Describes the New Jersey Writing Project, a total immersion in writing, theory, and practices offered as two three-credit summer courses at Rutgers University. Suggests that the power and authority people gain from writing workshops is so dramatic that once teachers have experienced it they have no choice but to learn to use workshops in their own…

Presents six teachers' responses to the "Private Eye" workshop (which encourages thinking by analogy and incorporating writing in many forms into content area teaching). Notes that the workshop was described in two articles in the November/December 1993 issue of this journal. Notes the energy that flows out of the teachers' writing about…

Details some of the activities undertaken by members of a high school English department who began exchanging their own writing with each other. Argues that this is a stimulating and learning experience that improves both writing and instruction. (HB)

Describes a "dialogic" (Bakhtin, 1981) writing workshop that is responsive to the social priorities of children and that reconsiders dilemmas within an alternative framework. Notes that the experiences and tests of two writers in third grade highlight the way identity and sense of self can be developed and explored in a writing community that…

This chapter describes an innovative writing program at Simon Fraser University that has implications for fostering transformative learning.

Writing is a complex task. Its development depends in large part on changes that occur in children's strategic behavior, knowledge, and motivation. In the present study, the effectiveness of an instructional model, Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD), designed to foster development in each of these areas, was examined. Adding a peer support…

Drawing on theory and practice, the authors argue that, rather than trying to "cover" all grammatical skills, something traditionally done in many classrooms, and with limited results, teachers can more successfully teach less grammar with better results by focusing on key grammatical options and skills in the context of actual writing, throughout…

Teachers sometimes try every intervention strategy they can think of to help struggling readers. However, some teachers still feel that they are not getting through. This article presents the reading strategies offered by two literacy researchers Michael Pressley and Nell K. Duke, of Michigan State University.

In this article, the author discusses several approaches in facilitating teachers, faculty, and staff members in giving birth to publishable writing that will allow them to share their ideas with other professionals. One effective approach is to find the strongest angle for a story and then narrowing it down.

Most arguments in support of teacher research have been epistemological and political. They have focused on its potential benefits for improving instruction and for reforming the culture of schooling. Advocates of the teacher-research movement have claimed that it can empower the teacher as a maker of knowledge, encourage collaborative inquiry…

Between 1999 and 2003, the Western Massachusetts Writing Project experienced a series of changes that made it question whether it could survive as a writing project site. The convergence of retirement, unexpected death, and withdrawal of long-term financial support forced the existing leadership to develop a process to look deeply into the work of…

This book offers guidance for poets at every stage of development. It is a book about a person's shaping his or her memory and passions, pleasures, obsessions, dreams, secrets, and sorrows into poems. The book contains chapters on the language and music of poetry, the art of revision, traditional and experimental techniques, and how to get poetry…

Two important schools of thought in the teaching of writing are those of the "writing workshop" and "critical pedagogy." Both encourage expression on the part of the student, but while writing workshop advocates assume that the student writes from a stable, unitary, autonomous self, the critical pedagogy advocates do not.…

This book presents a new vision of curriculum--one that invites students to read with important social ideas in mind and write with the purpose of making the world a better place. Developed over years of classroom experience with diverse children, the book will help more experienced teachers take the next step in their professional growth, while…

The four videotapes and a viewing guide cover all the practical components necessary for establishing and implementing a successful writing workshop, including the importance of choice, creating a risk-taking environment, the difference between skills and craft, the writer's notebook, the writing conference, revision, the role of literature, and…