Provides suggestions for creating a writing-intensive course. Focuses on meeting course goals or objectives with student writing, describing the different types of writing assignments and discussing the mixture of assignments, amount of writing, and ensuring success. Includes a syllabus for a writing-intensive undergraduate sociology course. (CMK)

This article describes the experiences of a sixth-grade language arts class that participated in a research and portfolio-writing exercise using the school library media center. Students in this class learned that organization and process are central to the completion of a successful research project. After learning various note-taking strategies…

Using an authentic assessment approach, two California State University, Fullerton, faculty members developed instructional strategies in support of an assignment that requires students to situate their families within a historical framework. We describe our efforts to provide students with the research skills to successfully complete the…

Students are most successful in online courses that provide ample opportunities for them to interact with the instructor, other students, and the course content. An interactive online course must engage students as active learners rather than as passive participants. How can instructors design virtual classrooms that offer students with a variety…

"Homophobia Prevention" is a two-week social studies mini-unit. The purpose of this mini-unit is to raise awareness and understanding levels surrounding heterosexism and heterosexual privilege. Additional student goals for the mini-unit include forming connections between heterosexism and other forms of oppression, as well as identifying…

Tremendous changes are taking place in the world which certainly influence the system of education, and teacher education too cannot remain immune to these global changes. Information Technology (IT] is affecting teachers, individuals and society. Digital learning has opened the doors of classrooms and made knowledge accessible even for those…

At the University of Akron, the administration decided to segregate the students previously called "provisional" from the "regular" population. As an open-access institution, the university directly admits only approximately 15 percent of the students to a program of study. The vast majority of students start in University College and transfer to…

The Science Foundation Programme (SFP) at the University of KwaZulu Natal, Pietermaritzburg attempts to address past educational inequalities by providing disadvantaged matriculants with the skills, resources and self-confidence needed to embark on their tertiary studies. Students entering the Programme typically adopt a surface approach to…

The question, "What were the causes of World War I?," has become one of the classic historical debates of which there seem to be endless permutations. In the past 90 years historians, journalists, and politicians have offered many more or less rational explanations for the war. Although at least some of the usual "causes"…

View Park Preparatory High School, a charter school serving low-income urban students in Los Angeles, makes critical thinking the center of its literacy curriculum. The school's literacy program has a single, measurable goal: By graduation, every student will be able to write a 500-word sustained argument free of mechanical error, reflecting his…

This paper outlines a project that provides a framework for engaging students in current events in such a way that they develop and improve critical sociological thinking through regular and structured writing assignments. Though this paper describes a news-analysis project that is similar to many that have been used in sociology classrooms both…

The Internet has changed the ways that students think, learn, and write. Students have large amounts of information, largely anonymous and without clear copyright information, literally at their fingertips. Without sufficient guidance, the inappropriate use of this information seems inevitable. Plagiarism among college students is rising, due to…

In two sections of a world history class, 43 sixth graders, all considered competent readers, participated in two sets of tasks. First, they used a familiar textbook to locate the answers to six questions, all of which contained terms that could be found in the book's index. Second, they participated in a report-writing project in which they were…

Integrating up-to-date composition theory with pedagogical research in critical thinking and inquiry, this book presents a flexible organizational structure to accommodate a range of freshman composition course designs and to engage students intellectually in problem-centered writing activities to prepare them for academic tasks across the…

Children can create pantomimes that will motivate and enhance their story writing. The "Writing through Mime" program has been introduced to some 4500 children, grades kindergarten through 5, in 29 New York City elementary schools, under the auspices of the Learning through an Expanded Arts Program. A step-by-step blueprint was developed…