Presents five excerpts from student essays (resulting from extensive in-class coaching and computer lab time) that were based on an article from the December, 1991, issue of "English Journal." (HB)

Highlights aspects of the relationship of literary studies to other school subjects. Shares excerpts from students' personal notebooks of first and second graders as they reflect upon the meaning that stories hold for them. Makes six specific points about the relations among literature, the academic disciplines, and the ongoing life narratives of…

Notes that some students invent their own styles of poetry, and regularly use them in their writing. Recommends that teachers encourage this. Presents several examples of students' styles. (RS)

Presents a student assignment which involves interviewing a family member and then drawing images and writing a description of their advice. Includes completed assignments from two students. (SR)

Examines two "success" stories about student writers. Addresses the conversation about teachers writing and writers teaching. Questions whether the first-success-story-student wrote a story that better served her purpose for learning, and whether the student in story #2 will know what to do with the excess of meaning the class has constructed…

Describes a writing assignment useful for high school and college students in which students ponder, discuss, and write about collecting, collectors, and the human impulse to collect. Includes some samples of student writing. (SR)

Uses students' amusing vocabulary mistakes to discuss vocabulary development. (SR)

Describes how a group of adults with autism, mental retardation, and other disabilities has accessed a means of communication and formed a bridge to the community through poetry. (SR)

This paper defines the concept of "improvement infrastructure" and "educational capital" for education, and it uses the case of the National Writing Project to develop an extended, data-based illustration of the design and generativeness of an improvement infrastructure. Since 1983 there have been multiple "waves" of…

During the spring semester of 2006 the Department of Physical Education (John Jay College of Criminal Justice) and a writing fellow, an English doctoral candidate (CUNY Graduate Center), began working together, with the goal of creating a new writing assignment for an integral course at the college. PED 103, Personal Physical Fitness and Dynamic…

The author argues that the new journal "Young Scholars in Writing: Undergraduate Research in Writing and Rhetoric" offers access to student writing outside of the pedagogical apparatus that has historically accompanied the publication of such writing, and in the process challenges composition's standard practice of citing students by first name…

The authors describe their experience using a learner-centered approach to turn learner writing into booklets. When students write about their own lives, they can focus on the language they need to express their ideas. Interaction increases because interest is high. Near beginners can create fact sheets about themselves, and more advanced students…

Adding a strong conclusion can alter a cookbook lab into an inquiry lab by challenging the student to defend relevant data and clearly communicate his or her findings. A well-organized scoring guide makes it easier for students to understand what is involved in writing a strong conclusion. Examples of student writing that are accompanied with the…

This issue of "Stepping into the Classroom" reaches the broad ends of the spectrum of experience to showcase two authors who have worked hard to learn from personal experience and translate ideas into practice. Greg Van Nest, a veteran teacher of six years, had gone to many national conferences, but in Nashville in 2006, he came away knowing he…

Seniors submitted and revised essays within ePortfolios for evaluation by high school faculty and university first-year writing instructors. The project also examined differences between high school and college teachers' responses and effects on students' assumptions about the writing expected and valued in college. Results suggest techniques…