This book offers guidance on how teachers can help their students write about sensitive topics or provide pragmatic suggestions for developing the skill and sensitivity necessary to venture into such difficult terrain. The book addresses students' need to articulate their thoughts and feelings about violence, anger, drug use, peer pressure, and…

This paper describes the use of collaborative writing software and simultaneous electronic chats in an English as a Second Language (ESL) class. Most ESL students have little experience using word processing software, and most have no keyboarding experience. Using electronic chat sessions assists ESL students with sentence construction, vocabulary…

The Nevada Writing Assessment Program has been developed, implemented, and facilitated by Nevada classroom teachers, who have adapted, designed, and continually revised the scoring criteria; designed the assessment writing prompts; evaluated and chosen anchor papers; led the scoring sessions and read and scored the student papers; and made the…

This full-color publication uses a tabloid format to present highlights from the National Assessment of Educational Progress 2002 writing assessment. It describes assessment content; presents major findings as average scale scores and as percentages of students scoring at or above achievement levels for the nation, at grades 4, 8, and 12; shows…

This report presents the results of the 2002 assessment in writing from the National Assessment of Educational Progress for the nation and for the participating states and jurisdictions. Comparisons are made to performance in the national assessment of 1998 at grades 4, 8, and 12. Comparison data are given within and across participating states…

This report presents the results of the 1998 NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) writing assessment of fourth-, eighth-, and twelfth-grade students for the nation and for participating states or jurisdictions. It provides results for subgroups of students defined by various background and contextual characteristics. The Introduction…

Provides an organizational format for students to use when writing an ethnographic essay. Uses an organizing structure enabling students to produce professional written work in sociology. Outlines and identifies tasks to be accomplished in each section of a research report. (Author/NL)

Describes a year-long project created and undertaken by a group of 14 eighth-grade girls to conduct interdisciplinary research on teenage sexuality and pregnancy. The project involved reading and discussing fiction and nonfiction, conducting interviews with teenage mothers, writing and publishing a booklet, and mentoring a group of fifth- and…

Describes a project whereby preservice teachers and young adolescents collaborate to interview local citizens who experienced life during World War II. Details the project stages including learning through oral history, preparing, interviewing, writing, celebrating, and evaluating. Notes how the project increased student interest in history and…

Drawing from the personal experiences of faculty members from Thomas Nelson Community College (TNCC), this paper presented by three panel members explores methods of publishing student work, some of the problems and rewards inherent in doing so, and ways in which other composition instructors may provide a broader audience for the writings of…

This guide is intended to be a manual for directing students in the formal presentation of science-project research. Because the results of science research are expected to be presented in an understandable form that persuades the reader that the conclusions drawn from the experimentation are correct, it is important that students follow…

Prepared to provide direction, help develop instructional units, define skills and concept developments needed for new tasks, coordinate district language arts programs, and disseminate information to other professionals, this guide presents a kindergarten through grade 12 language arts curriculum. A foreword lists the guide's goals, and a…

A successful expository writing program (1) should develop basic writing ability and fluency, (2) should convey to students that they are informants in a communicative context that includes writers and readers, and (3) should foster student control of the writing process including thinking and organizational strategies (such as planning,…

A writing instructor at a California University, assigned to teach expository writing in a science course, restructured the course before the third paper assignment to allow students to write, to discover, and explore ideas about science, rather than simply to learn standards of rhetoric or scientific writing. This assignment required students to…

This manual was developed to help regional administrators and teacher educators conduct inservice training for local teachers who teach writing in preparation for the new General Educational Development (GED) test. The manual is organized in six sections. The first section explains the rationale for the GED writing sample and outlines what the…