Curriculum and Instruction Commons^™

Academic Literacy For Deaf Postsecondary Students Through Integrated Reading And Writing Instruction, Sue Livingston

Publications and Research

Based on theoretical findings from the literature on the integration of reading and writing pedagogies used with hearing postsecondary students to advance academic literacy, this article offers a model of instruction for achieving academic literacy in developmental and freshman composition courses composed of deaf students. Academic literacy is viewed as the product of acts of composing in reading and writing which best transpire through reciprocal rather than separate reading and writing activities. Pedagogical practices based on theoretical findings and teacher experience are presented as a model of instruction, exemplified as artifacts in online supplementary materials and juxtaposed with practices used …

Transfer And Transitions: Exploring First Year Writing At Holy Cross, Elizabeth Casavant

English Honors Theses

This study explores how first year students transition to college writing, especially in a pandemic with an online format, and how students use transfer, if at all. It focuses on the following research questions: How do students transition to college writing, college norms, and online classes in a pandemic, and how can Holy Cross first-year writing courses support students in this transition? The methods used to investigate these questions included the administration of two surveys sent to first-year students in a first-year writing course, as well as 10 interviews with students. After transcribing, collating, and coding the data, the following …

Writing For An Authentic Audience In The Middle Grades, Emily Huffman

Master of Education Program Theses

This action research study investigated the effects of writing for an authentic audience on the achievement and engagement of students in a school in Southern California. The participants were 79 8th graders, split into an experimental group of 40 that wrote a review with the opportunity to be published in The New York Times, and a control group of 39 students that wrote a review for the teacher to read and grade.

Teaching Writing, Dylan Stickler

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

This portfolio fulfills the requirements for my MA in English with a specialization in Teaching. It contains an analytical narrative, two teaching units, an academic proposal, as well as an analysis of technical writing instruction. Each project centers on improving the quality of writing instruction students receive.

The Impact Of Interactive Journaling On Seventh-Grade Students’ Writing Self-Efficacy, Writing Performance, And Attitudes Towards Writing, Nicholle Morgan Arman

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this action research study was to evaluate the impact of interactive journaling on the writing self-efficacy, writing performance, and attitudes towards writing of seventh-grade students. According to the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Writing Test, only one-fourth of 8th and 12th graders are proficient at writing. This means thousands of people are entering the job market with inadequate writing skills (U.S. Department of Education, 2014). Research suggests that if people feel more confident in their writing abilities, writing performance will improve. This study was guided by several research questions. First, the study aimed to reveal …

The Dimensions Of Teachers Who Write And The Essence Of A Writing Life, Shari L. Daniels, Pamela Beck

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

The purpose of this grounded theory case study was to explore the perceptions among ten K-12 teachers who teach writing and also write themselves. What are the key essentials for teachers to sustain a writing life? What habits of mind or attitudes are necessary for teachers to sustain a writing life? Interviews served as the primary data source along with writing artifacts from the participants’ own writing life. Findings indicate that teacher-writers committed to a writing life do so for the purpose of 1) discovering meaning, 2) connections to others 3) commitment to learning and 4) well-being, with an overall …

Dawn Of The Undead Classroom: Pop-Culture In The First-Year Composition Classroom, Sierra A. Ellison

English (MA) Theses

Supplemented by the findings of her IRB certified research project, Sierra A. Ellison delves into the positive effects pop culture and genre have on the first-year composition classroom, exploring how engaging students through a common discourse that is relatable and comfortable can aid in their writing and composition progression. She explains how teaching under a framework such as the undead and examining these types of thematic material can engage students in the material and give students the space to open up about key issues like race, sex, politics, morality, and consumerism that they might be reluctant to discuss otherwise.

I'M New Here, David Glickstein

Diverse Families Bookshelf Lesson Plans and Activities

No abstract provided.

Engaging Middle School Emergent Bilinguals In Language Awareness: A Practitioner Researcher Study, Carol Lickenbrock

Dissertations

This practitioner research study (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009) traced the journey toward critical literacy of a group of seven emergent bilinguals and me, their teacher, over the course of a four-month unit on argument as part of our English for Speakers of Other Languages 3 (ESOL3) class. Many of these students, like many emergent bilinguals in the United States, had been disempowered because they had not had access to the academic texts of school. As part of this research, students worked with tools of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) to analyze the interpersonal, ideational and textual metafunctions of argumentation in lessons …

Text-Influenced Expressions Of Understanding: Differences In Kindergartners’ Discourse And Written Retellings Of Traditional And Digital Texts During Buddy Reading, Julie Parrish

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Buddy reading a text is a collaborative act that typically generates discourse that provides researchers with a glimpse of the comprehending taking place. However, in recent years, the infusion of technology in classrooms has resulted in many traditional texts being replaced by digital versions. Thus, this qualitative case study examined the spoken and written discourse of 12 kindergartners (6 dyads) as they buddy read a traditional and digital text.

Drawing upon two distinct lenses—sociocultural and comprehension signifier—video recordings, transcriptions, and written retellings were analyzed. Specifically, process coding and in vivo coding were used to construct categories and uncover sociocultural patterns …

Bringing Out The Best Of Leaders, Teachers, And Students In The Midst Of Covid-19: Lessons Learned From Russell County, Alabama, Adam Kilcrease Phd

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 caused negative effects related to the economy, families, and the public education sector; however, one system in Russell County emerged from the pandemic with stories to share. The purpose of this article was to describe an effective School Closure Plan related to the COVID-19 pandemic in Russell County, Alabama. Guided by the system's superintendent, leaders, teachers, students, and guardians joined forces to navigate the unfamiliar roads of the health crisis while providing continued opportunities for students to learn in virtual and blended formats. With a focus on critical standards outlined by the Alabama State Department …

Keeping Things Going: Reflections On Teaching “Teaching Writing” Online, Emily S. Meixner

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

What does it mean to “keep things going online” in an undergraduate teacher education course on teaching writing? In this article, a teacher educator describes how, in consultation with her students, she adapted a secondary English methods course on teaching writing to teach it online. While highlighting and celebrating what worked, she also reflects on lessons learned and teaching questions that continue to persist.

An Exploratory Study Of The Effects Of A Technology-Based Graphic Organizer And 1:1 Chromebooks On The Persuasive Writing Of Third-Grade Students, Kathy L. Caldwell

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative action research was to determine the effectiveness of a technology-based graphic organizer on student achievement, engagement, and motivation in writing. The study explored the usefulness of incorporating a mindmapping program, using Chromebooks to assist students when brainstorming ideas for a persuasive essay. Further, this study examined third-grade English language arts students’ perceptions of the use of technology to write persuasive essays using a specific writing prompt.

The teacher-researcher collected and recorded data on eight third-grade students over seven days. To identify and validate the study’s findings, field notes, student interviews, student reflective digital journals, surveys, …

Going Digital With Peer Review: Using Action Research To Explore The Effect Of Digital Peer Review On Student Writing Composition And Student Attitude In A Rural Primary School, Kemberly Jean Owens

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this action research was to explore the use of peer review on student writing composition and student attitudes toward writing for third grade students at Little Rural Primary School. This study focused on two research questions. The first research question explored how and to what extent the use of digital peer review effects student writing composition. The second research question explored how and to what extent digital peer review effects student attitudes toward writing. The study took place in the third and fourth grade gifted and talented classroom at Little Rural Primary School in South Carolina and …

Rethinking Gaming & Representation Within Digital Pedagogy: An Instructor’S Guide, Anthony Wheeler

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This work fully analyzes the creation process and implementation of a deeply-structured social commentary in the form of a digital interactive-fiction, created in the open software known as Twine. My co-developer, Raven Gomez, and I created a game that explores the challenges of navigating spaces within higher education as someone who identifies as something considered to be “other” by the standards of the common Western curriculum. Once the infrastructure of the product itself is outlined, this work follows students in an English Composition I course throughout their experiences creating digital interactive-fiction games based on pivotal moments in their lives that …

Implementing Writers’ Workshop Into The Special Education Classroom, Taylor Denning

Masters of Education in Teaching and Learning

Writers’ Workshop has developed prominence as a method towards providing authentic writing experiences. The purpose of this study was to determine what happens to student perceptions and quantity of writing when Writers’ Workshop is implemented into a special education setting. This study took place in a self-contained special education classroom of third-, fourth-, and fifth-graders. Data was collected through focus group interviews with the teachers, focus groups with two students from every grade, perception surveys, and writing samples.

Surveys and focus group interviews were completed before and after the implementation. Writing samples were collected at the beginning, middle, and end …

Implementing Writing In Content Areas: Teachers’ Perceptions As Writing Instructors, Matthew Davis Shemwell

Theses and Dissertations

Teachers across content areas have a shared responsibility to incorporate writing instruction into the curriculum; however, analysis of needs assessment survey data collected during Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy grant application in 2014 revealed that the faculty of the participating high school did not embrace writing instruction responsibility. The purpose of the study was to investigate teachers’ perceptions, confidence, and use of writing instructional strategies throughout content areas at the conclusion of implementation of the five-year grant. The researcher conducted an explanatory sequential mixed methods design that utilized a survey, interviews, and lesson plan document analysis. The survey sample consisted of …

Reorienting Writing In The 21st-Century Classroom: A Mixed Methods Study Of High School Students' Experiences Using Digital Writing Tools To Support The Writing Process, Kay Sellers

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this action research study was to describe students’ experiences using digital writing tools to support the different stages of the writing process in Honors-level English classes at a large suburban public high school in the southeastern United States. Reports from the writing section of the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) reveal that writing scores for college-bound seniors declined by 15 points between 2005 and 2016. Even though students use social media tools for daily communication, some studies suggest students fail to make the connection between digital tools they use every day and the potential use of digital tools …

Impact Of I-Think Maps On The Flow Of Ideas And Writing Performance Of Year Five Pupils, S Thuraisingam T. Gewa

Student Works (2020-2029)

The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of i-think Maps on the flow of ideas and writing performance of Year Five pupils. The use of i-think Maps as a cognitive tool enables pupils to activate and illustrate their flow of ideas in the i-think Maps templates during the planning and editing stages of the recursive process of writing. A total of 28 pupils participated in this pre experimental: one group pretest post-test study where treatment lessons using four i-think Maps were carried out for 10 weeks. The qualitative aspect of this study focused on structured interviews, classroom …

Progressive Portfolios: A Yearlong Process Of Research, Reflection, And Revision, Dana Haring, Tom Kelner

The Montana English Journal

An English teacher and a Social Studies teacher collaborated to create a year long progressive process of research, writing, reflection and revision at the middle school level. After their own reflection and substantial planning, they implemented this plan at the beginning of a school year. In these joint, cumulative research projects, students were engaged in the acts of questioning history, practicing methodology, and developing essential literacy skills as required by the Common Core State Standards. Throughout the process, digital tools were employed for presentation, research, writing, reflection, revision, and portfolio management.

Culturally Familiar Texts To Improve Reading And Writing Outcomes For High School English Language Learners: An Explanatory Sequential Mixed Methods Study, Taryn Courtney Robertson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research suggests that culturally relevant pedagogical strategies are essential for improving culturally and linguistically diverse student achievement. However, there is little research about which specific strategies provide the largest impacts. And there is even less research on which strategies help LatinX English Language Learners achieve academic success in the areas of reading and writing. The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of utilizing culturally familiar text, as compared to culturally unfamiliar text, on reading comprehension and summary writing outcomes for secondary LatinX ELL students. This study sought to determine if there were statistically significant differences in reading …

Perceptions Of English Teachers About Professional Development For Evidence-Based Writing Practices, Julie Nicole Bollich

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Writing teachers in a southern school district have not consistently implemented evidence-based practices (EBPs) in writing instruction as indicated by students not meeting proficiency levels on state and campus writing assessments. Despite professional development (PD) provided to writing teachers, writing assessment scores remained lower than state level scores between 2012 and 2019 at the target campus. Teachers’ perceptions of their competence related to the implementation of writing strategies in the classroom, their perceptions of how district and campus PD supported their skill development, and their efficacy in designing and implementing lesson plans focused on teaching writing strategies were explored in …

Teaching Writing: Effective Approaches For The Middle Years, Janet Hunter

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Book review

Effects Of A Writing Instructional Package For Students With Moderate Intellectual Disability., Beth Newberry Gurney

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The development of writing skills is one of the most complex competencies that students are expected to master (Saddler, 2013). Limited research has been conducted on the acquisition of writing skills for students with moderate and severe intellectual disability. Even fewer studies have examined the acquisition of sentence construction skills. The current study examines the effects of a writing instructional package using peer tutoring, response prompting, and sentence frames to teach students with moderate intellectual disability to construct sentences related to adapted grade-level social studies content. Four seventh grade students without disabilities were trained to implement the writing instructional package …

The Intersection Of Influential Reading With Writing In Multimodal Contexts, Grace Rusk Kerr

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Numerous studies have touted the importance of teacher self-efficacy on the motivation and achievement of their students (Ashton & Webb, 1986; Bandura, 1994 & 2002; Mojavezi & Tamiz, 2012). When teachers have high levels of self-efficacy (the level at which teachers believe they can affect student outcomes), their students achieve at higher levels and develop increased levels of motivation. By extension, we posit that if teachers have increased self-efficacy regarding their own writing abilities, it will translate into increased motivation and achievement levels for their students in the area of writing. The purpose of this three-article dissertation is to support …

Entering A Community Of Writers: The Writing Center, Doctoral Students, And Going Public With Scholarly Writing, Sara Winstead Fry, Melissa Keith, Jennifer Gardner, Amanda Bremner Gilbert, Amanda Carmona, Sabrina Schroeder, Audrey Kleinsasser

The Qualitative Report

In addition to taking advanced courses, graduate students navigate a potentially challenging transition of learning to write for publication. We, the authors, explored solutions to this transition with a study designed to explore the research questions: How does a systematic effort to help doctoral students enter a community of writers via writing center collaboration influence doctoral students’: (1) proficiency with academic writing, (2) writing apprehension, (3) self-efficacy as writers, and (4) comfort with “going public” with their writing? We used a collaborative, multi-layered self-study research approach because it allowed us to focus on critical examination of teaching practices that are …

The Teaching Of Writing: Methods, Resources, Plans, And Analysis, Katelyn Knochenmus

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

As a culminating project for an MA in English on the individualized track, this portfolio is woven together with the theme of composition instruction. Beginning with a wide scope, the first selection is a reflective overview of writing instruction methods. The second piece in the portfolio, an annotated bibliography, offers many resources for teachers and tutors to better reach reluctant writers in particular. A unit plan for creating dynamic sentence variety through the use of grammar as a tool is the third selection. Lastly, the portfolio concludes with a narrower analysis related to one particular aspect of teaching writing: the …

From Creative Writing To A Self’S Liberation: A Monologue Of A Struggling Writer, Ethan Trinh

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

The pressure of being alone in a new country and of surviving in a competitive academia has scared me to death. I cannot find any better way to heal me other than writing. Writing helps me make sense of the worlds and come closer to my true self. This piece is journeying from my own struggles of a Vietnamese, queer, immigrant teacher to accept who I am as a writer. In addition, writing this piece helps me get closer to decademizing academic writing in higher education.

New Approach To Chinese Writing: An Exploratory Study Of Writing Performance On Social Q&A Online Community, Lin Zhu

Chinese Language Teaching Methodology and Technology

Many studies have investigated how the online community has informed language acquisition and teaching. In the scholarship of Computer-Mediated Communication Theory (CMC), while most of the studies have emphasized second language English writing using the CMC framework, evidence is shown to support CMC in foreign language instruction. However, there is a lack of research on how feedback from native speakers of Chinese influences Chinese learners’ writing in a web environment. In response to the research gap, drawing on sociocultural and CMC, the current exploratory study probes the nature of feedback on Zhihu, the largest Chinese social question-and-answer website, and how …

Faculty Writing: A Year-Long Approach To Producing Publishable Manuscripts, Jennifer Wilson, Ms, Els, Pamela Walter, Mfa, Julie Phillips, Phd

Thomas Jefferson University Faculty Days

For faculty, the ability to write about their research and publish their findings can advance their academic career while contributing information to their field. Yet faculty often lack confidence in their ability to write for publication and struggle to find time to write.

An interdisciplinary faculty group asked us for help prioritizing their writing and meeting their publishing goals, and in response we developed a yearlong month by- month program of achievable small tasks to guide the manuscript writing process and make publishing less overwhelming.