Education Commons^™

The Effect Of Gender And Age On Ppst Performance In An Urban Teacher Education Program, Judith Harrington

Counseling Faculty Publications

This study examined PPST scores for 318 College of Education students in a midsized, midwestern, urban university. Factors of gender and age were used to compare performance on the three PPST subtests of Reading, Writing and Mathematics. Findings tended to support some gender-stereotypical beliefs with regard to math and verbal abilities. The study's findings did not support the often perceived belief that traditional students outperform nontraditional students. Inferences for urban colleges of Education are discussed.

Writing Across Institutional Boundaries: A K-12 And University Collaboration, Rebecca Randolph, Sarah Robbins, Anne Ruggles Gere

Faculty and Research Publications

A collaborative reading and writing project between eighth graders and college English education students is discussed. The students corresponded with one another, discussing shared readings.

Ranking, Evaluating, Liking: Sorting Out Three Forms Of Judgment., Peter Elbow

English Department Faculty Publication Series

Ranking: a one dimensional quantitative judgment--as with grading. A one dimensional quantitative score can never be an accurate reflection of the quality of a multidimensional product (like writing and many other human products).

Evaluation: a multidimensional judgment--using words or providing a multidimensional grid. Judging allows for more trustworthy assessment of writing and many other products.

Liking. This section explores the benefits that come when teachers actually learn to *like* student work--and indeed to like students--and how one can learn to like work even if one judges it to be not very good.

Taking Charge: Second Graders Negotiate Ownership Of Their Expressive Writing, Susan Douglas Fleming

Educational Studies Dissertations

This ethnographic study of a single, second grade, public school classroom explores students' ownership of their writing as they negotiate their dual roles of active writer and compliant student.

Writing process advocates such as Calkins (1987), Graves (1983), and Murray (1968, 1985) stress the need for student writers to assume ownership of their work by writing from personal experience and by making the decisions governing direction of the text. This involvement encourages awareness of self as learner and as person, and stimulates cognitive and identity development. Robert Brooke (1991), in a study of college students, points out that the power …

Ranking, Evaluating, Liking: Sorting Out Three Forms Of Judgment., Peter Elbow

Peter Elbow

Ranking: a one dimensional quantitative judgment--as with grading. A one dimensional quantitative score can never be an accurate reflection of the quality of a multidimensional product (like writing and many other human products).

Evaluation: a multidimensional judgment--using words or providing a multidimensional grid. Judging allows for more trustworthy assessment of writing and many other products.

Liking. This section explores the benefits that come when teachers actually learn to *like* student work--and indeed to like students--and how one can learn to like work even if one judges it to be not very good.

Reinventing The University: Finding The Place For Basic Writers, Jane E. Hindman

Publications and Research

A poststructuralist critique of basic writing placement and pedagogy, this paper argues that our notions of good writing (i.e., the criteria by which we as English professors and compositionists authorize and "place" students) come not from some general or transcendent standards, but rather from the practices by which we self-authorize within our own discourse community. Using Bartholomae and Petrosky's curriculum presented in Facts, Artifacts, Counterfacts as a point of departure, I propose a language-centered curriculum which uses discourse itself as the subject of the semester-Jong project wherein students eventually learn to critique our practices and create their own discourse communities. …

In The Classroom: The Winter Tradition Project (Feb. '91), Michael P. French, Kathy Everts Danielson

Teacher Education Faculty Publications

In an effort to involve all students and to educate them about the cultures of other countries, I developed a "winter tradition" project. The project required that students write brief descriptions of things their families do during the holidays or winter months. These were compiled into a class booklet. The winter tradition project proved to an excellent activity for middle school students because it allowed them to learn about each other while increasing their writing, computer, and interpersonal skills. I introduced this five-day project to five language arts classes of 20-25 students each.

Merging Instruction In Thinking And Writing, Victoria L. Morse

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

Two largely independent bodies of literature exist on both teaching to promote students' critical and creative thinking abilities and teaching to promote the shift between novice and more expert writing. The author looks closely at both bodies of literature and merges common principles to create an extended curriculum unit designed to teach simultaneously toward expert thinking and expert writing. The unit contains such diverse activities as: 1) an acrostic puzzle; 2) reading articles on themes related to Hamlet; 3) the use of dialectical notebooks; 3) an explicit investigation into the nature of problem solving; 4) using emphatic role-playing to bring …

Critical Thinking In Reading: A Whole Language Approach, Deborah Anne Adkins

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

The importance of good instruction in reading education has long been recognized. What constitutes good instruction and what materials should be used have been the focus of much debate, however, over the years. Two relatively new movements in education have recently added fuel to that debate, namely the movements in critical thinking and whole language. The fundamental purpose of the thinking skills movement is the development of higher level thinking in students. In the area of reading this means that students should be challenged by questions and problems in literature which cause them to go beyond a literal understanding. They …

In The Classroom: Reading And Writing In The Content Areas (Dec. '89), Michael P. French, Kathy Everts Danielson, Maureen Conn, Willa Gale, Charlene Lueck, Mona Manley

Teacher Education Faculty Publications

Students comprehend content material by reading, discussing, writing, questioning, investigating, exploring, and organizing. Reading and writing in the content areas relates prior knowledge, classroom interaction, cooperative learning, vocabulary instruction, and questioning techniques. Children practice research skills by organizing information in a meaningful and practical manner. This month's In the Classroom column presents ways in which teachers can enhance their students' comprehension of content area topics by involving them in various classroom activities. Additional resources for content area reading and writing activities follow :

Dupuis, M.M. (1983). Reading in the content areas: Research for teachers. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Graves, …

Teaching Critical And Creative Thinking Skills As Part Of The Technical Communications Curriculum, Anne Harrington

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

I incorporated critical thinking instruction in the writing curriculum by using three writing projects: journal writing, a policy paper on AIDS, and an assignment to evaluate grammar checkers. In their journal writing students both generated and evaluated ideas. In the AIDS project, they reinforced these convergent and divergent thinking skills within the context of a real-world issue. For the software project, students practiced thinking skills in an arena that was more technical and objective, but in which they were evaluating fundamental writing criteria. These diverse assignments, based on a philosophically compatible approach to the teaching of writing, helped students develop …

A Study Of The Effects Of Writing Instruction Versus Writing And Reading Instruction On 10th Grade English Students, Patricia E.G. Craig

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The effects of writing instruction as opposed to writing and reading instruction were studied on 10^th grade English students’ reading comprehension and writing. Two groups (classes) completed pretests and pre-sample writing. Then, both groups were given writing instruction while only one group was given related reading skills instruction. Finally, both groups completed posttests and post-sample writings.

An analysis of covariance of the pre-and posttest data was done. It revealed no significant difference between the two groups related to reading comprehension. However, a significant difference existed between the two groups related to language expression (editing skills or writing sub-skills). The …

Teaching Advanced Writing: The Critical Essay. A Community Language Learning Based Approach, Kathleen Patricia Graves

MA TESOL Collection

In this paper I will discuss how I applied my understanding of certain concepts of Community Language Learning to a writing class and specifically to the teaching of the critical essay. In Part One I will describe what we did in the class; in Part Two I will discuss the concepts of Community Language Learning that I was trying to apply in the class and how I was doing so; in the conclusion I will discuss how I see those concepts as being applicable to any class, regardless of the subject matter being taught.

English Language Program Proposal For The Instituto Mexicano De Commercio Exterior, Sharon L. Voss

MA TESOL Collection

No abstract provided.

Teaching Esl Through Creative Writing, Nancy Husari

MA TESOL Collection

No abstract provided.

A File Of Student-Invested Activities For The Foreign Language Classroom, Sue Rogers, Marion Macdonald

MA TESOL Collection

No abstract provided.

Pointing The Way, Jennifer Upton-Doty

MA TESOL Collection

"Pointing the Way" looks at reading and writing activities and how they are introduced and worked with in the initial lessons of a beginning English class, using Silent Way charts. The first sections deal with why it is important to work with reading and writing skills in the first stages of learning English as a foreign language. A section of lesson plans follows, demonstrating how the activities are integrated into the lessons. The Activity sections are last and include activities to use at the beginning level and after.

Using The Reading Lab For Foreign Students, Sheila Rich

MA TESOL Collection

No abstract provided.

The Teaching Of Poetry For Language Learning, Susan Jane O' Leary

MA TESOL Collection

No abstract provided.

Manuscript Writing Present Practices And Extension Trends Within Schools Of The State Of Washington, John W. Wingate Jr.

All Master's Theses

In assuming this study, the author purported to ascertain both the potential and the limitations of manuscript-style hand-writing. A more important goal was to probe the existing fallacies and beliefs that surround one of the most controversial areas in the field of language arts, manuscript-style handwriting. The most important goal was to diagnose the usage and extension trends of manuscript writing within the elementary schools of the state of Washington.