Curriculum and Instruction Commons^™

Impact Of Ai-Assistance In Writing On Independent Writing Self-Efficacy, Kelsey Barendregt

Master of Education Program Theses

Students and educators alike are impacted by the release of ChatGPT, particularly in the humanities fields. This study aims to explore the impact human-centred AI use during the writing process has on student self-efficacy for independent writing, focusing on writing aesthetic texts while receiving writing support from ChatGPT. Writing programs should help students develop writing skills and self-efficacy, enabling them to complete writing tasks independently rather than becoming dependent on AI tools. Self-efficacy was explored through four categories: overall self-efficacy, ideation, conventions, and self-regulation. Results indicate that AI tools have a neutral effect on students’ overall self-efficacy for independent writing, …

Bridging Libraries And Classrooms: Co-Teaching For Student Success, Joy Urbina, Isabel Baca

Librarian Conference Presentations

An instructional librarian and writing professor describe their collaborative approach to co-teaching. Learn how integrating information literacy with writing instruction strengthens students' critical thinking and research skills and discover practical strategies from this successful cross-disciplinary partnership.

At A Loss For Words: A Writer’S Search For Meaning In An Artificial World, Heather J. Leslie Phd

Learning Design Center: Staff Scholarship

A writer's reflection on using AI

An Analysis Of The Impact Of Cognitive Writing Strategies On High School Writing Scores In A Suburban Tennessee District, Bethany A. Wilson

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) writing assessment revealed that only 27% of eighth and 12^th graders are proficient in writing. The federal No Child Left Behind and Every Student Succeeds Acts have put pressure on schools to demonstrate proficiency on reading and math tests, leaving minimal time for instruction in other subjects, including writing. In addition to the pressure of standardized testing, teachers also find themselves underprepared to teach writing and overwhelmed by the demands of large teaching loads. While researchers have reported benefits associated with cognitive writing strategies since the 1960s, instructional demands have prevented …

Meaningful Work: A Phenomenological Study Of Embedded Writing Peer Mentors, Susan S. Detwiler

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

This phenomenological case study examines the experiences of writing peer mentors who are embedded in a first-year inquiry-based writing seminar. It aims to understand how peer mentors who are engaged in the complex practice of supporting first-year writers in a writing classroom make sense of themselves and writing. At a large R-1 diverse university, I interviewed 6 writing peer mentors 3 times over 1 calendar year. I traced their development from mentees, (first-year writing students), through their three semesters of peer mentoring. They also shared written reflections from their training praxis course (a course for peer mentors focusing on their …

Advancing Students Writing Skills And Self-Efficacy Through The Thinksrsd Writing Strategy, Amy Mullins, Carole Mckinley

Ohio Journal of Teacher Education

How best to teach students to write has been debated in education circles for many years. Though writing instruction has been debated, it is often missing or limited in most elementary classrooms. This qualitative study examines the effects of the thinkSRSD writing program in a third-grade classroom. More specifically the researchers investigated the following question: Does the thinkSRSD writing instruction strategy increase student’s writing skill? The researchers conducted this study for 10 weeks and collected data in three forms pre and post interviews, observations and documents. The results of the study indicate that the thinkSRSD strategy for teaching writing had …

The Effect Of Explicit Writing Instruction Using The Toseec Model On Students’ Writing Ability And Content Knowledge Comprehension In A Middle School Social Studies Classroom, Casey Bogues, Jeremy R. Mills

Ohio Journal of Teacher Education

This qualitative case study explored the impact of explicit writing instruction on sixth-grade students’ writing performance in a social studies classroom. Using a single-paragraph outline strategy adapted from the ToSEEC model, one class received structured instruction while a comparison group followed standard practice. Data from interviews, observations, and student work showed that explicit instruction significantly improved paragraph structure, particularly in conclusions. The control group’s writing declined or stagnated. Although content knowledge gains were inconclusive, findings support integrating writing instruction across disciplines to enhance literacy skills. Future research should address content alignment and broader implementation contexts.

Letting Students Amaze Us: Teaching For Success In A 4th Grade Classroom, William D. Smyth

Virginia English Journal

A look back at a year in a 4th grade classroom with highly motivated students that came about when a former student, now 48 years old, returned home to visit his 4th grade teacher. According to this student, this was the seminal year that launched his engineering career that he now enjoys in Portland, Oregon. And, speaking for others, this was the turning point in his classmates' educational journeys too.

From Chatbots To Thought Bots: Teaching And Learning In The Age Of Ai, Stephen J. Mcconnell

Proceedings of the New York State Communication Association

Dr. Stephen McConnell’s keynote address took place on Friday, October 18, 2025, at the 82^nd Annual NYSCA Conference. In this personal but scholarly discussion, Dr. McConnell explores how various AI technologies do more than “assist” us – they also socialize us. He describes and explains several case studies that were part of his course at New York University entitled “Communications and AI,” and provides us with ten principles for teachers and students to become active participants with the tools of AI.

Dr. McConnell is a media scholar whose research focuses on the intersection of AI, digital communication platforms and …

Reflection And Reimagination As Resistance: Towards Humanizing Critical Writing Pedagogy, Grace Y. Kang, Sonia M. Kline

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

Given the pressures, demands, and standardization teachers face in our sociopolitically charged times, teachers need opportunities to reflect and reimagine their instruction. Drawing on critical and related scholarship, we conceptualize critical humanizing writing pedagogy. We share our instructional moves as teacher educators for enacting humanizing writing pedagogy in a graduate course and supporting teachers to enact humanizing writing pedagogy in their K-12 classrooms. Specifically, we show how a graduate student and practicing teacher found ways to shift toward critical orientations as she navigated her school’s curriculum and state standards. We argue that sociocultural and critical lenses provide powerful tools for …

The Digital Forum: A Pedagogical Approach To Teaching College English Composition, Thomas Edward Plichta

Theses and Dissertations

This action research study focused on the identification of ways to improve the curriculum of freshman Writing Intensive Seminars using an innovative multimodal pedagogical methodology, the Digital Forum, in addition to formal papers and in-class writing. The research examined a Writing Intensive Seminar with approximately 20 students; There were two Research Questions for the present study. RQ1: How does the incorporation of the Digital Forum as a pedagogical approach in college freshman writing classes influence students' levels of behavioral, cognitive, and emotional engagement? RQ2: How does the incorporation of Digital Forums in freshman English Composition courses affect the quality of …

Elementary Writing Intervention Implementation Status, Thomas John Petré Wills

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Despite decades of focus, U.S. students' writing abilities remain below grade-level expectations, highlighting persistent gaps in instructional support and systemic challenges within public education. Barriers include limited instructional time, inadequate teacher preparation in evidence-based writing practices, insufficient resources, and a lack of structured interventions for struggling writers (Applebee & Langer, 2011; National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2012). This study employed survey methodology to examine how teacher self-efficacy, classroom supports, and systems-level factors such as response to intervention (RTI) practices influence the implementation of evidence-based writing instruction in grades two through four. A national sample of elementary school teachers completed …

The Impact Of Graphic Organizers On Argumentative Writing For Ell Students, Ashley Van Beek

Master of Education Program Theses

This action research project explored the effect that graphic organizers had on argumentative essays written by English Language Learners (ELLs) in a secondary English class. The research participants were nine Junior and Senior ELLs with varying levels of English proficiency. Students wrote a pre-assessment argumentative essay without a graphic organizer, and then later wrote a summative argumentative essay with the help of a graphic organizer designed by the researcher. The researcher compared their pre-assessment scores to the summative assessment scores, which showed both a neutral and positive correlation between using a graphic organizer and improving in score. Findings of the …

It’S Not Like Riding A Bicycle: How A Steadfast And Committed Effort To Writing Can Contribute To The Development Of Student Writers, Meredith J. Whited

Honors Theses

This work investigates the effect of writing routines in public education. Propelled by the words and ideas of Penny Kittle, Cynthia Urbanski, Ralph Fletcher, and many more, a study was completed with high school aged students to find the correlation between writing routines and levels of writing apprehension. These students were given The Daly-Miller Test as a pretest via Google Forms at the start of the study. After responding to a series of five-minute writing prompts over the course of several days, students were given a post-test of the same survey to determine if changes in writing apprehension had occurred. …

Teacher Perceptions On The Influence Of Note-Taking In The Military-Connected Middle School Classroom, Lauren Mullen Evans

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand the influence of note-taking strategies on student writing for teachers in the military-connected middle school classroom. The guiding theories for this study were Lev Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of cognitive development and its influence on note-taking instruction and student writing in the military-connected middle school classroom. The central question for the study stated: What are teachers’ perceptions regarding the influence note-taking strategies have on writing in the military-connected middle school classroom? The participants were middle school teachers with at least three years of experience teaching in military-connected middle school classrooms. Participants had …

Engaging Students With Interdisciplinary Learning Community Project For Freshman Composition And Digital Media Students, Hsi-Ling Huang, Xin Xu

Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy

Studies have shown that Learning Communities have many benefits, including “[f]ostering workforce skills, encouraging problem-solving skills, and increasing retention and success” for both faculty and students (Dodge and Kendall, College Teaching, 2004). In this project, we created an interdisciplinary Learning Community Project that allowed a Freshman Composition (FC) course to pair with a Digital Media (DM) course (Sophomore students) for students to work on a mini magazine. Students in FC were writers whose tasks focusing on writing and researching, whereas students in DM were copy editors whose tasks focusing on graphic design and layout. The goal was for students …

Reclaiming And Celebrating Our Names: Storytelling-As-Connection Through An Elementary-Middle School Partnership, Christina M. Ponzio, Janine Kopera, Jennifer Krueger, Katharine Kwiatkowski, Heather Shiveley

Michigan Reading Journal

Affirming each student’s identity is fundamental to fostering the connection needed for our students to grow as a community of readers and writers across the year–and this begins when teachers learn their students’ names. This article highlights how students, teachers and literacy coaches through a partnership between an elementary school and middle school in southeast Michigan connected together through storytelling as an avenue to reclaim and celebrate their names. The second author shares her collaboration as the literacy coach with elementary teachers, which began with a read aloud of read Alma and How She Got Her Name (Martinez-Neal, 2018) and …

Mindfulness 101: Integrating Mindfulness Into The First-Year College Curriculum, Shelley Linso

Mindfulness Studies Theses

The college experience offers young people unique opportunities for personal growth and academic development. However, it is widely recognized that college and university students suffer from unprecedented rates of anxiety and depression. Mindfulness, often defined as paying attention on purpose, moment-to-moment, without judgment, has the potential to not only reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression but also to promote flourishing. By integrating mindfulness into the first-year college curriculum, educators facilitate students’ abilities to a) better understand their emotional responses so that they might navigate stress, relationships, and challenges with greater ease, b) better recognize their strengths and weaknesses, and make …

Authoring Culture: The Foundations Of Twenty-First Century Writing, The Authoring Culture Collective

Authoring Culture: Foundations of Twenty-First Century Writing

"Authoring Culture: Foundations of Twenty-First Century Writing is an open educational resource (OER) designed for use in college-level first-year writing courses, but is also useful in college courses that assign writing projects, and in a wide array of other writing situations outside of class.

Authoring Culture is distributed under a Creative Commons license, so it is freely available for you to use and you are free to modify it. Just make sure you provide attribution to the original project authors in accordance with the Creative Commons license. Our aim in releasing Authoring Culture as an OER is to make it …

Teaching Writing: Fostering Joy In Writing Through “Commentarying”, Ellin Kim

New Jersey English Journal

For over 15 years, the author taught at an after-school English Language Arts center. Initially emphasizing perfection, enthusiasm waned. A graduate course changed the author's views on writing, stressing personal reflections. Implementing this, students' perceptions shifted, using "commentarying" to foster understanding and engagement in discussions on topics such as racism.

Healing Through Expressive Writing, Jennifer Chauhan, Christine Demarsico

New Jersey English Journal

Expressive writing has the power to heal and transform education.

Pity The Poor Reader, Charles H. Haddad

School of Communication and Journalism Faculty Publications

I conceived my book “Pity the Poor Reader” as an un-textbook, an irreverent “Elements of style.” Like Elements, it’s designed to complement textbooks. Pity is concise, memorable and portable. Under 300 pages, Pity serves as an aspiring writer’s keepsake. Concision lies at the heart of Pity. The key concepts of writing well are distilled into irreverent, memorable lines and axioms. Many of them are organized as lists that are easily printed and taped to a wall or a computer. Indeed, in testing the book with my university students, I’ve found that many of them did print out its list of …

Pity The Poor Reader, Charles H. Haddad

School of Communication and Journalism Faculty Publications

I conceived my book “Pity the Poor Reader” as an un-textbook, an irreverent “Elements of style.” Like Elements, it’s designed to complement textbooks. Pity is concise, memorable and portable. Under 300 pages, Pity serves as an aspiring writer’s keepsake. Concision lies at the heart of Pity. The key concepts of writing well are distilled into irreverent, memorable lines and axioms. Many of them are organized as lists that are easily printed and taped to a wall or a computer. Indeed, in testing the book with my university students, I’ve found that many of them did print out its list of …

Enhancing Writing By Increasing Metacognitive Skills Through Socratic Seminars In A High Poverty Middle School Social Studies Classroom: An Intrinsic Case Study, Kirsten Hickingbottom

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this intrinsic case study was to better understand the role metacognitive skills play within classroom settings to increase students’ writing through Socratic Seminars. A predominant question guided this study: Can improving student metacognition through the repetitive use of questioning techniques in Socratic Seminars lead to improved writing skills? This question, along with four additional research questions guided the research. There is a need for more activities that promote metacognition due to its correlation with academic achievement, critical thinking skills, problem-solving abilities, and perceived self-efficacy (Keus, 2020). The significance of this study was to examine a method of …

It Takes A Community: One Nwp Site's Approach To Establishing And Sustaining A Writing Community, H. Michelle Kreamer

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

In this article, one National Writing Project (NWP) site director details the process for establishing and nurturing a writing community that extends beyond school walls. This article details various events that have helped the site to grow and sustain a local writing community and includes recommendations for adapting these ideas for a variety of contexts and audiences.

Why Researchers Need To Hear Practitioners’ Voices: A Call To Action, Donna Zerr, David Wolff, Carissa Gober

Open Educational Resources - Teaching and Learning

This article encourages educators to embrace their role as researchers and contribute to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. It highlights how everyday classroom experiences can lead to meaningful inquiry, and it urges practitioners to share their findings through self-study and scholarly writing. By making their work public, educators not only validate their experiences but also help expand collective knowledge and improve practice across the field. The article serves as both a guide and an inspirational call for educators to let their voices be heard.

Lessons From The Bluest Eye: The Discovery Of Self, Shanda D. Boone-Hurdle

Virginia English Journal

This article will explore the profound impact of reading, utilizing Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye as a catalyst for students to create real-life connections that resonate with their own experiences. The love of reading is a transformative force that not only enriches the intellectual landscape but also serves as a powerful tool for fostering empathy and understanding. This article will demonstrate how reading empowers students and helps them find solace and strength in the realization that their struggles, dreams, and aspirations are not isolated but are woven into the fabric of a broader narrative in which students can reflect …

Are State Comprehensive Institutions Prepared For Ai? Not Yet., Brent J. Goertzen

Teacher-Scholar: The Journal of the State Comprehensive University

The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has profound implications for higher education and teaching and learning. The present study, conducted at a state, comprehensive university (SCU) is the US Midwest, evaluated how effective faculty in a leadership focused program are at differentiating between human or AI-generated content. Participants reviewed 12 “student assignments” representing short answer essays, and completed the following tasks: 1) evaluated the assignment on three dimensions of the grading rubric; 2) assigned a percent grade; 3) indicated whether it was human or AI-generated; and 4) provided a rationale for their selection.

Evolving technologies like ChatGPT and other LLMS …

25. Using The Ai Explainpaper To Help Students Better Understand Journal Articles, Erin Jensen, Daniel Hutchinson

Teaching and Generative AI: Pedagogical Possibilities and Productive Tensions

We have students use the Al Explainpaper to be able to read and understand journal articles as this is a common assignment in many core classes. In our experiences, students often struggle to understand the content of journal articles and then struggle to use the journal article as a source in their writing. The Al Explainpaper provides an opportunity for students to use the bot to better understand the journal article and have an opportunity to ask the program additional questions about the article. We have found Explainpaper to provide help to students in being able to read and understand …

Evidence-Based Writing Pedagogy, Patrick Misner

Masters Projects

Standardized tests continue to consistently show students performing below grade level on writing tasks. This project explores the history of the issue as well as research behind evidenced based writing pedagogy shown to improve students' writing abilities. It focuses on three key strategies: integrating reading and writing instruction, providing effective feedback, and using a process writing framework. The culminating project incorporates these three techniques in a writing unit, which can be used with high school English students. Also provided are pre- and post-assessments with grading rubrics taken from previous National Assessment of Educational Progress tests that teachers can use to …