Reviews are an important resource for readers' advisory and collection development. They are also a helpful promotional tool, introducing patrons to what is new on the shelf. This resource includes: (1) Tips for writing strong, relevant reviews; (2) Different ways reviews can be used to promote your library; and (3) A chapter by Joyce Saricks…

Dissertation writing is often the most challenging aspect of the doctoral program. In an effort to raise completion rates and lower time-to-degree as well as increase student satisfaction with the program, professors in an Ed.D. program developed a semester-long course to support students writing their dissertations. This case study describes the…

Educators have been challenged for many years to engage their students, but often students still seem to be disengaged (Klem & Connell, 2004). Research indicates student engagement is critical to student achievement and success in school (Appleton, 2008; Connell, Spencer, & Aber, 1994; Easton, 2008; Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Paris,…

The lack of strong literacy skills and practices among students is perhaps the clearest indicator that the education system continues to leave millions of children behind. To advance the reading, writing, and speaking skills of middle and high school students, this study examines a professional development model that brought trained…

Teachers as Readers (TAR) is a strategy often recommended to engage teachers as active readers; participants share and learn in peer groups and then connect what they learn to their instruction of reading in the classroom. The idea is supported financially by a number of reading organizations. Reading is only one part of literacy--it is time to…

This article reports on a design experiment in which 4th grade bilingual students were invited to engage in new literacy practices of linking, multimodality, and design using only ordinary, concrete materials like ink, paper, tape, and boxes. The inquiry was undertaken in the midst of a unit of study on memoir in a writing workshop, under…

Grantmakers for Education's Principles for Effective Education Grantmaking identify "innovation" and "constant learning" as a core proposition for achieving results in education philanthropy. To illustrate this principle, "Learning by Doing" examines the Noyce Foundation's efforts to apply new information to its…

Research reveals that many teachers express a discomfort about teaching writing; moreover, there is growing evidence that professional learning communities can have a positive impact on teacher learning and performance. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the relationship between teachers' involvement in a professional…

Four-week summer academy programs served homeless children and adults in two contiguous innovative learning programs. The programs may be the first of their kind in the homeless literature in which both adults and children were exposed to career, academic, and leadership opportunities in the supportive learning environment of a university campus,…

Background: An elementary teacher study group supports each other in a year-long journey as they learn how to work through writer's workshop curriculum in order to implement Units of Study by Lucy Calkins at a K-6 school. Time spent in writing instruction has been largely neglected, and a teacher-researcher wants to document the support found from…

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…

Special Education and at-risk kindergarteners can be outstanding authors given the appropriate educational opportunity. In a small, suburban public school district, two university professors collaboratively met with experienced special and general education teachers to introduce them to writing workshop methodology. This year-long series of…

This is a collaborative writing project that is ideally suited for introducing longer narrative writing to second-year students. It involves collaborative learning, group dynamics and extended narrative writing. In the "Rockgruppe-Semesterprojekt", groups of students form fictional rock bands, develop tour itineraries through the German-speaking…

This article reports the findings from a year-long study of 6 writing teachers in an urban elementary school who also received intensive professional development in writing instruction from a nonprofit organization. Repeated observations demonstrated that the teachers displayed consistency in their use of the core instructional elements associated…

Process-oriented approaches are increasingly used in schools to improve writing. One of these approaches, known as the writing workshop model, is challenging for teachers to implement without supports. This quasi-experimental study evaluated the effectiveness of a middle school writing program that incorporates this model along with technological…