A growing body of academic literacies research has enhanced our understanding of university writing as contested, institutionally situated practice with important consequences, particularly for students as they learn to negotiate the writing demands of university study. Less empirical attention has been paid to the practices of subject academics…

Online education can be leveraged to help current students complete their degrees and to attract new students. While online learning is not new, in recent years, it has been moving away from the periphery of higher education and becoming a central component of institutional strategies for increasing student enrollment, retention, and completion.…

This case study reports the results of a genre-based approach, which was used to explicitly teach the touristic landmark description to fourth-grade students of Spanish as a foreign language. The instructional model and unit of instruction were informed by the pedagogies of the Sydney School of Linguistics and an instructional model for…

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of a first grade student's writing at home, school, and university program on her written expression skills. In the research, all the student's writing was on subjects that she was interested in or ones she chose to write about from her lived experiences or familiar events. A case study method was…

We explore three primary paradigms that continue to dominate writing instruction in secondary schools. By illustrating these paradigms, exploring their underlying assumptions with two classes of preservice teachers (PSTs) enrolled in a required course on teaching writing and identifying theoretical and pedagogical alternatives, we examine how…

The authors present the experiences of Wyatt, a nine-year-old whose mother described him as a struggling writer, in a summer digital writing camp. The authors consider how Wyatt was positioned as a writer at camp and how this may have differed from his experiences at school. They found that for Wyatt, being able to compose with digital tools along…

In attempts to find appropriate and authentic materials for students who are developing their academic writing skills, instructors often turn to works written by professional academics. However, genres such as published research articles and textbooks in specific disciplines may not be the most suitable models for what first year composition…

This yearlong ethnographic case study investigated higher and lower track adolescents' experiences with core content-area (social studies, science, and math) writing in one urban working-class district. Teacher, student, and administrator interviews; field notes; and students' written work comprised the data set. The findings from this…

Science education reform calls for learners to be engaged in hand-on, minds-on activities related to science. As a part of this reform effort, learners are encouraged to use writing as a means of documenting their work and developing their understandings. This qualitative case study employed the Conceptual Change Perspective and Sociocultural…

Utilizing a New Literacies Studies framework, this article presents critical lessons in film production from a multiple site case study. Examples of children's classroom experiences demonstrate how filmmaking and play come together in a process of storying--a collaborative and multimodal approach to text composition. Students in both preschool and…

This study examines the writing of 30 engineering students, faculty response, students' reading of the response, subsequent revision, and faculty evaluation to ask what factors contribute to constructive conversation about writing. It affirms previous research that suggests engineering faculty do not provide the facilitative commentary widely…

This study examined how teachers design and implement instructional strategies to enhance students' emergent writing. A case study methodology was used to examine the elements of an emergent writing program of two kindergarten teachers. The study hoped to define a classroom environment that is conducive to literacy and writing using best…

Blogs in classrooms represent a new approach to teaching writing that is developing and changing daily. Although some scholarly literature explores the use of blogs in educational settings, the blogs are primarily being used at the secondary and college levels. The purpose of this qualitative case study research was to explore how blogging…

Teachers' feedback on students' written work is an important aspect of pedagogy. However, theoretical views differ on what constitutes "good" feedback, both among applied linguists and academics in other disciplines. In-depth research needs to be carried out into the contextual difficulties of evaluating and assessing academic…

Describes a research paper assignment in which students choose a controversial news event reported by six to eight newspapers and arrive at a thesis by comparing the accounts. Notes that students become truly engaged with the assignment and that engagement shows itself strongly in the intelligence and life of the papers. (RS)