The genre of tall tales is characterized by fictional, often intentionally ridiculous, stories that provide a reason for or origin of a natural phenomenon. Tall tales are often based on characters who are unusually adept or powerful; they are particularly appealing to children who are cognitively capable of understanding the tongue-in-cheek humor…

Purpose: This study examined the efficacy of a professional development program for early childhood educators that facilitated emergent literacy skills in preschoolers. The program, led by a speech-language pathologist, focused on teaching alphabet knowledge, print concepts, sound awareness, and decontextualized oral language within naturally…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the usability (effectiveness, efficiency and user satisfaction) of e-feedback interfaces. The experiment compares a traditional visual approach with a multimodal approach in order to determine the impact of multimodal metaphors upon the user's understanding, reasoning and engagement with the…

Examples of deaf students' writings are cited to illustrate the importance of allowing students to examine possible writing topics and make choices. (CL)

Happenings--mini-dramas 'smaller than life'--are an excellent device to get students to write and put their writing into visual form through filmmaking. (BD)

Provides a chapter-by-chapter list of possible writing exercises to be used in conjunction with Frederick Douglass's "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave." States that the aim of the exercises is to encourage complexity of thought and feeling. (PA)

This paper reports on a study designed to investigate (a) whether peer review is an effective pedagogical activity with adult Chinese students in the teaching of second language (L2) academic writing and (b) how factors such as perceptions of the influence of peer reviewers' L2 proficiency, previous experience with peer review, feedback…

Examines some of Mark Twain's advice about writing. (IRT)

A procedure for writing a term paper and suggestions on how to select a topic in consumer education for the paper are offered as learning experiences in consumer education whereby the student can select, delimit, study, organize, summarize, and verify material related to a topic of personal interest. (AG)

"Blogging for the sake of blogging is fine, but what is the value added?" That's a question educational blogging advocates are now coming around to answer, and the value they're finding may seem preposterous to those who associate blogging with barely literate loudmouths and cyber predators. Can this often belligerent wasteland of poor…

As writing skills have a significant impact on a Law student's ability to successfully complete assessment tasks, it is important to identify early, and refer to appropriate programs, students likely to benefit from language and writing skills support. This article describes in-class exercises developed in the Law School at the University of…

A joint project of the United States Postal Service and the National Council of Teachers of English, this book provides ideas and activities to help students in grades 4 through 8 get into the letter writing habit. Section 1 stresses the joy of writing letters to friends, relatives, pen pals, and celebrities. The second section describes letters…