Presents an instructional unit, "Literary Lifeboat," a purposeful writing exercise in which students write character justifications for familiar stories. Describes the unit's implementation in a Year 5 class, and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of the exercise. (MM)

Discusses the links between classroom teaching activities and the learning of different textual forms. Presents results from a three-year study of one teacher's classroom interactions and activities. Advocates a theory of genre acquisition of different kinds of text form by young learners which is anchored in contextually relevant data. (MM)

Challenges the view that children should learn to write narratives first and shows how teachers can exploit everyday classroom topics to help children develop control of the kinds of factual writing normally used by adults. (MM)

Outlines an integrated study approach to informational writing for second grade children. Using dinosaurs as the topic, discusses how students solved the problem of selecting, organizing, and structuring their information by focusing on smaller pieces of information or by planning a contents page for their book. (MM)

Focuses on how children learn different written registers. Asserts that teachers must immerse children in a variety of texts to experience different registers of language and make explicit the purpose of registers, the role audience plays, and how information is organized in different registers. (MM)

Shows how to help students shape their self-selected writings into reports. In a class of students with learning and/or attitude problems, follows the development of one student's report writing through the processes of clarifying a purpose and audience, generating information with a word map activity, and organizing the information effectively by…

Claims that teachers sometimes need to set up and direct purposeful writing situations to make sure that children gain experience in different kinds of writing. Discusses how teachers can help students tackle a challenging writing task, and describes strategies which students use to deal with a difficult writing assignment. (MM)