Along with forty-nine other high school students, as the author recounts of their student, Meghan is part of an elective two-week academic writing workshop. Each day begins with a freewrite exercise like this one, designed to help students develop what the workshop directors call "fluency." Like Meghan, many students write prolifically…

In the context of our work as literacy specialists, we taught teachers to use sentence frames to support ELL students' writing. We then studied the impact of their instruction on students. Our analysis of student writing samples revealed no group wide developmental trends so we posed deeper questions about their work using the data analysis…

Drawing on four years of anecdotal data and student feedback on course evaluations, this paper provides a retrospective account of the author's experience with teacher candidates in an elementary writing instruction course as first-time authors of children's books, in particular focusing on a writing workshop approach as an effective pedagogical…

The Young Writers Program (YWP) is the latest writing workshop to be developed for the classroom. It challenges students to choose a topic and write a novel-length piece based on that topic, without worrying about spelling or grammar. While the foundation of this philosophy is solid, the support and structure of the Young Writers Program website…

The current higher education climate seems to be demanding increasing levels of written output from doctoral researchers during candidature. In this context this study employed an online questionnaire, individual interviews and focus group discussions to collect information on the challenges and successes of doctoral writing. It was found that…

A writing workshop is a pedagogical tool that can create a more productive experience for teachers and students alike. Business students who have used this technique with experienced instructors agree that a well-planned writing workshop can be useful for dispelling writing fears, furthering understanding of business communication skills,…

Cauley's books about snakes demonstrate intentional and interesting decisions by a beginning writer. The conclusion states that learning to choose topics for writing in thoughtful ways is an important part of the curriculum in writing workshop.

Reports on "Runaway with Words," a poetry workshop for at-risk teens in Florida's runaway shelters. Describes how, through various exercises, oral recitations, and conversations, troubled teens learn basic writing skills that help them gain control over their emotions. (SR)

This book dares educators to rethink their beliefs about how they design writing workshops, use writer's notebooks, choose appropriate genres, teach spelling, help students connect their reading to their writing, and even edit and publish students' writing. Filled with stories and work samples of real children in a diverse urban setting, the book…

Describes using the pastiche as the basis for a writing workshop with secondary students. Shows how students are afforded opportunities to explore and enter a rich tradition of imaginative invention and literary formulation as they probe, consider, select, and blend the works of various master writers and Mother Goose rhymes. (SR)

Suggests that educators fundamentally change the way they teach grammar. Offers the author's experience with some curious success with students taking on grammar as part of their writing process, and gives some ideas about starting the teaching of grammar in a radically different place and as a radical agent. Speaks against using student writing…

Suggests that one of the greatest outlets for the middle school voices in one particular classroom is the students' immersion into poetry during writing workshops. Describes a classroom environment that encourages children to express themselves in writing, speech, and action each day. Presents numerous examples of students' poetry. (RS)

Describes a six-week poetry writing workshop for an eighth-grade class. Discusses getting started, two weeks of immersion in reading poetry, students writing their own poetry, creating a community of poets in the classroom, evaluation, students' poetry, and what the teacher learned. Notes that students gained a much richer understanding of poetry.…

Presents three articles that examine, through the classroom experiences of the authors, important issues of ownership, authorship, and privacy in process writing classrooms: (1) "Use of Students' Writing as Models in the Classroom" (Karyn E. Schweiker-Marra); (2) Privacy Issues Regarding Workshops" (Mary Broglie); and (3)…

The purpose of this collaborative schools-university study was to investigate how the explicit instruction of literary devices during designated literacy sessions could improve the quality of children's narrative writing. A guiding question for the study was: Can children's writing can be enhanced by teachers drawing attention to the literary…