This study was a narrative inquiry that investigated middle school students' experiences with an informal writing group. The six primary participants were members of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMO). During the month of November, each of the primary participants set a word count goal and composed a novel. Participants met together at group…

Writing retreats are structured events during which a group of people write in the same room over several days. In this paper, we report on findings from a study exploring the impact of writing retreats on PhD students' writing and their sense of self as academic writers. A second aim of the study was to contribute to the search for appropriate…

This qualitative study documents urban youth participation in a community-based out-of-school youth writing program that cultivated participants' dialogues, identities, and writings. The study documents participants' perspectives as contributors and beneficiaries of a neighborhood revitalization effort. Analysis of excerpts from breakout sessions,…

School administrators have the challenge of providing high-quality education in all subject areas. Along with this task, administrators must wade through countless programs, curriculums, while ensuring that student needs are met along with required state and local test scores. While the focus on reform has been in math and science, writing…

Purpose -- In this study, the writing needs of postgraduate research students are explored, so that support structures that enable successful completion rates and student satisfaction can be identified. Postgraduate education is expanding in Malaysian public and private higher education institutions; yet research tends to focus on public…

This chapter addresses the transformative use of the creative writing workshop as pedagogical method in undergraduate, graduate, and community-based creative nonfiction classes.

Established in 2010, the Doris Duke Fellowships for the Promotion of Child Well-Being focused on two core ideas: that learning is best accomplished in interdisciplinary groups and that carefully crafted research can improve public policy and practice. The final cohort was selected in 2018. Since then, a fellow-led transition has begun to expand…

This article is a reflective account of my work as a writer-in-residence in 12 post-primary schools, over two academic years. Coming from the perspective of a writer the article fills a gap in the literature, where a substantial body of work exists on the teacher as writer, but little exists on the writer as teacher. The article makes a case for…

Increased emphasis on standardization in primary grades can stifle spontaneous literacy play. The authors argue that allowing playful, collaborative, multimodal literacies into primary classrooms and specifically in writers' workshop can expand and enliven the way we see students' literacy strengths. The authors look closely at the unique…

In this article, I explore the narratives and experiences of four Latinx mothers and fathers, Alma, Rose, Valente and Samuel, who participated with their adolescent daughters (grades nine-10), Blanca, Elizabeth, Rocky and Reyna in Somos Escritores/We are Writers writing workshops. Somos Escritores was a family engagement space, created with and…

This profile describes the first three years of initiating new writing-intensive seminars for the General Education curriculum at a small, career-focused, Catholic University. The primary reason for implementing the program was to initiate new writing-intensive seminars to replace existing writing-intensive General Education introductory courses…

Despite calls to action, writing pedagogy in the English classroom remains outdated, and caustic partisanship among theorists may be to blame. The author proposes a "principled approach" to the teaching of writing, combining the best elements of verified instructional methods to generate six components ensuring student growth.

The aim of the action research reported here was to examine the differential effects of the 'writers' workshop' approach on the L2 (English) writing skills of upper-primary students with varying writing abilities. The participants were 31 fifth-grade students (17 boys and 14 girls) aged 10-11, who followed L2 English writing instruction based on…

This article shares the experiences of Latina adolescent girls (Grades 7-12) and their mothers as participants in Somos Escritoras/We are Writers, a creative writing workshop that invites girls and their mothers to engage in the sharing of stories through art and writing. In the creation of Somos Escritoras, I position Black and Chicana feminist…

This study explored the relationship between legibility in handwriting scores and compositional scores of students in grade five in one Northwest Georgia school. The ability to recall and write the letters automatically may impact the composing skills of students engaged in the writing process. Handwriting, often considered a motor skill in young…