Educational Methods Commons^™

Writing Focused Professional Development For Content-Area Teachers: The Effects Of Writing Instruction On Content-Area Student Achievement, Amanda Edwards Whatley

Education Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this study was to analyze the impact of writing on the content areas when coupled with ongoing professional development and support for content-area teachers. Research shows that writing is an essential skill for success in and beyond the school setting. Research further indicates that writing plays an important role in student learning through its development of cognitive processes; however, in general, writing as a mode of learning is not a focus of either pre or in-service teacher training. As such, writing beyond note-taking and fill-in-the-blank activities is not necessarily a strategy utilized in content-area teacher classrooms. This …

The Art Museum: A Site For Developing Second Language And Academic Discourse Processes, Rosalind Horowitz, Kristy Masten

Journal of Pedagogy, Pluralism, and Practice

This chapter presents the art museum as a socio-cultural learning site, where emergent bilingual students engage in multiple modes of expression to expand oral, written, and visual literacies for academic purposes An historical view of the art museum as an educational space is considered with past limitations and new directions. Theoretical considerations contributing to new conceptualizations of the museum as a contextual- space for development of academic discourses provide a backdrop for new museum approaches. After describing the situated perspective of the authors who work with students at a Hispanic Serving Institution, we offer three approaches for incorporating the museum …

Reimagining The Stacks: Classroom Technology And Library Collaboration For Writing In The Disciplines, Jossalyn Larson, Daniel C. Reardon

Journal of Student Success in Writing (Archived)

This article details the process by which one university redesigned a first year writing course to better promote discipline-specific and best-practice research techniques. The program offers experiential learning activities through scholarly collaboration, using library staff as mentors, producing an open-access peer-reviewed student journal, and emphasizing face-to-face interaction of peer research communities. It has the potential to establish for students in high school, community colleges and universities that research writing is fundamentally about joining and contributing to a conversation.

Dwelling In The Ruins: Recovering Student Use Of Metaphor In The Posthistorical University, Daniel P. Richards

English Faculty Publications

This article argues that the field of Rhetoric and Composition has long harnessed the active potential of metaphor to change its own practices but has considerably overlooked student use of metaphor--a particularly urgent oversight given the metaphorical battleground that constitutes the discourse of contemporary higher education. Using this exigency, the article 1) explains how a more thorough reading of Lakoff and Johnson's popular work on metaphor theory can re-energize Rhetoric and Composition to be more inclusive of student experiences in classroom coverage of metaphor and 2) offers imaginative but concrete pedagogical approaches and activities aimed at facilitating student learning of …

Rhetoric As Inquiry: Personal Writing And Academic Success In The English Classroom, Erica E. Rogers

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Holistic and critical pedagogy, an approach to learning and teaching, integrates the everyday realities students live, with the systemic and institutional objectives of education itself. Working with theories from composition, rhetoric, feminist studies, and cognitive psychology from a teacher-researcher perspective, this dissertation explores and theorizes holistic, critical pedagogy within the composition classroom while outlining the use of personal writing as a means to develop critical consciousness. Student study participants kept “Inquiry Notebooks,” semester-long personal writing projects that served as receptacles for practical and theoretical engagement with a variety of texts and ideas, then interviewed after the course to discuss their …

Feedback In Online Writing Forums: Effects On Adolescent Writers, Heather J. S. Birch

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

Adolescents are writing online. A cursory look at the web reveals that teenagers are well-represented; in blog posts, social media updates, profile pages, comments on YouTube videos, responses to news articles, and websites about their interests, teenagers are writing (Williams 2009). In the current research study, the specific kind of adolescent writing under consideration is writing posted in a social media context designed specifically for writers. This case study focuses on six young writers who are active members of an online writing community, and who post their writing in order to receive feedback. Descriptive data collected through interviews, as well …

Fives: An Integrated Strategy For Comprehension And Vocabulary Learning, Mary Shea, Nancy Roberts

Journal of Inquiry and Action in Education

This article describes a strategy that emphasizes the integration of all language and literacy skills for learning across content areas as well as the importance CCSS place on learners’ ability to ask questions about information, phenomena, or ideas encountered (Ciardiello, 2012/2013). FIVES is a strategy that meaningfully integrates research-based methodologies associated with reading, writing, speaking, listening, viewing, and visually representing for differentiated disciplinary literacy instruction related to authentic texts and issues. The strategy described can be universally applied across disciplines to develop high levels of competence with literacy processes and content.

Thiscollegestory.Com: How Interactive Writing Media Influenced The Way First-Year Students Made Sense Of Their College Transition, Philip Kreniske

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Drawing on insights from Bakhtin (1986) that demonstrated the significance of writing as an interaction, and building on recent developments in narrative analysis that offer insights into narrator’s sense making processes (Daiute, 2014; Lucic, 2013); this research explores how freshmen in an educational opportunity program used interactive writing media to make sense of their transition to college. The exploration involved three main questions and each question concerns students’ development over time:

• First, did college students’ writing in two different media (blogs and word-processed text) differ and did these differences change over time?
• Second, how did the narrators and audience interact …

Team Work Boosts Student Learning And Professional Community, Thomas M. Van Soelen

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

A team of kindergarten teachers in rural Georgia dig deeply into student work and standards to build a common understanding of writing expectations.

When Meaningful Writing Reflects Vincentian Values, Michele Eodice, Anne Ellen Geller, Neal Lerner

Journal of Vincentian Social Action

In The Meaningful Writing Project – our study of over 700 seniors at three universities – students describe how education values are embodied in writing projects in and out of school. In brief, our results show that students find meaning when they are invited to tap into the power of personal connection, see what they are writing as applicable and relevant to the real world, imagine their future selves, immerse themselves in what they are thinking and writing about, and experience research for learning. In many cases, the experiences students reported are aligned with Vincentian values for higher education, namely …

Yorba Times: Special Edition On Safety, Noah Asher Golden, Facundo Acevedo, Jesse Alonzo, Henessy Arana, Leslie Arriaga, Michelle Brait, Amy Chau, Ashley Diaz, Jeremiah Dille, Sierra Durand, Beberly Espinoza, Elora Estes, Lesley Fernandez, Darshan Gamma, Cassandra Garcia, Karla Garcia, Yasmin Garcia, Neko Gianquinto, Gisselle Gonzalez, Jacob Gonzales, Sakina Jaffery, Adrianna Herrera, Allie Hoch, Victoria Hulett, Anthony Jaimes, Leilani Lagunes, Sandra Loredo, Kate Markey, Joshua Marmolejo, Faith Martin, Melissa Medina, Layla Melendez, Dylan Moses, Michaela Moses, Brooklynn Payne, Michelle Perez, Brianna Quirarte, Ieleen Ramirez, Edwin Reyes, Jehu Sandoval, Jaqueline Ramirez, Jonathan Sanchez, Nathalie Sanchez, Christopher Santibanez, Kaylin Seeley, Genevieve Stothers, Miranda Valdez, Christopher Velasquez

Yorba-Chapman Writing Partnership Anthology of Journalistic Writing

During the Spring 2016 semester, Dr. Noah Asher Golden's Teaching of Writing K-12 students partnered with the Journalism class at Yorba Academy for the Arts. Through collaboration over a four-month period, Chapman's future teachers and Yorba's junior high journalists engaged a deep writing process to write a series of features, editorials, and news articles, all connected in some way to the overarching theme of safety. Thank you to Ms. Andrea Lopez, Ms. Tracy Knibb, and the Lloyd E. and Elisabeth H. Klein Family Foundation for supporting this project.

Integrating Teaching Literature And Writing, John J. Hobe

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

Brief Description: Come and learn how we can better understand each other through reading and writing about literature. Participants will see demonstrated and participate in integrated literature and writing lessons for all age students. They will receive references and lessons for integrating literature and writing lessons. Participants will discuss teaching literature and writing in schools.

Preservice Elementary Teachers' Self-Efficacy For Teaching Writing: A Phenomenological Study, Kallen Dace

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the self-efficacy of teaching writing for elementary preservice teachers at a small private university in southern Missouri. Preservice elementary teachers’ self-efficacy for teaching writing was defined as the level of confidence preservice teachers possess in their ability to effectively teach writing to elementary students. This study explored how the preservice teacher participants viewed their self-efficacy as writers and their experiences as writers in both kindergarten through twelfth grade education and higher education. Additionally, the study explored how the writing experiences of these preservice elementary teachers shaped how they might teach writing …

Pedagogy At Play: Gamification And Gameful Design In The 21st-Century Writing Classroom, Danielle Roney Roach

English Theses & Dissertations

The language used to discuss play in current academic spaces tends to center around formal games (and computer games in particular in the 21st century classroom). Scholarly conversations tend to distort the actual practices that occur in classrooms and subsequently limit the scope of any investigation of the pedagogical function and outcomes of those practices. This project explores the use of play and games in the classrooms of nine composition instructors. From these stories, this project begins to map out a taxonomy in order to begin building toward a pedagogy of play for 21st century writing classrooms. Using a multiperspectival …

Visualizing Abolition: Two Graphic Novels And A Critical Approach To Mass Incarceration For The Composition Classroom, Michael Sutcliffe

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

This article outlines two graphic novels and an accompanying activity designed to unpack complicated intersections between racism, poverty, and (d)evolving criminal-legal policy. Over 2 million adults are held in U.S. prison facilities, and several million more are under custodial supervision, and it has become clearly unsustainable. In the last decade, there has been a shift in media conversations about criminality, yet only a few suggest decreasing our reliance upon incarceration. In meaningfully different ways, the two novels trace the development of incarceration from its roots in slavery to its contemporary anti-democratic iteration and offer an underpublicized alternative.

Critical and community …

Towards A Constructivist Grammar Curriculum For The United States, Tyler Crafts Jennings

Graduate Student Independent Studies

The author argues that educators must forge an alternative method to teaching grammar: the explicit, constructivist teaching of grammar within the meaningful context of a writing curriculum.

The Writing Process: Using Peer Review To Develop Student Writing, Jennifer M. Selting Troester

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The following thesis will explore how peer review through an online writing exchange influences student writers during the writing process. I propose that when students participate in this online writing exchange to peer review, it will assure that they will have a better understanding of the writing process, and more confidence in analyzing their own writing and in themselves as writers. It also makes these students more conscientious of the writing they share with peers because they have a wider audience than just their teacher, and this motivates them to improve their writing. The last part of the document features …

Reading And Math Strategies For Struggling Students, Tonya Hiers, Arlene Berry, Kim Trepanier

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

This presentation will provide Common Core based strategies for teachers to use with students at risk of failure. Participants will engage in tasks that will allow them to experience Close reading, constructed response, and math problem solving. These cross curricular strategies will address literary, informational, and problem solving standards.

The Impact Of Formative Feedback On Student Motivation To Write In Eighth Grade English Courses, Dayna Nielsen

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This study examined the impact of feedback on student motivation to write in eighth grade English courses, specifically during a persuasive essay unit. A literature review was conducted to determine the characteristics of effective feedback and when it should be delivered to students. The findings from the literature review were used to develop the experimental context for the study to find out how feedback can impact motivation. A mixed-method approach was used to gather both quantitative and qualitative data through the use of a survey administered after varying types and levels of feedback were provided to participating students. The study …

Engaging Fyc Students With Quality Work Design, Candace Deal

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

Students learn at deeper levels when engaged with their work; however, engaging students in writing is one of the biggest challenges all composition teachers face. This qualitative study asked Kennesaw State University students to describe the work in English 1101 and English 1102 that they found meaningful and engaging. The data collected was then aligned with research about engaging students in grades K-12 based on the work of Phillip Schlechty. Results from this study reveal that many of the same engagement qualities identified by Schlechty have application in the FYC classroom for engaging students and improving learning.

Capitalizing On Social And Transactional Learning To Challenge First-Grade Readers, Amanda Meyer, Roland K. Schendel

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

A classroom teacher capitalizes on social learning and reader response theories to challenge her accelerated first-grade readers by implementing literature circles. The aim of this action research was to identify a clear view of how to use literature circles with first-graders and what might be accomplished. Three constructs emerged from the interviews and observations that support the potential for using literature circles with primary students including: engagement and independence, reading benefits, and writing improvement. With respect to social learning and reader response theories, literature circles were found to be possible, practical, and beneficial for supporting the literacy perceptions and practices …

Transitioning To Writing About Writing: A Consideration Of The Metawriting Teaching Approach At The University Of Arkansas, Katie Michelle Smith

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis uses case studies of six Teaching Assistants and Instructors to analyze the curricular and pedagogical shift from a writing-through-literature model to the Composition II course to a metawriting approach during the 2014 spring semester at the University of Arkansas. The administrative decision from the Program in Rhetoric and Composition to make this transition came in response to the 2007 article by Elizabeth Wardle and Douglas Downs in College Composition and Communication outlining a "Writing about Writing" approach to teaching composition.

Learning To Retell Stories Through Comparative Teaching: Writing And Drawing, Rachel L. Lindle

Theses and Dissertations--Art and Visual Studies

Students who are emergent readers and writers are often difficult to assess, as they are unable to communicate understanding in writing. From my observations, these students communicate ideas best through concrete forms of expression, rather than the abstract formation of letters and writing that is unfamiliar to them. Drawing provides an alternate form of expression from writing. Based on information found in literature review and personal experiences from working with students who are emergent readers and writers, pictures and drawings are a bridge to communicate ideas with these students. This form of expression and communication may be a useful assessment …

Writing Awareness, Gwen Gorzelsky

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

The author argues that, by practicing embodied, metaphoric ethnography, educators can revise their roles in classroom social systems and so pursue the goals of critical pedagogy.

Exploring The Amount And Type Of Writing Instruction During Language Arts Instruction In Kindergarten Classrooms., Cynthia Puranik, Stephanie Otiba, Jessica Sidler, Luana Greulich

Faculty Publications

The objective of this exploratory investigation was to examine the nature of writing instruction in kindergarten classrooms and to describe student writing outcomes at the end of the school year. Participants for this study included 21 teachers and 238 kindergarten children from nine schools. Classroom teachers were videotaped once each in the fall and winter during the 90 min instructional block for reading and language arts to examine time allocation and the types of writing instructional practices taking place in the kindergarten classrooms. Classroom observation of writing was divided into student-practice variables (activities in which students were observed practicing writing …

Language, Literacy, Attentional Behaviors, And Instructional Quality Predictors Of Written Composition For First Graders, Young-Suk Kim, Stephanie Otaiba, Jessica Sidler, Luana Greulich

Faculty Publications

We had two primary purposes in the present study: (1) to examine unique child-level predictors of written composition which included language skills, literacy skills (e.g., reading and spelling), and attentiveness and (2) to examine whether instructional quality (quality in responsiveness and individualization, and quality in spelling and writing instruction) is uniquely related to written composition for first-grade children (N = 527). Children's written composition was evaluated on substantive quality (ideas, organization, word choice, and sentence flow) and writing conventions (spelling, mechanics, and handwriting). Results revealed that for the substantive quality of writing, children's grammatical knowledge, reading comprehension, letter writing automaticity, …

Promoting The Case For Using A Research Journal To Document And Reflect On The Research Experience, David Lamb

Research outputs 2013

This paper draws upon a personal research journey and makes the case for recording this experience using a research journal. tol The context for this paper is based on a study of family life and leisure, which collected data using more traditional qualitative methods, namely focus groups and interviews with pre-birth and post birth couples and leisure managers in New Zealand. The research design for this study was based on phenomenology, where the experience of the subjects being studied was significant and involved developing an understanding of the lived experiences of pre-birth and post-birth couples, where the way they acted …

Professional Writing In The English Classroom: Let's Get Real: Using Usability To Connect Writers, Readers, And Texts, Jonathan Bush, Leah A. Zuidema

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

The article discusses the application of the concept of usability and user-centered design in the interaction between the writers and the readers in the English classroom. It is inferred that the interaction with readers is essential during the process of writing. The elements of effective lessons on usability and user-centered design are highlighted.

Grammar Workshop: Systematic Language Study In Reading And Writing Contexts, Leah A. Zuidema

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

Responding to claims that grammar instruction has become too limited, Zuidema describes field notebooks, mentor text, show-and-tell essays, and other strategies for engaging students in systematic language analysis.

Self-Made Writer: A Grounded Theory Investigation Of Writing Development Without Writing Instruction In A Charlotte Mason Home School, Jennifer C. Spencer

Education Dissertations and Projects

The aim of this study was to explore how one adult who learned at home under the holistic methods of Charlotte Mason developed as a writer when this model eschews direct instruction in composition. The participant in the study developed exemplary writing skills despite the fact that the teaching methods of the parent did not conform to state standards, nor even to techniques typically accepted as best practices by such organizations as the International Reading Association (IRA) and the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). As states across the nation are adopting and implementing the Common Core, …