. Since their primary goal was to develop mathematically literate students, their…

  6. Teaching information literacy skills to sophomore-level biology majors.

    PubMed

    Thompson, Leigh; Blankinship, Lisa Ann

    2015-05-01

    Many undergraduate students lack a sound understanding of information literacy. The skills that comprise information literacy are particularly important when combined with scientific writing for biology majors as they are the foundation skills necessary to complete upper-division biology course assignments, better train students for research projects, and prepare students for graduate and professional education. To help undergraduate biology students develop and practice information literacy and scientific writing skills, a series of three one-hour hands-on library sessions, discussions, and homework assignments were developed for Biological Literature, a one-credit, one-hour-per-week, required sophomore-level course. The embedded course librarian developed a learning exercise that reviewed how to conduct database and web searches, the difference between primary and secondary sources, source credibility, and how to access articles through the university's databases. Students used the skills gained in the library training sessions for later writing assignments including a formal lab report and annotated bibliography. By focusing on improving information literacy skills as well as providing practice in scientific writing, Biological Literature students are better able to meet the rigors of upper-division biology courses and communicate research findings in a more professional manner.

  7. Teaching Information Literacy Skills to Sophomore-Level Biology Majors

    PubMed Central

    Thompson, Leigh; Blankinship, Lisa Ann

    2015-01-01

    Many undergraduate students lack a sound understanding of information literacy. The skills that comprise information literacy are particularly important when combined with scientific writing for biology majors as they are the foundation skills necessary to complete upper-division biology course assignments, better train students for research projects, and prepare students for graduate and professional education. To help undergraduate biology students develop and practice information literacy and scientific writing skills, a series of three one-hour hands-on library sessions, discussions, and homework assignments were developed for Biological Literature, a one-credit, one-hour-per-week, required sophomore-level course. The embedded course librarian developed a learning exercise that reviewed how to conduct database and web searches, the difference between primary and secondary sources, source credibility, and how to access articles through the university’s databases. Students used the skills gained in the library training sessions for later writing assignments including a formal lab report and annotated bibliography. By focusing on improving information literacy skills as well as providing practice in scientific writing, Biological Literature students are better able to meet the rigors of upper-division biology courses and communicate research findings in a more professional manner. PMID:25949754

  8. Prescription Writing in Small Groups as a Clinical Pharmacology Educational Intervention: Perceptions of Preclerkship Medical Students.

    PubMed

    James, Henry; Tayem, Yasin I Y; Al Khaja, K A J; Veeramuthu, Sindhan; Sequeira, Reginald P

    2016-08-01

    Medical students do not perform well in writing prescriptions, and the 3 variables-learner, teacher, and instructional method-are held responsible to various degrees. The objective of this clinical pharmacology educational intervention was to improve medical students' perceptions, motivation, and participation in prescription-writing sessions. The study participants were second-year medical students of the College of Medicine and Medical Sciences of the Arabian Gulf University, Bahrain. Two prescription-writing sessions were conducted using clinical case scenarios based on problems the students had studied as part of the problem-based learning curriculum. At the end of the respiratory system subunit, the training was conducted in small groups, each facilitated by a tutor. At the end of the cardiovascular system subunit, the training was conducted in a traditional large-group classroom setting. Data were collected with the help of a questionnaire at the end of each session and a focus group discussion. A majority of the students (95.3% ± 2.4%) perceived the small-group method better for teaching and learning of all aspects of prescription writing: analyzing the clinical case scenario, applying clinical pharmacology knowledge for therapeutic reasoning, using a formulary for searching relevant prescribing information, and in writing a complete prescription. Students also endorsed the small-group method for better interaction among themselves and with the tutor and for the ease of asking questions and clarifying doubts. In view of the principles of adult learning, where motivation and interaction are important, teaching and learning prescription writing in small groups deserve a serious consideration in medical curricula. © 2015, The American College of Clinical Pharmacology.

  9. 'The Loss of My Elderly Patient:' Interactive reflective writing to support medical students' rites of passage.

    PubMed

    Wald, Hedy S; Reis, Shmuel P; Monroe, Alicia D; Borkan, Jeffrey M

    2010-01-01

    The fostering of reflective capacity within medical education helps develop critical thinking and clinical reasoning skills and enhances professionalism. Use of reflective narratives to augment reflective practice instruction is well documented. At Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University (Alpert Med), a narrative medicine curriculum innovation of students' reflective writing (field notes) with individualized feedback from an interdisciplinary faculty team (in pre-clinical years) has been implemented in a Doctoring course to cultivate reflective capacity, empathy, and humanism. Interactive reflective writing (student writer/faculty feedback provider dyad), we propose, can additionally support students with rites of passage at critical educational junctures. At Alpert Med, we have devised a tool to guide faculty in crafting quality feedback, i.e. the Brown Educational Guide to Analysis of Narrative (BEGAN) which includes identifying students' salient quotes, utilizing reflection-inviting questions and close reading, highlighting derived lessons/key concepts, extracting clinical patterns, and providing concrete recommendations as relevant. We provide an example of a student's narrative describing an emotionally powerful and meaningful event - the loss of his first patient - and faculty responses using BEGAN. The provision of quality feedback to students' reflective writing - supported by BEGAN - can facilitate the transformation of student to professional through reflection within medical education.

  10. Error Patterns in Research Papers by Pacific Rim Students.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Crowe, Chris

    By looking for patterns of errors in the research papers of Asian students, educators can uncover pedagogical strategies to help students avoid repeating such errors. While a good deal of research has identified a number of sentence-level problems which are typical of Asian students writing in English, little attempt has been made to consider the…

  11. Changes in College Students' Perceptions of Use of Web-Based Resources for Academic Tasks with Wikipedia Projects: A Preliminary Exploration

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Traphagan, Tomoko; Traphagan, John; Dickens, Linda Neavel; Resta, Paul

    2014-01-01

    Motivated by the need to facilitate Net Generation students' information literacy (IL), or more specifically, to promote student understanding of legitimate, effective use of Web-based resources, this exploratory study investigated how analyzing, writing, posting, and monitoring Wikipedia entries might help students develop critical…

  12. [Not] Losing My Religion: Using "The Color Purple" to Promote Critical Thinking in the Writing Classroom

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    McCrary, Donald

    2009-01-01

    Private student discourses are often ignored or prohibited in the academy; however, these private discourses are very meaningful, and representative of the ways that students order and speak about the world. Specifically, religion is an extremely significant private student discourse; exploring religious discourse might help students not only to…

  13. Derrida Meets IBM: Using Deconstruction To Teach Business Communication Students.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Rice, H. William

    The business communications teacher helps the student learn to write the proposal that wins a promotion or the sales letter that wins new customers. Students poised to enter the business world need language theories as much as students studying literature, for the corporate language culture is as unpredictable and ambiguous as any literary text.…

  14. Teaching Grammar

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Crawford, William J.

    2013-01-01

    Grammar is a component in all language skills: reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Teachers need to know rules of grammar (teacher knowledge) as well as techniques that help students use grammar effectively and effortlessly (teaching knowledge). Using reflective practice to help teachers become comfortable with teaching grammar, this…

  15. When Rubrics Collide: One Undergraduate Writing Tutor's Experience Negotiating Faculty and Institutional Assessments

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Martin, Kelli

    2013-01-01

    This article recounts one undergraduate writing tutor's experience helping a fellow peer navigate an institutional assessment rubric that seemed to contrast the assessment criteria provided by the student's instructor. This article presents a reflection on that experience, framed by Hutchings, Huber, and Ciccone's (2011) work on…

  16. SPEAKING, WRITING, AND LISTENING IN THE ST. PAUL ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    AMBROSE, HELEN; AND OTHERS

    DESIGNED AS A RESOURCE FOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHERS TO USE IN HELPING CHILDREN THINK CLEARLY AND COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY, THE ST. PAUL CURRICULUM GUIDE IS DIVIDED INTO THREE SECTIONS--SPEAKING, LISTENING, AND WRITING. AN OVERVIEW OF EACH SECTION DESCRIBES CURRENT THINKING IN THE FIELD AND GENERAL SKILLS WHICH NEED TO BE ACQUIRED BY STUDENTS.…

  17. Going beyond the Thesis

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Smith, Andrew C.

    2010-01-01

    Most every writing teacher can relate to the curse of reading yet another incoherent essay, the contents of which resemble an unorganized junk drawer of thoughts. Such essays cry out for a main idea. The remedy is a thesis, and teachers rightly take pains to help students discover this. Yet in spite of this, writing teachers ought to bear in mind…

  18. Report on WRITE; A Computer Assisted Instruction Course in Written English Usage.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dunwell, Stephen; And Others

    A computer-assisted instructional (CAI) course, WRITE, was used at the Poughkeepsie, New York, Middle School to help 5th through 8th graders with spelling and word usage problems. The course used the Coursewriter III language and an IBM System/360 computer; students received self-paced instructional programs at typewriter terminals. All teaching…

  19. The Place of Writing in Preserving an Oral Language.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Bennett, Ruth; Mattz, Pam; Jackson, Silish; Campbell, Harold

    This paper shows how a traditional story can be used to teach an indigenous language, and how the inclusion of writing can help students learn the language effectively. Hupa people have told Coyote stories for thousands of years. Such Hupa stories are incorporated in Hupa language instruction using the Language Proficiency Method, which involves a…

  20. Using Letters to the Editor as Teaching Examples: Some Opening Strategies for Instructors of Persuasive Discourse.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mistichelli, Bill

    The opportunity to discover the flaws in newspaper letters to the editor and to evaluate the ensuing consequences can help beginning persuasive writing students, who have had little practice at forming arguments, begin to conceptualize for themselves the ways that principles of persuasive discourse apply in particular writing situations. The study…

  1. Exploring Writing Individually and Collaboratively Using Google Docs in EFL Contexts

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Alsubaie, Jawaher; Ashuraidah, Ali

    2017-01-01

    Online teaching and learning became popular with the evolution of the World Wide Web now days. Implementing online learning tools within EFL contexts will help better address the multitude of teaching and learning styles. Difficulty in academic writing can be considered one of the common problems that students face in and outside their classrooms.…

  2. Integrating the Voices: Writing as Healing as the Way to Constructed Knowledge for Basic Writers.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hindman, Jane E.

    Viewing writing as a way to heal wounds and even reconstruct past experiences also helps heal the composition discipline's dichotomy between the academic and the personal, the self and the institution. Academicians are not the only writers undermined by this perceived separation: most incoming university students, in particular basic writers,…

  3. Dictionaries Can Help Writing--If Students Know How To Use Them.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Jacobs, George M.

    A study investigated whether instruction in how to use a dictionary led to improved second language performance and greater dictionary use among English majors (N=54) in a reading and writing course at a Thai university. One of three participating classes was instructed in the use of a monolingual learner's dictionary. A passage correction test…

  4. Speaking and Writing, K-12: Classroom Strategies and the New Research.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Thaiss, Christopher J., Ed.; Suhor, Charles, Ed.

    To translate the recent research in writing and oral communication into useful suggestions for classroom practice, to focus on ways teachers can help their students grow as writers and speakers, and to stress activities that do not isolate the language arts into units and sever skills from content learning, the articles in this book were prepared…

  5. Beyond the One-Hour Outreach Talk: Introducing a Reading and Writing Program into a High School Science Class

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Ratay, Douglas L.; Schairer, Ashley; Garland, Catherine A.; Gomez-Martin, Cynthia

    We present a discussion of a newly implemented one-year program that brings high-level science reading and writing into a remedial high school science class. In the program, articles from publications such as Scientific American and Astronomy magazines are used to teach current science topics and to reinforce reading and writing skills. These skills are critical for general knowledge, literacy, and for passing state standardized tests. Members of the astronomy community act as "writing coaches" to help guide the students through the reading and writing process. This program illustrates one way that astronomers can become involved with underserved populations.

  6. Using Student-Generated Comic Books in the Classroom.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Morrison, Timothy G.; Bryan, Gregory; Chilcoat, George W.

    2002-01-01

    Suggests having students create comic books, particularly as a culminating activity to present their learning at the conclusion of a unit. Describes how comic-book design can be used to help students develop their writing, comprehension, and research skills in a cross-curricular activity. Concludes that by creating and sharing their own comic…

  7. Reflecting on American History through Poetry. Classroom Teacher's Idea Notebook.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Carney-Dalton, Pat

    1994-01-01

    Describes the use of poetry in U.S. history instruction. Contends that using simulations, historical documents, and literature help make students keenly aware of conflicts and the human impact of historical events. Recommends that students write poetry related to historical topics and includes five examples of student-written poetry. (CFR)

  8. Giving Feedback: Preparing Students for Peer Review and Self-Evaluation

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Philippakos, Zoi A.

    2017-01-01

    Revision is an important aspect of the writing process but is often challenging for students. Peer review can be helpful, but training is needed for it to work effectively. This article suggests an approach to preparing students for peer review by teaching specific evaluation criteria and leading collaborative practice in reviewing papers written…

  9. The Adventures of Miss Glucie

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Schmit, Palma J.; Freeman, Norman

    1975-01-01

    Presents one approach to helping students comprehend the subject of bioenergetics in the form of having students write and present a four act play about cellular metabolism and its significance in the production of energy. Key words required to be used in the play are listed and the script of one student play is included. (PB)

  10. Fairy Tales from Life.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Schulze, Patricia

    With the help of the teacher, students will read fairy tales and identify common elements. Choosing common situations and working in small groups, students will draw storyboards of their fairy tale and then write the fairy tale. Project will conclude with class presentations. During ten 50-minute lessons, grade 3-5 students will: listen and read…

  11. What Works for Me

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    DuPre, Carrie; Erickson, Samm; Diguette, Richard; Bobkoff, Michael; Ratliff, Gerald Lee; Dirk, Kerry

    2008-01-01

    This article presents the techniques used by six teachers for their writing classes. To help her students get their topics on paper, Carrie DuPre instructs her students to call themselves on their cellphones and leave themselves a message on voice mail. Samm Erickson asks his students with laptops to be "the researchers" in their literature class.…

  12. Almost a Game: Enabling Restrictions in Sentence Variety Exercises

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hunley, Tom C.

    2003-01-01

    A sentence variety exercise, used to help student writers consciously consider and control the lengths and types of sentences in their essays, is discussed. Students revised paragraphs according to the method and reflected on whether they found the exercise useful in improving their writing. Reactions were mixed, although most students were able…

  13. The Strategic Use of Scaffolded Instruction in Social Studies Interventions for Students with Learning Disabilities

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ciullo, Stephen; Dimino, Joseph A.

    2017-01-01

    Several components of specialized instruction have historically influenced text-based interventions for students with learning disabilities (LD). This article addresses the unique role of scaffolded instruction, focusing on supporting students with LD to help them to develop strategies that promote reading for understanding and writing in social…

  14. Bridging Algebra & Geometry with "n"-Gram Proofs

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Craven, Joshua D.

    2010-01-01

    For many students, geometry is the first course in which mathematical proof takes center stage. To help ease students into writing proofs, the author tries to create lessons and activities throughout the year that challenge students to prove their own conjectures by using tools learned in previous mathematics courses. Teachers cannot get all…

  15. Life Lessons from the Philosophers

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Seider, Scott; Novick, Sarah

    2011-01-01

    A Boston school for grades 6-12 is making a deliberate effort to help students develop ethical minds. Each year, all students take an ethical philosophy class in which they discuss the school's core values and how these values are addressed in the writings of such philosophers as Aristotle and Rousseau. Through these classes, students develop a…

  16. A Funding Simulation for Use in an Advanced Experimental Laboratory Class.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Falkenberg, Virginia P.

    1981-01-01

    Describes a funding simulation for use with college students in an advanced experimental psychology laboratory. Students write an original research paper and submit it to the professor--the "funding agency"--as a grant proposal. Projects are funded with grade points with which the student director purchases help from unfunded classmates. (RM)

  17. Capstone and Building Block: Helping Students Manage Ambiguity about their Futures through Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Love, Brad; Mackert, Michael

    2013-01-01

    Encouraging students to engage with principles and ideas is one way to address ambiguity with consistent, effective approaches in situations made up of "gray area." This includes the looming post-college world where students may be unsure about choosing between job offers, geographic locations, or even communication fields. Such…

  18. Capturing Student Progress via Portfolios in the Music Classroom

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mills, Melissa M.

    2009-01-01

    A common desire among music educators is to help students develop the ability to reflect on and evaluate their own music making. To achieve this goal, music educators often provide their students with a variety of instructional activities, such as watching their ensemble's latest concert performance and writing a critical review of it, allowing…

  19. Purpose-Driven Grading

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Carlson, Jane A. K.; Kimpton, Ann

    2010-01-01

    Allowing students to improve their grade by revising their written work may help students learn to revise, but it gives them no incentive to turn in quality work from the start. This article proposes a way to invert the process, thereby teaching students how to revise, while enforcing a more disciplined approach to good writing. (Contains 3…

  20. Teaching Copywriting Students about the Mature Market.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Drewniany, Bonnie

    Advertising educators have a responsibility to make students aware of the importance of the mature market (older people) and to teach them methods to reach this group. An assignment in a copywriting class asked students to write and design ads to promote blue jeans to adults over 50. The assignment accomplished three things: (1) helped students…

  1. Helping Students Move from Coding to Publishing - Teaching Scientific Communication to Science Interns

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Batchelor, R.; Haacker-Santos, R.; Pandya, R. E.

    2012-12-01

    To help young scientists succeed in our field we should not only model scientific methods and inquiry, but also train them in the art of scientific writing - after all, poorly written proposals, reports or journal articles can be a show stopper for any researcher. Research internships are an effective place to provide such training, because they offer a unique opportunity to integrate writing with the process of conducting original research. This presentation will describe how scientific communication is integrated into the SOARS program. Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Research and Science (SOARS) is an undergraduate-to graduate bridge program that broadens participation in the geosciences. SOARS aims to foster the next generation of leaders in the atmospheric and related sciences by helping students develop investigative expertise complemented by leadership and communication skills. Each summer, interns (called protégés) attend a weekly seminar designed to help them learn scientific writing and communication skills. The workshop is organized around the sections of a scientific paper. Workshop topics include reading and citing scientific literature, writing an introduction, preparing a compelling abstract, discussing results, designing effective figures, and writing illuminating conclusions. In addition, protégés develop the skills required to communicate their research to both scientists and non-scientists through the use of posters, presentations and informal 'elevator' speeches. Writing and communication mentors guide protégés in applying the ideas from the workshop to the protégés' required summer scientific paper, poster and presentation, while a strong peer-review component of the program gives the protégés a taste of analyzing, critiquing and collaborating within a scientific forum. This presentation will provide practical tips and lessons learned from over ten years of scientific communications workshops within the SOARS program, including workshop structure, curriculum development, textbooks, reading materials and online resources, peer review and specialty seminars.

  2. Benefits of expressive writing in reducing test anxiety: A randomized controlled trial in Chinese samples.

    PubMed

    Shen, Lujun; Yang, Lei; Zhang, Jing; Zhang, Meng

    2018-01-01

    To explore the effect of expressive writing of positive emotions on test anxiety among senior-high-school students. The Test Anxiety Scale (TAS) was used to assess the anxiety level of 200 senior-high-school students. Seventy-five students with high anxiety were recruited and divided randomly into experimental and control groups. Each day for 30 days, the experimental group engaged in 20 minutes of expressive writing of positive emotions, while the control group was asked to merely write down their daily events. A second test was given after the month-long experiment to analyze whether there had been a reduction in anxiety among the sample. Quantitative data was obtained from TAS scores. The NVivo10.0 software program was used to examine the frequency of particular word categories used in participants' writing manuscripts. Senior-high-school students indicated moderate to high test anxiety. There was a significant difference in post-test results (P < 0.001), with the experimental group scoring obviously lower than the control group. The interaction effect of group and gender in the post-test results was non-significant (P > 0.05). Students' writing manuscripts were mainly encoded on five code categories: cause, anxiety manifestation, positive emotion, insight and evaluation. There was a negative relation between positive emotion, insight codes and test anxiety. There were significant differences in the positive emotion, anxiety manifestation, and insight code categories between the first 10 days' manuscripts and the last 10 days' ones. Long-term expressive writing of positive emotions appears to help reduce test anxiety by using insight and positive emotion words for Chinese students. Efficient and effective intervention programs to ease test anxiety can be designed based on this study.

  3. The Language of Science

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kucan, Linda; Boliha, Juanita

    2016-01-01

    Education in science and engineering should develop students' ability to read and write domain-specific texts (NRC 2012). Unfortunately, "science teachers are not generally well prepared to help their students penetrate the linguistic puzzles that science texts present" (Snow 2010, p. 452). Thus, Juanita Boliha (a biology teacher) and…

  4. Geography, Culture, History, Politics of Latin America. Revised.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dangle, James; Esler, Jon

    This curriculum guide provides activities to help students understand Latin America. A foundation for analyzing the interdependence of world nations develops critical thinking, and problem solving skills. Activities emphasize research, reading, writing, and speaking skills. Detailed lesson plans and accompanying reproducible student handouts are…

  5. Developing Comprehension through Author Awareness.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Krieger, Evelyn

    1990-01-01

    Discusses how teachers can help students learn to read with a sense of the author--who wrote the book, how, and why. Argues that building a schema for various genres and more sophisticated writing techniques strengthens comprehension and enables students to enjoy books on their own. (RS)

  6. IDEA: La Curiosidad Se Manifesta en "El Cuaderno de las Preguntas" (IDEA: Curiosity Rears Its Head in "The Question Notebook").

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Modern, Nancy Wheaton

    1996-01-01

    Through the use of a question notebook, students can practice grammar and develop their vocabulary. This class activity also helps students to begin to write and express their own curiosity. (Author/CK)

  7. Examining Elementary Students' Development of Oral and Written Argumentation Practices Through Argument-Based Inquiry

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Chen, Ying-Chih; Hand, Brian; Park, Soonhye

    2016-05-01

    Argumentation, and the production of scientific arguments are critical elements of inquiry that are necessary for helping students become scientifically literate through engaging them in constructing and critiquing ideas. This case study employed a mixed methods research design to examine the development in 5th grade students' practices of oral and written argumentation from one unit to another over 16 weeks utilizing the science writing heuristic approach. Data sources included five rounds of whole-class discussion focused on group presentations of arguments that occurred over eleven class periods; students' group writings; interviews with six target students and the teacher; and the researcher's field notes. The results revealed five salient trends in students' development of oral and written argumentative practices over time: (1) Students came to use more critique components as they participated in more rounds of whole-class discussion focused on group presentations of arguments; (2) by challenging each other's arguments, students came to focus on the coherence of the argument and the quality of evidence; (3) students came to use evidence to defend, support, and reject arguments; (4) the quality of students' writing continuously improved over time; and (5) students connected oral argument skills to written argument skills as they had opportunities to revise their writing after debating and developed awareness of the usefulness of critique from peers. Given the development in oral argumentative practices and the quality of written arguments over time, this study indicates that students' development of oral and written argumentative practices is positively related to each other. This study suggests that argumentative practices should be framed through both a social and epistemic understanding of argument-utilizing talk and writing as vehicles to create norms of these complex practices.

  8. Seven Birds with One Magic Bullet: Designing Assignments that Encourage Student Participation

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Krause-Jensen, Jakob

    2010-01-01

    At the Danish University School of Education we have experimented with a form of assessment called "active participation". A week before each class students are given reading guidelines and questions to help them approach the texts, and on the basis of one of those questions the students each write a two-page essay. The students are…

  9. An online academic writing and publishing skills course: Help Syrians find their voice

    PubMed Central

    Sabouni, Ammar; Chaar, Abdelkader; Bdaiwi, Yamama; Masrani, Abdulrahman; Abolaban, Heba; Alahdab, Fares; Firwana, Belal; Al-Moujahed, Ahmad

    2017-01-01

    Purpose: A group of Arab-American physicians and researchers in the United States organized a blended online course in academic writing and publishing in medicine targeting medical students and physicians in war-torn Syria. This was an effort to address one of the reasons behind the poor quantity and quality of scientific research papers in Syria and the Arab region. In this paper, we report on the design, conduct, and outcome of this course and attempt to evaluate its effectiveness. Methods: The educational intervention was a 2-month blended online course. We administered a questionnaire to assess satisfaction and self-reported improvement in knowledge, confidence, and skills of academic writing and publishing. Results: The course succeeded in reaching more than 2588 physicians and medical students from the region; 159 of them completed most of the course. Eighty-three percent of the participants felt that they were confident enough to write an academic paper after the course and 95% felt the learning objectives were achieved with an average student satisfaction of 8.4 out of 10. Conclusion: Physicians in Syria and neighboring countries are in need of training to become an active part of the global scientific community and to document and communicate the crisis their countries are going through from a medical perspective. Low-cost online educational initiatives help respond, at least partially, to those needs. PMID:28791242

  10. Writing in elementary school science: Factors that influence teacher beliefs and practices

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Glen, Nicole J.

    Recent calls for scientifically literate citizens have prompted science educators to examine the roles that literacy holds in students' science learning processes. Although many studies have investigated the cognitive gains students acquire when they write in science, these writing-to-learn studies have typically been conducted with only middle and secondary school students. Few studies have explored how teachers, particularly elementary teachers, understand the use of writing in science and the factors that influence their science and writing lessons. This was a qualitative case study conducted in one suburban school with four elementary teachers. The purpose of this study was to understand: (a) how teachers' uses of and purposes for writing in science compared to that in English language arts; (b) the factors that drove teachers' pedagogical decisions to use writing in certain ways; (c) teachers' beliefs about science teaching and learning and its relation to how they used writing; (d) teachers' perceptions of students' writing abilities and its relation to how they used writing; and (e) teachers' views about how writing is used by scientists. Seven main findings resulted from this research. In summary, teachers' main uses of and purposes for writing were similar in science and English language arts. For much of the writing done in both subjects, teachers' expectations of students' writing were typically based on their general literacy writing skills. The teachers believed that scientific writing is factual, for the purpose of communicating about science, and is not as creative or "fun" as other types of writing. The teachers' pedagogical practices in science included teaching by experiences, reading, and the transmission of information. These practices were related to their understanding of scientific writing. Finally, additional factors drove the decisions teachers made regarding the use of writing in science, including time, knowledge of curriculum requirements, science and writing content knowledge, and classroom management. The findings indicated that the teachers were using writing in some of the ways supported by science and literacy education, but there were many areas of writing in science in which teachers could use support and education. This included more knowledge of authentic uses of writing in the science discipline, general writing-to-learn strategies, and assessment of student ideas and information in writing and not only writing skills. The teachers also needed support in better understanding the nature of science and scientific inquiry, and in how to negotiate the social and cultural factors that influence their pedagogical decisions in order to use writing in more authentic ways. This study suggests that teacher educators and administrators must learn more about how teachers understand their role as elementary teachers, as teachers of writing and science, and the environments within which they work in order to help them move toward authentic literacy and science writing practices.

  11. The Last Nine Weeks: Helping Seniors Say Goodbye.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Molnar, Bonnie

    1999-01-01

    Describes a unit for the final nine weeks of a senior English class which helps seniors say goodbye. Discusses how reading Sandra Cisneros'"The House on Mango Street" and writing their own versions of excerpts of it (along with other class activities) helps students define what they are leaving and come to terms with it. (SR)

  12. Question Asking and the Teaching of Writing.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Odell, Lee

    This paper argues that provocative questions can be used by teachers to help students write. Described are a series of questions drawn from rhetorical theory, such as "How many times can I change focus so as to get the most complete understanding of a topic?""When does X occur?""Why does X occur?" and "What does X cause or prompt?" Several…

  13. The Most Preferred and Effective Reviewer of L2 Writing among Automated Grading System, Peer Reviewer and Teacher

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Tsai, Min-Hsiu

    2017-01-01

    Who is the most preferred and deemed the most helpful reviewer in improving student writing? This study exercised a blended teaching method which consists of three currently prevailing reviewers: the automated grading system (AGS, a web-based method), the peer review (a process-oriented approach), and the teacher grading technique (the…

  14. The Improving Literacy through School Libraries Program of "No Child Left Behind": Tips for Writing a Winning Grant Proposal. ERIC Digest.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mardis, Marcia A.

    This ERIC Digest is intended to help eligible school library personnel write an effective proposal for the "Improving Literacy Through School Libraries" (LSL) grant program, which provides funding for high-need K-12 school library programs to improve reading achievement by providing students with increased access to school library…

  15. The effects of blogs versus dialogue journals on open-response writing scores and attitudes of grade eight science students

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Erickson, Diane K.

    Today's students have grown up surrounded by technology. They use cell phones, word processors, and the Internet with ease, talking with peers in their community and around the world through e-mails, chatrooms, instant messaging, online discussions, and weblogs ("blogs"). In the midst of this technological explosion, adolescents face a growing need for strong literacy skills in all subject areas for achievement in school and on mandated state and national high stakes tests. The purpose of this study was to examine the use of blogs as a tool for improving open-response writing in the secondary science classroom in comparison to the use of handwritten dialogue journals. The study used a mixed-method approach, gathering both quantitative and qualitative data from 94 students in four eighth-grade science classes. Two classes participated in online class blogs where they posted ideas about science and responded to the ideas of other classmates. Two classes participated in handwritten dialogue journals, writing ideas about science and exchanging journals to respond to the ideas of classmates. The study explored these research questions: Does the use of blogs, as compared to the use of handwritten dialogue journals, improve the open-response writing scores of eighth grade science students? How do students describe their experience using blogs to study science as compared to students using handwritten dialogue journals? and How do motivation, self-efficacy, and community manifest themselves in students who use blogs as compared to students who use handwritten dialogue journals? The quantitative aspect of the study used data from pre- and post-tests and from a Likert-scale post-survey. The pre- and post-writing on open-response science questions were scored using the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) open-response scoring rubric. The study found no statistically significant difference in the writing scores between the blog group and the dialogue journal groups. The study found significant difference between the scores on the post-survey of the two groups with the blogging group registering a more positive attitude about the experience than the dialogue journal group. The qualitative aspect of the study used group and individual interviews with 26 randomly-chosen students to explore the nature of the students' experiences using blogs and dialogue journals. Overall, the blog group communicated more positive responses to the experience than did students from the dialogue journal group, often indicating that blogging was "fun" and "helpful" and made them look forward to science class. This study addressed research needs in the fields of writing, technology, and content literacy. It is significant because there is little research on the use of blogs in the middle school content classroom, particularly on the use of blogs as a tool for improving open-response writing. It adds information as to the experience of students who use blogs in the science classroom and explored it as a way to explore ideas, build understanding, and connect with others. This is significant to know as school districts look to include more technology instruction and practices in the curriculum. Blogs could give students a critical tool for writing and thinking in the content classroom, helping to prepare students for an increasingly technological and global society.

  16. The Briefing Book Concept.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Minix, Dean A.

    1990-01-01

    Describes an open admissions program, a public university's nontraditional population, and their unique academic needs. Provides a political science briefing book assignment in which students research and write about one country. Claims the book is effective in helping students to organize and focus their thoughts and to improve their research and…

  17. Fictionalising Experiences-Experiencing through Fiction

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hannula, Markku S.

    2003-01-01

    Understanding and reporting students' affective experiences with mathematics is difficult if those experiences do not resonate with personal experiences. Utilising fiction-writing in narrative reporting can be a technique that helps both the researcher and the reader of the research report to immerse themselves in the student's experiential world.…

  18. Using Joseph Campbell to Improve Students' Response to Literature.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Barnum, Carol M.

    1992-01-01

    Shows how teachers can use the videotapes and writings of Joseph Campbell to help students see patterns in literature and respond personally to it. Presents Campbell's explanation of the monomyth of the hero's journey, and discusses three works in which the pattern is present. (SR)

  19. How Does It Feel to Be Out on Your Own?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Barnet, Judith M.

    1978-01-01

    Describes how stories and poems can help students understand the experience of growing up in various cultures. Students are involved in role playing, dramatization, and writing assignments. A Yoruba poem and a tale from the mountains of North Carolina are presented as examples. (Author/DB)

  20. The Odd Fish Story

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Essley, Roger

    2005-01-01

    Essley was a "different learner," and now he works in schools showing teachers how visual/verbal tools can help all students, including their "different learners," succeed. One valuable tool is storyboarding, a process by which students build a story through visual stages--drafts, conferences, revisions--before writing even begins. Essley shares…

  1. Teacher to Teacher: Supporting English Language Learners

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    McElroy, Edward J.

    2005-01-01

    The student population is changing, and teachers need new tools to help their English language learner (ELL) students. ELL students are learning to read, write, and speak English at the same time as they study history, science, math, and all the other subjects taught in our schools. This article describes one tool, the Colorin Colorado website,…

  2. Literary Artistic Spaces Engage Middle Grades Teachers and Students in Critical-Multicultural Dialogue

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Montero, M. Kristiina

    2012-01-01

    The author describes the use of one-word poetry and traveling scrawled walls as forms of community-engaged public writing that can help urban young adolescents express their lived experiences. Teachers can engage in critical-multicultural questioning and simple content analysis of these student-generated texts to hear what students have to say…

  3. Teaching Handwriting to Elementary Students with Learning Disabilities: A Problem-Solving Approach

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Datchuk, Shawn

    2015-01-01

    Problems with handwriting can negatively impact the writing of students with learning disabilities. In this article, an example is provided of a fourth-grade special education teacher's efforts to assist a new student by using a problem-solving approach to help determine an efficient course of action for special education teachers who are trying…

  4. Using Word Clouds for Fast, Formative Assessment of Students' Short Written Responses

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Brooks, Bill J.; Gilbuena, Debra M.; Krause, Stephen J.; Koretsky, Milo D.

    2014-01-01

    Active learning in class helps students develop deeper understanding of chemical engineering principles. While the use of multiple-choice ConcepTests is clearly effective, we advocate for including student writing in learning activities as well. In this article, we demonstrate that word clouds can provide a quick analytical technique to assess…

  5. Young science journalism: writing popular scientific articles may contribute to an increase of high-school students' interest in the natural sciences

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Simon, Uwe K.; Steindl, Hanna; Larcher, Nicole; Kulac, Helga; Hotter, Annelies

    2016-03-01

    Far too few high-school students choose subjects from the natural sciences (NaSc) for their majors in many countries. Even fewer study biology, chemistry or physics at university. Those, that do, often lack training to present and discuss scientific results and ideas in texts. To meet these challenges the center for didactics of biology of Graz University has set up the program Young Science Journalism. This new workshop-based interdisciplinary concept was tested in an exploratory study with grade 10 students of one Austrian high school, engaging both the biology and the German teacher of the class. It was our aim to raise students' interest in the NaSc by encouraging them to write popular scientific articles about self-chosen topics, and to help them improve their writing competence. In this paper we focus on interest development through writing. Results from this pilot study were promising. Using a mixed-method approach (comparing pre- and post-test questionnaires and semi-structured interviews from different time points analyzed qualitatively), we found that almost all students valued the project-related work highly. Most of them showed higher interest in the NaSc at project end with girls, in average, seeming to profit more from project participation. We thus recommend integrating such writing tasks into school curricula to increase students' interest in NaSc or to even create new interest. Additionally, we introduce a network presentation of questionnaire data as a powerful tool to visualize the effect of an intervention on individual students and student profile groups.

  6. Preventing Feedback Fizzle

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Brookhart, Susan M.

    2012-01-01

    Feedback is certainly about saying or writing helpful, learning-focused comments. But that is only part of it. What happens beforehand? What happens afterward? Feedback that is helpful and learning-focused fits into a context. Before a teacher gives feedback, students need to know the learning target so they have a purpose for using the feedback…

  7. Achieve3000®. Adolescent Literacy. What Works Clearinghouse Intervention Report

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    What Works Clearinghouse, 2018

    2018-01-01

    "Achieve3000®" is a supplemental online literacy program that provides nonfiction reading content to students in grades preK-12 and focuses on building phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, reading comprehension, vocabulary, and writing skills. "Achieve3000®" is designed to help students advance their nonfiction reading skills…

  8. Achieve3000®. Beginning Reading. What Works Clearinghouse Intervention Report

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    What Works Clearinghouse, 2018

    2018-01-01

    "Achieve3000®" is a supplemental online literacy program that provides nonfiction reading content to students in grades preK-12 and focuses on building phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, reading comprehension, vocabulary, and writing skills. "Achieve3000®" is designed to help students advance their nonfiction reading skills…

  9. A New Twist on an Old Theme.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Marchetti, Honey

    A work-study student assistant was employed at the Carnegie Mellon University Engineering and Science Library to help prepare documentation for a new library program. The student, a junior professional writing major, used the Apple Macintosh microcomputer to design a brochure, billing worksheet, and spreadsheet for the new program. On completion…

  10. Changing State Policy in Texas for Remedial/Developmental Education.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Cook, Charles M.

    The Texas Academic Skills Program (TASP), implemented in 1989, requires student assessment in reading, writing, and math prior to regular college course work. Students undergo continuous remediation until they are able to pass the assessment test. Though TASP advocates argue that the program helps maintain academic standards and provides students…

  11. Semantic and Lexical Coherence.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Fahnestock, Jeanne

    Helping students understand coherence in terms of the lexical ties and semantic relations possible between clauses and sentences formalizes an area of writing instruction that has been somewhat vague before and makes the process of creating a coherent paragraph less mysterious. Many students do not have the intuitive knowledge base for absorbing…

  12. Project SYNERGY: Software Support for Underprepared Students. Software Implementation Report.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Anandam, Kamala; And Others

    Miami-Dade Community College's (MDCC's) implementation and assessment of computer software as a part of Project SYNERGY, a multi-institutional project funded by the International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation designed to seek technological solutions for helping students underprepared in reading, writing and mathematics, is described in this…

  13. From Labels to Opportunities

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Wolter, Deborah

    2017-01-01

    The author argues that to truly help young students who struggle with reading and writing--including those with identified disabilities or conditions that effect building literacy--teachers should avoid the approach of focusing on a student's deficits and creating labels for him or her (dyslexic, English language learner, and so on). A rush to…

  14. Talking about Happiness: Interview Research and Well-Being

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Campbell, Jennifer

    2016-01-01

    In addition to teaching research and writing skills, First-Year Composition classes are well situated to help students develop strategies for managing stress and increasing well-being. I describe an assignment sequence in which students interview others from three generations about topics related to happiness and wellbeing, analyze shared…

  15. Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Sociology in an Inquiry-Based Study of Changing Population Density.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Schlenker, Richard M.; Schlenker, Karl R.

    2000-01-01

    Presents a five-activity sequence designed to help students understand the effects of population doubling. Activities consider the effects of population doubling on human interactions, drinking water supplies, and food supply. Students also develop graphs of data and write research papers. (WRM)

  16. Guidelines for Writing (or Rewriting) Manuals for Instructional Software.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Litchfield, Brenda C.

    1990-01-01

    Discusses the need for adequate student user manuals for computer software and presents guidelines to help teachers develop these manuals. The sections that a student manual should contain are outlined, including objectives, pretests and posttests for self-evaluation, and worksheets; and examples are given for further clarification. (LRW)

  17. Landing Safely on Mars

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Merritt, Eileen; Shifflett, Elizabeth

    2012-01-01

    It can be difficult to teach students about objects in space that are far away and impossible to touch. The authors found that reading nonfiction trade books, modeling relationships using everyday objects, and synthesizing ideas through writing and drawing helped their students improve their understanding. An added benefit of the integration was…

  18. Colour Mathematics: With Graphs and Numbers

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    LoPresto, Michael C.

    2009-01-01

    The different combinations involved in additive and subtractive colour mixing can often be difficult for students to remember. Using transmission graphs for filters of the primary colours and a numerical scheme to write out the relationships are good exercises in analytical thinking that can help students recall the combinations rather than just…

  19. Chemistry, Poetry, and Artistic Illustration: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Teaching and Promoting Chemistry

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Furlan, Ping Y.; Kitson, Herbert; Andes, Cynthia

    2007-01-01

    This article describes a successful interdisciplinary collaboration among chemistry, humanities and English faculty members, who utilized poetry and artistic illustration to help students learn, appreciate, and enjoy chemistry. Students taking general chemistry classes were introduced to poetry writing and museum-type poster preparation during one…

  20. Journals of Discovery

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Livingston, Cathy

    2005-01-01

    In this article, the author shares her experiences with science journaling, and finds it a valuable resource in discovering how well students have grasped the concepts of each lesson. The journal has also been a valuable tool in helping students to evaluate themselves, and write their comments on their own strengths and "weaknesses" or areas of…

  1. Scientific Discoveries the Year I Was Born

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Cherif, Abour

    2012-01-01

    The author has successfully used a learning activity titled "The Year I Was Born" to motivate students to conduct historical research and present key scientific discoveries from their birth year. The activity promotes writing, helps students enhance their scientific literacy, and also improves their attitude toward the learning of science. As one…

  2. The American Revolution: The Declaration and Beyond. [Lesson Plan].

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kasper, Paula

    Based on Thomas Paine's pamphlet "Common Sense," this lesson plan presents activities designed to help students understand that as the American Revolution approached, writers created highly persuasive documents calling for separation from England. The main activity in the lesson involves students in writing a persuasive essay. It includes…

  3. Finding the Right Words: Art Conversations and Poetry

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Reilly, Mary Ann

    2008-01-01

    Generative thinking is explored in this article by chronicling the development of middle school English language learners' poetry writing through their interaction with visual art. The author explains how art conversations (Reilly & Cohen, 2008) were used to help students engage in dialogue about the topic of journeys and how students' paintings…

  4. A Tale of Four Electrons

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Burgmayer, Paul

    2011-01-01

    "A Tale of Four Electrons" is a creative writing assignment used with 10th-grade Honors Chemistry students. The project helps students consolidate their learning about bonding--an important unifying theme in chemistry--and answers questions such as (1) How are ionic, metallic, and covalent bonds related? (2) How do variations in electron…

  5. Communication and Representation as Elements in Mathematical Literacy

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Thompson, Denisse R.; Chappell, Michaele F.

    2007-01-01

    The process standards of communication and representation in the "Principles and Standards for School Mathematics" are critical tools to help students develop mathematical literacy. In the mathematics classroom, students need to be encouraged to use speaking, listening, reading, and writing to communicate their understanding of mathematics words,…

  6. Reflective Journal Writing and the First-Year Experience

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Everett, Michele C.

    2013-01-01

    In recent years, great emphasis has been placed on student success and retention in higher education. To address this issue, many universities' strategic retention programs include first-year seminars. A variety of pedagogical strategies have been employed in these seminars to help students succeed personally, socially and academically. This…

  7. Analyzing International Letters in a Business Communication Class.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Devet, Bonnie

    1998-01-01

    Shows how students can use persuasive principles of communication (format and writer's purpose) and of classical rhetoric (organization, ethos, pathos, logos, and style) to improve their ability to analyze business letters. Shows how applying these principles to the analysis of business letters from other countries helps students write better and…

  8. An Expert System for On-Site Instructional Advice.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Martindale, Elizabeth S.; Hofmeister, Alan M.

    1988-01-01

    Describes Written Language Consultant, an expert system designed to help teachers teach special education students how to write business letters. Three main components of the system are described, including entry of students' test scores; analysis of teachers' uses of classroom time and management techniques; and suggestions for improving test…

  9. An Overview of Clarkson's Technical Communications Program.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Barkman, Patricia R.

    The technical communications program at Clarkson College (New York) offers students 23 courses in subjects ranging from interpersonal behavior to engineering and scientific report writing to computer documentation and the development of technical manuals. With the help of an advisor, each student works out a course of study appropriate to his or…

  10. Science and thinking: The write connection

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Butler, Gene

    1991-09-01

    The effective use of writing in science instruction may open the way for students to grow in their ability to exercise higher order thinking skills (Bland & Koppel, 1988). Scinto (1986) makes a compelling case for writing as a means of stimulating thinking when he states: The production of written text demands more elaborate strategies of preplanning. Written language demands the conscious organization of ensembles of propositions to achieve its end. The need to manipulate linguistic means in such a conscious and deliberate fashion entails a level of linguistic self-reflection not called forth in oral discourse (p. 101). Science educators may find that the writing process is one technique to help them move away from the teacher-centered, textbook-driven science classroom of today, and move toward the realization of science education which will ensure that students are able to function as scientifically literate citizens in our contemporary society.

  11. The Use of Paraphrase in Summary Writing: A Comparison of L1 and L2 Writers

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Keck, Casey

    2006-01-01

    Paraphrasing is considered by many to be an important skill for academic writing, and some have argued that the teaching of paraphrasing might help students avoid copying from source texts. Few studies, however, have investigated the ways in which both L1 and L2 academic writers already use paraphrasing as a textual borrowing strategy when…

  12. Marr: Magpie or Marsh Harrier? The Quest for the Common Characteristics of the Genus "Historian" with 16- to 19-Year-Olds

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Laffin, Diana

    2012-01-01

    Diana Laffin writes about historical language and explores how understanding different historians' use of language can help sixth form students refine and deepen both their understanding of the discipline of history and their abilities to practise the discipline in their own writing. What does close study of the textual habits and practices of…

  13. Benefits of expressive writing in reducing test anxiety: A randomized controlled trial in Chinese samples

    PubMed Central

    Zhang, Jing; Zhang, Meng

    2018-01-01

    Purpose To explore the effect of expressive writing of positive emotions on test anxiety among senior-high-school students. Methods The Test Anxiety Scale (TAS) was used to assess the anxiety level of 200 senior-high-school students. Seventy-five students with high anxiety were recruited and divided randomly into experimental and control groups. Each day for 30 days, the experimental group engaged in 20 minutes of expressive writing of positive emotions, while the control group was asked to merely write down their daily events. A second test was given after the month-long experiment to analyze whether there had been a reduction in anxiety among the sample. Quantitative data was obtained from TAS scores. The NVivo10.0 software program was used to examine the frequency of particular word categories used in participants’ writing manuscripts. Results Senior-high-school students indicated moderate to high test anxiety. There was a significant difference in post-test results (P < 0.001), with the experimental group scoring obviously lower than the control group. The interaction effect of group and gender in the post-test results was non-significant (P > 0.05). Students’ writing manuscripts were mainly encoded on five code categories: cause, anxiety manifestation, positive emotion, insight and evaluation. There was a negative relation between positive emotion, insight codes and test anxiety. There were significant differences in the positive emotion, anxiety manifestation, and insight code categories between the first 10 days’ manuscripts and the last 10 days’ ones. Conclusions Long-term expressive writing of positive emotions appears to help reduce test anxiety by using insight and positive emotion words for Chinese students. Efficient and effective intervention programs to ease test anxiety can be designed based on this study. PMID:29401473

  14. Writing Assessment in a Competence-Based Undergraduate Program for Adult Students.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mirel, Barbara

    The School for New Learning (SNL) was established in 1972 at DePaul University especially for adult students. SNL students are adults, age 24 or older, who want to accelerate their progress to a degree by using experience as well as classwork for academic credit, and who want to design their own programs with help from an advisory committee of…

  15. Using Digital Story Projects to Help Students Improve in Reading and Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Morgan, Hani

    2014-01-01

    Today's students live in a world that has been transformed by technology, and they are often referred to as "digital natives" because their exposure to digital resources begins at birth. The increased exposure to technology has changed the way students respond to instruction and has led to a new need for teachers to integrate…

  16. Curriculum Integration: Helping Career and Technical Education Students Truly Develop College and Career Readiness

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Park, Travis; Pearson, Donna; Richardson, George B.

    2017-01-01

    All students need to learn how to read, write, solve mathematics problems, and understand and apply scientific principles to succeed in college and/or careers. The challenges posed by entry-level career fields are no less daunting than those posed by college-level study. Thus, career and technical education students must learn effective math,…

  17. The Informed Argument: A Multidisciplinary Reader and Guide. Fourth Edition.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Miller, Robert K.

    Reflecting the belief that learning is best fostered by encouraging students to read, reflect, and write about serious issues, this book is designed to help students argue on behalf of their beliefs so that other people will take them seriously. The 85 readings gathered in the book (60 of which are new to the fourth edition) give students adequate…

  18. The Effect of Guided Reading on Literacy Achievement of Third and Fourth Grade Students

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Gregory, Brandon

    2017-01-01

    Literacy, the ability to read and write, is of great importance to the success of students throughout their lives. The problem the study addressed was low literacy achievement levels of third and fourth grade students. The information gained from this study was important because it helped staff members at the research site identify the impact of…

  19. An Investigation into the Effect of English Learners' Dictionaries on International Students' Acquisition of the English Article System

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Miller, Julia

    2006-01-01

    Learners' dictionaries are a resource which is often overlooked by both students and teachers of English as a Second Language. The wealth of grammatical information contained within them, however, can help students to improve their English language skills and, ipso facto, their academic writing. In this study, four groups of university ESL…

  20. Making Curriculum Pop: Developing Literacies in All Content Areas

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Goble, Pam; Goble, Ryan R.

    2016-01-01

    From comics to cathedrals, pie charts to power ballads, fashion to Facebook . . . students need help navigating today's mediarich world. And educators need help teaching today's new media literacy. To be "literate" now means being able to read, write, listen, speak, view, and represent across all media--including both print and nonprint…

  1. The Writer's Workout Book: 113 Stretches toward Better Prose.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Peterson, Art

    This book presents 113 writing "workouts" (exercises) to help students, and especially teachers, think about the small steps writers take as they learn their craft. The workouts in Part I, Writers Speak Up, are intended to help novice writers develop confidence in the value of their experience. Part II, Writers Pay Attention, presents challenges…

  2. How Technology Can Promote the Learning of Proof

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Muller, Kimberly O.

    2010-01-01

    While serving in the U.S. Congress, Abraham Lincoln, a self-taught learner, mastered Euclid's Elements (Basler 1953). Most students today do not study mathematics for recreation. Unlike Lincoln, they need a little help in learning how to write a geometry proof. Today's technology--specifically, The Geometer's Sketchpad[R] (GSP)--can help make…

  3. English Education for Engineers in the World of Globalization : A Report of an Undergraduate and Graduate English Program with an Emphasis on Writing

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Shimazu, Nobuko

    In an increasingly globalized world, demand for engineers well versed in English remains strong. As a professor of English in the Faculty of Computer Science and Systems Engineering at the Kyushu Institute of Technology, I have sought with the aid of two associate professors to improve the English program for our engineering students together to help meet that very demand. In order to assist other English teachers in similar situations to improve their own English programs, I would like to report on the ideas and methods presently used in our undergraduate English program, specifically the first-year compulsory and common course with its emphasis on paragraph writing which students from each of the five departments within the Faculty of Computer Science and Systems Engineering are required to take. In addition, I would also like to report my ideas and teaching methods for a graduate research paper writing course. The objective of this course is to teach graduate students how to write presentations for conferences and papers for journals at the international level.

  4. The Advanced Lab Course at the University of Houston

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Forrest, Rebecca

    2009-04-01

    The University of Houston Advanced Lab course is designed to help students understand the physics in classic experiments, become familiar with experimental equipment and techniques, gain experience with independent experimentation, and learn to communicate results orally and in writing. It is a two semester course, with a Lab Seminar also required during the first semester. In the Seminar class we discuss keeping a notebook and writing a laboratory report, error analysis, data fitting, and scientific ethics. The students give presentations, in pairs, on the workings and use of basic laboratory equipment. In the Lab courses students do a one week introductory experiment, followed by six two-week experiments each semester. These range from traditional experiments in modern physics to contemporary experiments with superconductivity and chaos. The students are required to keep a laboratory notebook and to write a four-page paper for each experiment in the publication style of the American Institute of Physics. This course introduces students to the experimental tools and techniques used in physics, engineering, and industry laboratories, and allows them to mature as experimentalists.

  5. Examining Arguments Generated by Year 5, 7, and 10 Students in Science Classrooms

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Choi, Aeran; Notebaert, Andrew; Diaz, Juan; Hand, Brian

    2010-03-01

    A critical component of science is the role of inquiry and argument in moving scientific knowledge forward. However, while students are expected to engage in inquiry activities in science classrooms, there is not always a similar emphasis on the role of argument within the inquiry activities. Building from previous studies on the Science Writing Heuristic (SWH), we were keen to find out if the writing structure used in the SWH approach helped students in Year 5, 7, and 10 to create well constructed arguments. We were also interested in examining which argument components were important for the quality of arguments generated by these students. Two hundred and ninety six writing samples were scored using an analysis framework to evaluate the quality of arguments. Step-wise multiple regression analyses were conducted to determine important argument components. The results of this study suggest that the SWH approach is useful in assisting students to develop reasonable arguments. The critical element determining the quality of the arguments is the relationship between the student’s written claims and his or her evidence.

  6. Predicting Student Grade Based on Free-Style Comments Using Word2Vec and ANN by Considering Prediction Results Obtained in Consecutive Lessons

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Luo, Jingyi; Sorour, Shaymaa E.; Goda, Kazumasa; Mine, Tsunenori

    2015-01-01

    Continuously tracking students during a whole semester plays a vital role to enable a teacher to grasp their learning situation, attitude and motivation. It also helps to give correct assessment and useful feedback to them. To this end, we ask students to write their comments just after each lesson, because student comments reflect their learning…

  7. Using the Internet, Online Services, and CD-ROMs for Writing Research and Term Papers, Second Edition. Neal-Schuman NetGuide Series.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Harmon, Charles, Ed.

    Like its predecessor, this second edition combines the best of two traditional generic texts: "how to write a term paper" and "how to use the library." Particularly helpful for high school and first year college students, this guide explains how to utilize online library catalogs, the most commonly available indexes and databases (in print,…

  8. To What Extent Do Certain Characteristics of a Child's Written Story Influence the Way It Is Rated? Insights into Features Necessary for Supporting Struggling Writers

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Grünke, Mathias; Büyüknarci, Özlem; Wilbert, Jürgen; Breuer, Esther

    2015-01-01

    Many students exhibit a special type of learning disability in writing. Yet, teachers spend relatively little time helping children and youth with severe writing difficulties overcome their struggles or prevent emerging problems from becoming more severe. A major reason for this lack of attention is that many educators feel overburdened by the…

  9. Mimewrighting: Preparing Students for the Real World of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Shope, R. E.

    2013-12-01

    READING, WRITING, & ENACTING SCIENTIFIC & TECHNICAL LITERATURE: Mimewrighting applies the art of mime as an interpretive springboard to integrate conceptual understanding across all content areas. Mimewrighting guides students to read and express complex ideas in carefully crafted movement integrations, mediating experience, so that students obtain an intuitive grasp of difficult and abstract ideas. THE PROBLEM: Reading science writing presents obstacles for middle and high school students, to the point that many students are turned OFF to science altogether. A typical science abstract, written for colleagues, is as densely packed with concept-laden words as a black hole is densely packed with matter- and just as mysterious. What reads to a science colleague as a richly crafted paragraph, from which a myriad of elegantly interrelated concepts can unfold to point to the significance and context of the study at hand, reads as jabberwocky nonsense to the uninitiated student. So, how do we turn such kids (and teachers) back ON to the inquiry-driven desire to seek out challenging and educative experiences? How do we step up to the national challenge to prepare ALL students adequately for the REAL-WORLD demands of science, technology, engineering, math, (STEM) and communications? How do we help kids read, write, and understand scientific and technical literature? AN UNCONVENTIONAL ANSWER: Mimewrighting applies the classic art of mime to unpack the meaning of science writing. We help students view the text as sequences of action, scenarios that can be enacted theatrically for understanding. HOW DOES IT WORK? READ ALOUD, MIME ALONG: It's as simple as read aloud and mime along. And as complex, in that it requires taking the time to acknowledge each concept packed into the passage. Three opening sentences might involve twenty minutes of mimewrighting activity to ensure that students apprehend the patterns, perceive the relationships, and comprehend the dynamics of such a passage-a well-invested quantum of energized activity. Students select a passage of interest and read it aloud. With coaching from science-savvy teachers and coaches, students act out the scientific and technical content-and move toward conceptual understanding of the actual phenomenon. Enacting a dynamical model requires the cognitive and physical awareness of the concepts involved. The mimed experience provides comprehensible input that can connect to math, language, and higher-level thinking skills. Following a mime scenario enactment, the teacher and students can refer to the shared experience as a common source to draw upon in discussion. The mimed action becomes a common reference point of shared prior experience. Modifying and manipulating the mimed model can also effect conceptual change. The power of dramatic reenactment through mimewrighting helps make abstract science and nature of science concepts become lively, tangible, and accessible to inquiry discussion. RESULTS: In this way, we re-inspire interest in science learning by engaging students to construct science scenarios that are designed for the incremental increase in challenge for the students. Students can now risk entering the black hole of scientific and technical writing--and emerge with all faculties intact!

  10. Courageous Voices: Using Text Sets to Inspire Change

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Tracy, Kelly N.; Menickelli, Kristin; Scales, Roya Q.

    2017-01-01

    This article describes how one teacher immersed her sixth graders in an intensive three-week thematic text set unit centered on courage. Her aim was to help students discover and take action on issues that mattered to them as they learned important literacy skills and strategies. Students engaged in significant reading, writing, and discussion as…

  11. A Lesson in Taking Flight

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Robertson, Kristina

    2016-01-01

    Teachers often tend to discuss their English language learners (ELLs) in terms of "level." Writes the author, "But if I were to say to a teacher, 'You have four level 2s in your class,' how does that help us have a common understanding of the students' needs?" One approach that has great potential to increase students' language…

  12. The Research Proposal in Biomechanical and Biological Engineering Courses

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Harrison, Roger G.; Nollert, Matthias U.; Schmidtke, David W.; Sikavitsas, Vassilios I.

    2006-01-01

    Students in four biochemical and biological engineering courses for upper-­level undergraduates and graduate students were required to write a research proposal. Breaking the requirements down into segments (such as a summary with specific aims, rough draft, and final draft) due on different dates helped make the assignment more manageable for the…

  13. Using Teacher-Developed Corpora in the CBI Classroom

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Salsbury, Tom; Crummer, Crista

    2008-01-01

    This article argues for the use of teacher-generated corpora in content-based courses. Using a content course for engineering and architecture students as an example, the article explains how a corpus consisting of texts from textbooks and journal articles helped students learn grammar, vocabulary, and writing. The article explains how the corpus…

  14. Integrating Literacy and Math: Strategies for K-6 Teachers

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Fogelberg, Ellen; Skalinder, Carole; Satz, Patti; Hiller, Barbara; Bernstein, Lisa; Vitantonio, Sandra

    2008-01-01

    Many K-6 teachers and students still think of mathematics as a totally separate subject from literacy. Yet incorporating math content into the language arts block helps students gain skills for reading many kinds of texts. Bringing reading, writing, and talking into the math classroom supports the development of conceptual knowledge and problem…

  15. The New Frontier: Conquering the World Wide Web by Mule.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Gresham, Morgan

    1999-01-01

    Examines effects of teaching hypertext markup language on students' perceptions of class goals in a networked composition classroom. Suggests sending documents via file transfer protocol by command line and viewing the Web with a textual browser shifted emphasis from writing to coding. Argues that helping students identify a balance between…

  16. Go Chemistry: A Card Game to Help Students Learn Chemical Formulas

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Morris, Todd A.

    2011-01-01

    For beginning chemistry students, the basic tasks of writing chemical formulas and naming covalent and ionic compounds often pose difficulties and are only sufficiently grasped after extensive practice with homework sets. An enjoyable card game that can replace or, at least, complement nomenclature homework sets is described. "Go Chemistry" is…

  17. Data-Driven Hint Generation in Vast Solution Spaces: A Self-Improving Python Programming Tutor

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Rivers, Kelly; Koedinger, Kenneth R.

    2017-01-01

    To provide personalized help to students who are working on code-writing problems, we introduce a data-driven tutoring system, ITAP (Intelligent Teaching Assistant for Programming). ITAP uses state abstraction, path construction, and state reification to automatically generate personalized hints for students, even when given states that have not…

  18. What's Going on in This Picture? Visual Thinking Strategies and Adult Learning

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Landorf, Hilary

    2006-01-01

    The Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) curriculum and teaching method uses art to help students think critically, listen attentively, communicate, and collaborate. VTS has been proven to enhance reading, writing, comprehension, and creative and analytical skills among students of all ages. The origins and procedures of the VTS curriculum are…

  19. Reality-Based Integrated Instruction.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Stix, Andi

    A teacher wants to help her middle school students who already hate poetry to appreciate William Carlos Williams' poem "This Is Just to Say," but her approach is ill-focused. In frustration, she assigns her students a punitive writing assignment. An approach that might have resulted in a better outcome could be achieved. It would have…

  20. Facets: Where Should We English Teachers Be Heading in the Next Ten Years and Why?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    English Journal, 1987

    1987-01-01

    Four professionals in English instruction envision a future that contains a 10,000-student secondary school teaching only English language arts, a school where tutors help students learn independently; achieves balance between teaching and institutional ideals of curriculum for basal readers; addresses the writing movement, keyboard instruction,…

  1. Heard Any Good Books Lately?: Must-Have Audiobooks for Tweens and Teens

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mandell, Phyllis Levy

    2010-01-01

    Audiobooks are excellent tools to help students build literacy skills as well as improve listening, writing, and vocabulary competencies. In many shared or independent reading situations, audiobooks offer support to reluctant and struggling readers, special-needs students, and English-language learners. They are also embraced by voracious readers.…

  2. Critical Media Literacies in the Twenty-First Century: Writing Autoethnographies, Making Connections, and Creating Virtual Identities

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Song, Ah-Young

    2017-01-01

    Critical media literacies can help nurture students' creative agencies and engender positive, sustained change in local communities. Although students do need to develop faculties with digital technologies, they must also participate in critical readings of cultural artifacts and discriminate between various multimedia sources. It is important for…

  3. Colour mathematics: with graphs and numbers

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Lo Presto, Michael C.

    2009-07-01

    The different combinations involved in additive and subtractive colour mixing can often be difficult for students to remember. Using transmission graphs for filters of the primary colours and a numerical scheme to write out the relationships are good exercises in analytical thinking that can help students recall the combinations rather than just attempting to memorize them.

  4. Does the Medium Make the Magic? The Effects of Cooperative Learning and Conferencing Software.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Burley, Hansel

    1998-01-01

    Describes how using conferencing software in a computer-assisted writing environment became a catalyst for a distinctive learning ecology that interrelated prosocial student behaviors, learner-centered teaching, and assessment. Argues that the conferencing class not only helped students apply critical thinking and problem-solving skills in…

  5. Promoting Revision through Blogging in a Second Grade Classroom

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Young, Chase; Stover, Katie

    2015-01-01

    This study helped the researchers to determine if blogging as a revision strategy in a second grade classroom was beneficial. Nineteen second grade students wrote expository essays and made revisions and edits based on peer feedback in a blogging environment. Six elementary school teachers independently rated the students' writing samples using…

  6. Computerized Writing and Reading Instruction for Students in Grades 4-9 with Specific Learning Disabilities Affecting Written Language

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Tanimoto, S.; Thompson, R.; Berninger, V. W.; Nagy, W.; Abbott, R. D.

    2015-01-01

    Computer scientists and educational researchers evaluated effectiveness of computerized instruction tailored to evidence-based impairments in specific learning disabilities (SLDs) in students in grades 4-9 with persisting SLDs despite prior extra help. Following comprehensive, evidence-based differential diagnosis for dysgraphia (impaired…

  7. Austria; Its People and Its Culture.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Moore, Merriam

    This curriculum guide details a 10-week German language course on Austria for advanced high school students. It is intended to help students develop skills of listening comprehension, reading, speaking, and writing German; to add to their knowledge of German grammar and vocabulary; to acquaint them with Austrian history and culture, and to have…

  8. Celebrate Democracy! Teach about Censorship

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Winkler, Lisa K.

    2005-01-01

    An English teacher believes that it is necessary for students to know how and why censorship operates in school libraries and classrooms to help them have the tools to speak for themselves. Free-choice reading, mock trails, and writing assignments are used to teach students about the censorship of books that are used in the schools.

  9. Web-Based Statistical Sampling and Analysis

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Quinn, Anne; Larson, Karen

    2016-01-01

    Consistent with the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSI 2010), the authors write that they have asked students to do statistics projects with real data. To obtain real data, their students use the free Web-based app, Census at School, created by the American Statistical Association (ASA) to help promote civic awareness among school…

  10. Helping Students Cross the Threshold: Implications from a University Writing Assessment

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Brockman, Elizabeth; Taylor, Marcy; Crawford, MaryAnn K.; Kreth, Melinda

    2010-01-01

    Some "English Journal" ("EJ") readers may fondly (or not so fondly) remember reading lists for college-bound students, which were once routinely distributed to promote the reading of "The Scarlet Letter," "Pride and Prejudice," "The Pearl," and other noteworthy classics. Today, virtually any English teacher would recognize that a focus on solely…

  11. The Science Teacher: Fall 2007

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Long, Steve

    2007-11-01

    This article reviews chemistry-related articles published in The Science Teacher from January through Summer 2007. Topics featured in these articles include a student activity simulating HPLC separation, inexpensive inquiry activities using film canisters, learning history as student role-play of scientists in the evolution of atomic theory, testing for radon in homes, and using writing to help high school and elementary students learn about gas laws.

  12. The Art and Practice of Gratitude: Practicing an Overlooked Skill to Help Undergraduate Biology Students Become Successful Professionals

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Halpin, Patricia A.; Landon, Jennifer

    2015-01-01

    In a fast-paced, technology-driven world, the age-old custom and etiquette of writing a thank-you note may often be forgotten. Educators need to provide students with the opportunity to master this important professional skill. One might assume that undergraduate biology students have mastered the art of crafting a thoughtful and articulate…

  13. Written Communication Skills for Scientists and Engineers

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Narayanan, M.

    2016-12-01

    Lord Chancellor, Francis Bacon of England said: Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. Even after his death, Francis Bacon remained extremely influential through his works, especially as philosophical advocate and practitioner of the scientific method during the scientific revolution. Written communication skills are extremely important for scientists and engineers because it helps them to achieve their goals effectively and meet stipulated deadlines according to a pre-established schedule. Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa claim that American students are learning very little during their first two years of college (Arum and Roksa, 2011). Written communication involves expressing yourself clearly, using language with precision; constructing a logical argument; taking notes; editing and summarizing; and writing reports. There are three main elements to written communication. First and foremost is the structure because this in principle outlines clearly the way the entire content is laid out. Second, the style which primarily indicates the way it is written and how communication is made effective and vibrant. Third, the content which should document in complete detail, what you are writing about. Some researchers indicate that colleges and universities are failing to prepare the students to meet the demanding challenges of the present day workforce and are struggling to maintain an international status (Johnson, K. 2013). In this presentation, the author provides some guidelines to help students improve their written communication skills. References: Johnson, Kristine (2013) "Why Students Don't Write: Educating in the Era of Credentialing: Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses," Conversations on Jesuit Higher Education: Vol. 43, Article 9. Available at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/conversations/vol43/iss1/9 Arum, Richard and Roksa, Josipa (2011) Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press. (ISBN 9780226028569)

  14. Science writing heurisitc: A writing-to-learn strategy and its effect on student's science achievement, science self-efficacy, and scientific epistemological view

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Caukin, Nancy S.

    The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to determine if employing the writing-to-learn strategy known as a "Science Writing Heuristic" would positively effect students' science achievement, science self-efficacy, and scientific epistemological view. The publications Science for All American, Blueprints for Reform: Project 2061 (AAAS, 1990; 1998) and National Science Education Standards (NRC 1996) strongly encourage science education that is student-centered, inquiry-based, active rather than passive, increases students' science literacy, and moves students towards a constructivist view of science. The capacity to learn, reason, problem solve, think critically and construct new knowledge can potentially be experienced through writing (Irmscher, 1979; Klein, 1999; Applebee, 1984). Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) is a tool for designing science experiences that move away from "cookbook" experiences and allows students to design experiences based on their own ideas and questions. This non-traditional classroom strategy focuses on claims that students make based on evidence, compares those claims with their peers and compares those claims with the established science community. Students engage in reflection, meaning making based on their experiences, and demonstrate those understandings in multiple ways (Hand, 2004; Keys et al, 1999, Poock, nd.). This study involved secondary honors chemistry students in a rural prek-12 school in Middle Tennessee. There were n = 23 students in the group and n = 8 in the control group. Both groups participated in a five-week study of gases. The treatment group received the instructional strategy known as Science Writing Heuristic and the control group received traditional teacher-centered science instruction. The quantitative results showed that females in the treatment group outscored their male counterparts by 11% on the science achievement portion of the study and the males in the control group had a more constructivist scientific epistemological view after the study than the males in the treatment group. Two representative students, one male and one female, were chosen to participate in a case study for the qualitative portion of the study. Results of the case study showed that these students constructed meaning and enhanced their understanding of how gases behave, had a neutral (male) or positive (female) perception of how employing Science Writing Heuristic helped them to learn, had a favorable experience that positively influenced their self-confidence in science, and increased their scientific literacy as they engaged in science as scientist do.

  15. Reaching English Language Learners in Every Classroom: Energizers for Teaching and Learning

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Arechiga, Debbie

    2012-01-01

    Reach all of your English language learners with the effective and engaging approaches in this book. It's filled with practical tools, strategies, and real-world vignettes that will help you teach reading and writing to a diverse student population. The book features "Mental Energizers," aptitudes that will help sustain your commitment as you work…

  16. Using the First-Year English Class to Develop Scientific Thinking Skills

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    McNamara, B. J.; Burnham, C.; Green, S.; Ball, E.; Schryer, A.

    2002-12-01

    This poster presents the preliminary results from an experimental approach to teaching first-year writing using the scientific method as an organizing theme. The approach presumes a close connection between the classical scientific method: observing, hypothesis forming, hypothesis testing, and generalizing from the results of the testing, and the writing process: inventing and prewriting, drafting, and revising. The project has four goals: 1. To introduce students to the relations between scientific method, academic inquiry, and the writing process; 2. To help students see that academic inquiry, the work of generating, testing, and validating knowledge and then applying that knowledge in real contexts, is actually a hybrid form of the scientific method; 3. To encourage students to connect the work they are doing in the writing classroom with the work they are doing in other classes so they can transfer the skills learned in one context to the other; and 4. To cause students who have previously been alienated by science and science teaching to reconsider their attitudes, and to see the powerful influence of science and scientific thinking in our world. In short, we are teaching science literacy in a humanities classroom. The materials we use include science-based reading and the kinds of writing typically required in science classes. The poster presents the basic premises of the project, samples of class materials, and preliminary results of a controlled pre- and post-test of student attitudes toward science and writing, analyzed especially according to gender and minority status. We also present insights by participating instructors including a female graduate teaching assistant who had been trained as a scientist and a male who had not.

  17. Poetry in teaching pharmacology: Exploring the possibilities.

    PubMed

    Kalra, Juhi; Singh, Satendra; Badyal, Dinesh; Barua, Purnima; Sharma, Taruna; Dhasmana, Dinesh Chandra; Singh, Tejinder

    2016-10-01

    To explore poetry as a tool for active learning in linking knowledge and affective domains and to find if correlating learning with imagination can be used in "assessment for learning." After taking a conventional lecture on Asthma, a creative writing assignment in the form of poetry writing was given to the students. Different triggers were given to the students to channelize their thought pattern in a given direction that was linked to specific areas of academic relevance. Students were asked to reflect on this learning experience and the faculty was asked to evaluate the student assignment on a 5-point Likert scale. Most student groups scored well in the "overall assessment" of creative assignments and were rated as good or fair by the faculty. Students reflections were very informative and revealed that more than 90% of the students liked the exercise and many were too exuberant and liberal with emotional reactions that breathed positive. Around 5% students found the exercise average and another 5% found it very childish. Poetry writing turned out to be like a simulation exercise that linked academic knowledge, creativity, and the affective domain in an assumed scenario, rehearsed in free locales of mind. The metaphorical transition embedded in its subtle creation helped assess deeper understanding of the subject and the logical sequence of thought pattern.

  18. Elders' Life Stories: Impact on the Next Generation of Health Professionals

    PubMed Central

    2013-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to pilot an enhanced version of the “Share your Life Story” life review writing workshop. The enhanced version included the addition of an intergenerational exchange, based on the content of seniors' writings, with students planning careers in the health sciences. The researcher employed a mixed methods design. Preliminary results using descriptive analysis revealed an increase in positive images of aging and a decrease in negative images of aging among the five student participants. Qualitative results revealed six themes that illuminate the hows and whys of the quantitative results as well as additional program benefits. Feedback from students and seniors helped to refine the intergenerational protocol for a larger scale study. PMID:24027579

  19. Lessons from Four "Bronze Muses" or How the Rhetoric of Nineteenth Century African-American Women Can Inform Writing Instruction in the Twenty-First Century.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Logan, Shirley W.

    Considering the rhetorical strategies four 19th-century black women employed to address various audiences can be helpful in the continuing struggle to find effective means of teaching writing to college students. These four women used a variety of strategies to reach audiences which were, to one degree or another, hostile to them because of their…

  20. Fore! Forward on the Course of Diversity (Focus on Teaching).

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Pomerenke, Paula J.

    1994-01-01

    Presents a case study and writing assignment used in a business communication class that help students uncover assumptions that may disadvantage both females and males when diversity within and between gender groups is ignored. (SR)

  1. Literacy from A to Z: Engaging Students in Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Blackburn, Barbara R.

    2008-01-01

    This book offers strategies, activities, and tools to help teachers and reading specialists teach elementary and middle school students to become better readers, writers, speakers, and listeners. Written in a lively and accessible style with one chapter for each letter of the alphabet, the book offers practical advice and fully realized examples…

  2. Email Tandem Exchanges as a Tool for Authentic Cultural Learning

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Llopis-García, Reyes

    2012-01-01

    This paper presents the description of an email Tandem exchange project conducted between 94 intermediate-level students (47 pairs) from Columbia University/Barnard College in New York and Universidad Autonóma de Madrid in Spain during the Fall Semester 2010. There were several goals to this project: to help improve students' writing skills; to…

  3. An International Experience for Social Work Students: Self-Reflection through Poetry and Journal Writing Exercises

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Furman, Rich; Coyne, Ann; Negi, Nalini Junko

    2008-01-01

    This descriptive article explores the uses of poetry and journaling exercises as means of helping students develop their self-reflective capacities within the context of international social work. First, self-reflection and its importance to social work practice and education is discussed. Second, the importance of self-reflection in international…

  4. Illustrating Story Plans: Does a Mnemonic Strategy Including Art Media Render More Elaborate Text?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Dunn, Michael W.

    2012-01-01

    Students who have difficulty with academics often benefit from learning mnemonic strategies which provide a step-by-step process to accomplish a task. Three fourth-grade students who struggled with writing learned the Ask, Reflect, Text (ART) strategy to help them produce more elaborate narrative story text. After initially asking the questions…

  5. Image Processing Algorithms in the Secondary School Programming Education

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Gerják, István

    2017-01-01

    Learning computer programming for students of the age of 14-18 is difficult and requires endurance and engagement. Being familiar with the syntax of a computer language and writing programs in it are challenges for youngsters, not to mention that understanding algorithms is also a big challenge. To help students in the learning process, teachers…

  6. Reforming Federal Student Loan Repayment: A Single, Automatic, Income-Driven System

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Baum, Sandy; Chingos, Matthew

    2017-01-01

    The federal role in higher education has grown over the past two decades, and now a new administration has the opportunity to strengthen policies that support students and their colleges and universities. To help inform these decisions, the Urban Institute convened a bipartisan group of scholars and policy advisers to write a series of memos…

  7. Writing Instructors' Perceptions of International Student Writers: What Teachers Want and Need to Know

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ferris, Dana; Jensen, Linda; Wald, Margi

    2015-01-01

    University of California (UC) campuses have recently experienced a dramatic increase in the number of international degree-seeking undergraduate students. This article presents results of a UC-wide survey conducted to understand the perceptions of developmental and 1st year composition instructors about these demographic changes and to help design…

  8. Resources and Practices to Help Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Fellows Write Statements of Teaching Philosophy

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Kearns, Katherine D.; Sullivan, Carol Subino

    2011-01-01

    Students and postdoctoral fellows currently encounter requests for a statement of teaching philosophy in at least half of academic job announcements in the United States. A systematic process for the development of a teaching statement is required that integrates multiple sources of support, informs writers of the document's purpose and audience,…

  9. What Does Resistance Look Like in Non-Academic Discourse?

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Herndl, Carl; Taylor, Vicki

    Teachers of advanced technical and professional writing need to provide credible ways in which their students can extend the cultural critique the teachers try to engage them in into the world outside the classroom. The nature of resistance in nonacademic discourse can be explored to help both the teachers and students think through the imposing…

  10. Pair Counting to Improve Grammar and Spoken Fluency

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Hanson, Stephanie

    2017-01-01

    English language learners are often more grammatically accurate in writing than in speaking. As students focus on meaning while speaking, their spoken fluency comes at a cost: their grammatical accuracy decreases. The author wanted to find a way to help her students improve their oral grammar; that is, she wanted them to focus on grammar while…

  11. Chapter 1 English as a Second Language, 1988-89. OREA Evaluation Section Report.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Guerrero, Frank; And Others

    The Chapter 1 English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) program provided supplementary, intensive English language instruction to limited-English-proficient (LEP) students in 69 non-public schools in New York City. The program's primary goal was to help LEP students gain the listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills necessary to improve their…

  12. I Upload Audio, therefore I Teach

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Fernandez, Luke

    2007-01-01

    Recording lectures and making it available as MP3's might seem counterintuitive for a course that denies students the use of paper and pencil. The author speculated that online technology might help students get away from writing and allow them to think and learn in new (or perhaps older) ways. As with any other technological invention, it is…

  13. Communication for the Workplace: An Integrated Language Approach. Second Edition. Job Skills. Net Effect Series.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Ettinger, Blanche; Perfetto, Edda

    Using a developmental, hands-on approach, this text/workbook helps students master the basic English skills that are essential to write effective business correspondence, to recognize language errors, and to develop decision-making and problem-solving skills. Its step-by-step focus and industry-specific format encourages students to review,…

  14. Helping Pre-Service Mathematics Teachers Connect Theory and Practice: Using Reading, Writing, and Observation Protocols to Structure Field Experiences

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Cross, Stephanie Behm; Bayazit, Nermin Tosmur

    2014-01-01

    The authors designed the project described her in order to address their students' expressed frustrations at the perceived disconnect between theory and practice. The project combined course readings, journaling, collaboratively created observation protocols, and classroom observation into a semester-long iterative assignment. The students' work…

  15. "It's Insanely Useful!" Students' Use of Instructional Concepts in Group Work and Individual Writing

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Rodnes, Kari Anne

    2012-01-01

    This study investigates students' work on analyzing a literary text, a cartoon strip, with focus on their use of instructional, analytical concepts. Excerpts from a group conversation and from individually written texts are analyzed from a sociocultural, dialogical perspective. The analysis of the conversation shows how such concepts help the…

  16. Don't Forget the Home Language. Creating a Community of Learners in Second Language Classrooms.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Gray, Mark Louis

    Teachers of English as a Second Language are encouraged to provide support for home language maintenance and use in classroom writing assignment. It is argued that this supports cultural diversity rather than emphasize differences among students, helps in development of literacy and other cognitive skills, and empowers students to achieve and…

  17. Rational Behavior Training: A Seven Lesson Sequence for Teaching Rational Behavior Skills to Students with Social and Emotional Disabilities.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Patton, Patricia Lucey

    This seven lesson curriculum sequence is designed to help teachers teach principles of Rational Behavior Training (RBT) which targets thinking behaviors, feeling behaviors, and behavioral responses to the environment. The program is appropriate for students with social and emotional disabilities and also develops reading, writing, spelling,…

  18. Writing Across the Curriculum as Applied in an Enrichment Classroom Setting.

    ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

    Mielke, Nedra S.

    This document describes a project in which elementary school students explored the problems experienced by early pioneers and compared them to similar problems that will face future space pioneers. Comparing a past way of life to the present and future helps students examine and understand change in the physical, social, and cultural environment,…

  19. Argonne National Laboratory summary site environmental report for calendar year 2006.

    DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

    Golchert, N. W.; ESH /QA Oversight

    This booklet is designed to inform the public about what Argonne National Laboratory is doing to monitor its environment and to protect its employees and neighbors from any adverse environmental impacts from Argonne research. The Downers Grove South Biology II class was selected to write this booklet, which summarizes Argonne's environmental monitoring programs for 2006. Writing this booklet also satisfies the Illinois State Education Standard, which requires that students need to know and apply scientific concepts to graduate from high school. This project not only provides information to the public, it will help students become better learners. The Biology IImore » class was assigned to condense Argonne's 300-page, highly technical Site Environmental Report into a 16-page plain-English booklet. The site assessment relates to the class because the primary focus of the Biology II class is ecology and the environment. Students developed better learning skills by working together cooperatively, writing and researching more effectively. Students used the Argonne Site Environmental Report, the Internet, text books and information from Argonne scientists to help with their research on their topics. The topics covered in this booklet are the history of Argonne, groundwater, habitat management, air quality, Argonne research, Argonne's environmental non-radiological program, radiation, and compliance. The students first had to read and discuss the Site Environmental Report and then assign topics to focus on. Dr. Norbert Golchert and Mr. David Baurac, both from Argonne, came into the class to help teach the topics more in depth. The class then prepared drafts and wrote a final copy. Ashley Vizek, a student in the Biology class stated, 'I reviewed my material and read it over and over. I then took time to plan my paper out and think about what I wanted to write about, put it into foundation questions and started to write my paper. I rewrote and revised so I think the amount of time that I put into the project will be worth it in the end because it is a cool thing to be a published writer'. While most students agree that putting the final paper together was the toughest part, the final result was worth the hard work. Christine Beuhler states, 'The time and effort was worth it because I learned a lot about the Argonne facility. This project also improved my analyzing, reading, and writing skills'. Emily Schimick and Kaitlin Hernandez agreed that the feeling of accomplishment when they finished the paper was their favorite part, while the reading of the Argonne Site Environmental Report was their least favorite because it was difficult to understand. The Downers Grove South Biology II class would like to thank our teacher Mr. Scott Howard, as well as Dr. Golchert and Mr. Baurac for their investment in time and energy in helping with the project. Dr. Golchert and Mr. Baurac gave us valuable assistance in the preparation of this project, and we owe them our deepest gratitude. Their real-life experience at Argonne was inspirational. Mr. Howard set the goals and made the commitment to our class to complete this project. Without their kind support, this project would not have been possible.« less

  20. Using HeLa cell stress response to introduce first year students to the scientific method, laboratory techniques, primary literature, and scientific writing.

    PubMed

    Resendes, Karen K

    2015-01-01

    Incorporating scientific literacy into inquiry driven research is one of the most effective mechanisms for developing an undergraduate student's strength in writing. Additionally, discovery-based laboratories help develop students who approach science as critical thinkers. Thus, a three-week laboratory module for an introductory cell and molecular biology course that couples inquiry-based experimental design with extensive scientific writing was designed at Westminster College to expose first year students to these concepts early in their undergraduate career. In the module students used scientific literature to design and then implement an experiment on the effect of cellular stress on protein expression in HeLa cells. In parallel the students developed a research paper in the style of the undergraduate journal BIOS to report their results. HeLa cells were used to integrate the research experience with the Westminster College "Next Chapter" first year program, in which the students explored the historical relevance of HeLa cells from a sociological perspective through reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. In this report I detail the design, delivery, student learning outcomes, and assessment of this module, and while this exercise was designed for an introductory course at a small primarily undergraduate institution, suggestions for modifications at larger universities or for upper division courses are included. Finally, based on student outcomes suggestions are provided for improving the module to enhance the link between teaching students skills in experimental design and execution with developing student skills in information literacy and writing. © 2015 The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

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