Process-oriented approaches are increasingly used in schools to improve writing. One of these approaches, known as the writing workshop model, is challenging for teachers to implement without supports. This quasi-experimental study evaluated the effectiveness of a middle school writing program that incorporates this model along with technological…

In a montage of genres, Helen Collins Sitler illuminates the subtle yet powerful, often detrimental messages we send to girls that silence their public and private voices and diminish their opportunities to question and learn.

Describes how one sixth-grade teacher of English/Language Arts stopped teaching from grammar texts and instituted a writing workshop. Describes flak he received from colleagues and parents, encouragement he received from students and from his principal, and how, over time, writing workshops have spread in his school. (SR)

Designed to create and maintain an effective classroom writing workshop, this book explains how to teach young writers style and genre characteristics, composing skills, conventions, and the many aspects of the writing process itself. The second edition includes more information, models, and examples in the expository genre, as well as elaborating…

Notes that not having anything to say is a major hurdle in the writing process at the middle school level. Describes two common classroom experiences, based on the software programs "GeoWorld" and "Food for Thought," that enable all students to acquire and share information together. (RS)

Investigates K-7 teachers' attitudes, beliefs, and instructional decisions about process writing. Finds that most teachers (1) understand that writing is primarily a communication act; (2) received instruction in process writing and use strategies associated with process writing for instruction; and (3) are progressing toward a level of…

Describes how the writing process is the foundation for writing instruction in a seventh-grade class with full special education inclusion. Describes how daily writing, lots of choice, modeling, and examples of rich writing help all students move ahead to become better writers. (SR)

Offering a fresh perspective on making writing meaningful in every classroom, this guide seeks to help the teacher and the parent encourage the student writer as a thinker, not merely as a producer of a paragraph. The guide offers guidance as well as many practical activities that will help students to: organize the mind; play with ideas; find…

Describes a procedure for peer editing in a junior high school writing workshop in which sentences of the work to be edited were copied onto individual pieces of paper and rearranged by each peer reviewer. States that differences were noted and the author chose which order to adopt. (RS)

Describes a two-year teacher research project on how one teacher improved writing workshops for her middle school students. (SR)

This study had three objectives: (1) to examine and describe factors that help to create a positive attitude toward learning; (2) to examine and describe factors that led to students' participation in the process-oriented approach; and (3) to examine and describe perceptions and experiences that students had involving the process-oriented…

Pacey, a likable and literate eighth-grader, saw school as "a place that kills your reading." With this alarming condemnation in mind, the author uses literacy narrative--a short, concise, digital video in which students meld still images, motion, print text, and soundtrack (both narration and music) in communicating ideas/insights/discoveries…

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…

An "authentic dialogue" is presented consisting of two case studies that describe how a process learning teacher became a co-learner with her students through the teaching method of natural learning. Two middle school students, a 13-year-old boy named Josh who dashes off his assignments with whirlwind nonchalance and a fourth-grade girl named…

This study examined the effectiveness of the first year of a project designed to support the use of computers to improve the writing skills of middle level students. Subjects, 2,285 students from all of the 16 school districts in Delaware, engaged in daily writing activities on computers using the process approach to writing. One teacher from each…