Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons^™

Ideas Trait: The Foundations Of Writing [3rd Grade], Carolys Gordillo

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

Based on the 6+1 traits of Writing, the Idea Trait is the first element that students explore to brainstorm unique ideas to write about and improve details in writing. This 4 week unit focuses on ideas and content, the first trait which helps students develop their writing skills. Students will write a personal narrative about an ordinary activity that occurred during their summer vacation with a fun twist. The picture book Ted will be shared and will be discussed to get students thinking of how their ordinary activities during summer could become extraordinary if they had an imaginary friend. Over …

Making Writing Personal [6th Grade], Kathleen Fenske

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

In this unit, students will view nonfiction and fiction as a commentary on an author’s personal life and on society, particularly the life of a migrant worker. Students will also begin to view writing as a process and as a reflection of self. Students will begin the unit by delving into the following questions: How does literature reflect a culture or time period? What can we learn from the past? To what extent can fiction reveal truth? Should a story teach you something? Why write? Why share personal experiences in writing? What makes writing worth reading? Through these questions, students …

Writing Free Verse Poetry [3rd Grade], Annie Houston Winter

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

This 3 week unit is designed to help students discover that poetry is meaningful and relevant to their lives. This unit will focus on using good word choice to create powerful images in their writing. Students will also gain the understanding that poetry is meant to be read aloud as they prepare for a class performance. Students will discover that they are poets as they write in their poetry notebooks and prepare a piece of poetry for publication in a class anthology.

Y Cant They Rite?: Integrating Writing Assessment Across The Undergraduate Political Science Major, Shala Mills, Bryan Bennett

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

Historically, student assessment in the Political Science Department at Fort Hays State University was left to the individual faculty member to embed into his or her courses via exams and writing assignments. Our curriculum and learning objectives were based largely on faculty interest in particular courses and on broad perspectives of what substantive knowledge a political science major should demonstrate. Over the years, writing courses such as advanced research methods and upper division theory courses served as unofficial capstone experiences. As such, approaches and expectations varied depending upon who was delivering the course.

The Impact Of Teacher Self-Efficacy In Writing On Instruction And Evaluation Of Writing In A School District In Western North Carolina, Deanna Berrier

Education Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation was designed to examine the writing strategies and scoring practices of fourth-grade teachers on the North Carolina Fourth Grade Writing Assessment and local, county-wide writing assessments by collecting data from 13 elementary schools located in rural, western North Carolina.

Both qualitative and quantitative means of data collection were implemented. Inter-rater reliability was used to determine reliability of the fourth-grade teachers' scoring using the North Carolina Fourth Grade Writing Assessment Rubric. Qualitative data was collected through the use of two surveys administered to the fourth-grade teachers in the county. Interviews and a focus group were also used to determine …

Mystic Inspiration Of Effective Habits?, Dennis Mcdougall, Rhonda S. Black, Garnett J. Smith, James Skouge

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

Although numerous and diverse publications address professors’ writing and research productivity, exceedingly few empirical studies report findings for interventions designed and implemented to increase professors’ research productivity. This study used an innovative mixed methods design with a concurrent triangulation strategy and methods from two research traditions that investigators rarely integrate – quantitative single-case interventions and qualitative inquiry. Processes and findings from this study illustrate how researchers can combine these methods to illuminate the how and why of changes in performance in participant-interventionist studies. In this study, university professors used goal setting and behavioral self-management techniques to increase their daily research …

Bias And The Teachable Moment: Revisiting A Teacher Narrative, Darren Crovitz

Faculty Articles

Such responsibility may be vital for English teachers, especially, as we strive to establish communities of writers and spaces for critical thinking and conversation. When I sat down to write about this experience, I saw it as an opportunity to discuss a taboo situation and its positive aftermath, with the aim of demonstrating how it might be possible to use such events as points of departure in creating engaging writing assignments.

Great Gatsby [11th Grade], Kathleen Fenske

Understanding by Design: Complete Collection

This unit focuses on exploring The Great Gatsby and how the time period and culture in which the novel is written plays a vital part in the author s overall message in the novel. One of the key understandings to this unit is how good literature makes a statement on culture, but great literature is timeless and universal and provides a lens to view our own lives and society. Through an examination of the 1920s culture, the students will be able to understand Fitzgerald s message about the 1920s. They will further examine this through a group project where they …

Implementing Handheld Computers As Tools For First-Grade Writers, Wilma Kuhlman, Kathy Everts Danielson, Elizabeth J. Campbell, Neal Topp

Teacher Education Faculty Publications

All humans use objects in their environment as tools for actions. Some tools are more useful than others for certain people and populations. This paper describes how different first-graders used handheld computers as tools when writing. While all 17 children in the observed classroom were competent users of their handheld computers, their use of handhelds for pre-writing differed among the students. Some students’ thinking was clearly enhanced with the use of handhelds before writing. Other students showed writing competence without referring back to their pre-writing work on the handheld. No students were unable to operate their handhelds in the pre-writing …

How Does The Use Of Picture Books During Instruction Improve Student Word Choice In Writing?, Laurie Anne Mcadams

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of my research was to determine how the use of picture books during instruction would improve student word choice in writing. Donald Graves (2003), a renowned researcher in the teaching of writing, states, "All children need . . . to be surrounded with poetry, stories, information books, biography, science and history, imaginative and factual books." Graves' research presents successful classroom instruction when teachers incorporate literature as a fundamental part of their reading and writing instruction. Likewise, Susan Anderson McElveen and Connie Campbell Dierking (2000) conducted a study with their students using picture books as "precise examples" to teach …

Journaling In The Secondary Mathematics Classroom: An Introduction, Defense, And Resource, Emily K. Falgier

Honors Capstones

Capstone submitted as a graduation requirement for the BSU Honors Program.

Negotiating A Labyrinth: Uncovering Meaning Through Biography, Floretta Thornton-Reid

Perspectives In Learning

Biographical method is one of “several intellectual disciplines that make use of life writing” (Smith, 1994, p. 286). However, biographies are probably better described as an interdisciplinary methodology that incorporates several approaches to qualitative research including but not limited to life history, narrative analysis, case study, historical social science, grounded theory and ethnography (Marshall & Rossman, 1999; Riessman, 1993; Atkinson, 1998). In laymen’s terms, a biography can be understood as the written history of a person’s life. Thus the life history or narrative story of a person is a key biographical concept. Controversy has long surrounded life history. Runyan (1982a) …

Focus On Writing: Collaborative Action Research In The Classroom, Carol Marchel, Dianne Whitaker

Perspectives In Learning

In higher education, professors are expected to provide quality instruction, although rewards are often based on research activities. For those who value teaching for its own sake, it is difficult to balance the competing demands of life within academe with the demands of teaching. As teachers, we seek to understand student needs to improve our classroom practice. More importantly, we want to show students how to improve their own skills. This article describes how we combined both research and instruction to improve the quality of instruction while providing students with a way to improve their skills. We utilized this approach …

Correlates Among Teachers’ Anxieties, Demographics, And Telecomputing Activity, Judith B. Harris, Neal Grandgenett

Teacher Education Faculty Publications

Are educators' anxiety levels or demographics related to their voluntary use of networked resources? In this study, one year of logins and online time for 189 randomly selected educators with accounts on Tenet (Texas Education Network) were correlated with six interval-level subject attribute variables: (a) writing apprehension, (b) oral communication apprehension, (c) computer anxiety, (d) age, (e) teaching experience, and (f) telecomputing experience. The usage data were also correlated with three nominal-level subject attribute variables: (a) gender, (b) professional specialty, and (c) teaching level. Results indicated that writing apprehension was significantly and negatively correlated with network use, and that telecomputing …

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 Articles

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.

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 …

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.

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 …

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 …

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 …

The Impact Of Recent Research Trends On The Teaching Of Writing In The Middle Grades, Marilu D. Goolsby

Theses and Dissertations

This was a descriptive study which measured the attitudes and practices of teachers in the middle grades concerning the teaching of writing. Subjects were 42 teachers of writing in grades five through eight in four small rural school systems. The data gathering instrument was a questionnaire devised by the researcher which employed a Likert scale format. One open-ended item was included as well as several background questions. Results indicated that the majority of these teachers do not teach writing as a process with extensive editing and revising with the teacher participating in the process. Rather, the teaching of grammar and …

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 …

Writing Apprehension: Can An Individualized Approach Help?, Elizabeth B. Loftin

Theses and Dissertations

This study was a descriptive investigation of the effects of the Individualized Language Arts (ILA) program חס writing apprehension. Subjects were 152 eighth graders enrolled in a middle school. The subjects were from five language arts classes and were taught writing during the 1986-87 school year by the Individualized Language Art's (ILA) program. The data gathering instrument for this study was the Daly-Miller Test of Writing Apprehension (WAT), administered in August, 1986 as a pretest and again in the spring of 1987 as a posttest. Between the pre and posttests, students were instructed by the ILA, a method of teaching …

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.