Resource Topics

Teaching Writing - Writing across the Curriculum

Additional Resources

Conversation Currents: Writing: A Mode of Thinking

Language Arts, July 2012
Jane Hansen, director of the Central Virginia Writing Project, and Danling Fu, a professor of literacy education at the University of Florida, discuss writing in today's language arts classrooms in the NCTE Language Arts podcast, "Conversation Currents." More ›

A WAC Teacher and Advocate: An Interview with Rita Malenczyk

The WAC Journal, July 2012
Carol Rutz
Carol Rutz interviews Rita Malenczyk, Director of the University Writing Program at Eastern Connecticut State University, about her experience as a writing program administrator (WPA), work on writing across the curriculum (WAC), and other memorable events in her career. More ›

The WAC Journal: Research and Ideas in Writing Across the Curriculum

July 2012
The WAC Journal continues the conversation on writing across the curriculum with their November 2011 issue and provides a collection of articles by educators exchanging practical ideas, pertinent theory, and their WAC experiences. More ›

Building Better Bridges: What Makes High School-College WAC Collaborations Work?

The WAC Journal, July 2012
Jacob Blumner, Pamela Childers
As high school teachers work with college professors to better prepare students for writing across the curriculum, ensuring the success of these unions becomes a key issue. Following a workshop examining past and present partnerships and studying responses from participants, Jacob Blumner and Pamela Childers report what makes successful collaborations and how they can be replicated. More ›

Genre Awareness, Academic Argument, and Transferability

The WAC Journal, July 2012
Irene L. Clark, Andrea Hernandez
Can first-year writing classes help students in other disciplines? Authors Irene L. Clark and Andrea Hernandez delve into this question by examining the results of a pilot study designed to help students acquire "genre awareness" and write effectively across different courses. More ›

Preparing Faculty, Professionalizing Fellows: Keys to Success with Undergraduate Writing Fellows in WAC

The WAC Journal, July 2012
Bradley Hughes, Emily Hall
As Undergraduate Writing Fellows and WAC Fellows programs increase in universities across America, Emily Hall and Bradley Hughes praise the many successful, mutually beneficial relationships that have formed between faculty and Fellows, while pointing out the challenges in maintaining constructive collaborations. More ›

The Intradisciplinary Influence of Composition and WAC, Part Two: 1986–2006

The WAC Journal, July 2012
Karla Lyles, Chris M. Anson
In the second part of their study of Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC), Chris M. Anson and Karla Lyles continue to track how the WAC movement developed and examine how writing was taught in a range of disciplines in the years 1986–2006. More ›

Using Grounded Theory in Writing Assessment

The WAC Journal, July 2012
Todd Migliaccio, Dan Melzer
The current format of writing assessment often leaves teachers and graders frustrated by its simplified and standardized nature. Authors Todd Migliaccio and Dan Melzer offer a possible solution through the grounded theory approach, a research methodology that emphasizes dialogue, context, and a relationship between analysis and theory building, and discuss how it can be used by instructors. More ›

What Difference Do Writing Fellows Programs Make?

The WAC Journal, July 2012
Dara Rossman Regaignon, Pamela Bromley
To examine the direct impact Writing Fellows programs have on students' writing, Dara Rossman Regaignon and Pamela Bromley launch a pilot program at Pomona College. Their report describes the methods they took in obtaining participants, the feedback and portfolio assessment given, and the results they found. More ›

Why I Write: Elizabeth Murchison Stresses the Importance of Writing for Scientists

November 2011
Elizabeth Murchison is a scientist who works on the genetics of cancer in Tasmanian devils. She stresses the importance of writing even for scientists in order to get research done and disseminate results to the scientific community. More ›

NWP and the Common Core Standards

October 2011
NWP is developing a variety of resources and online spaces to help educators provide the professional development necessary to implement the work of the Common Core State Standards Initiative. More ›

Why I Write: Catherine Mohr on Writing to Organize Thoughts

October 2011
Dr. Catherine Mohr, the director of Medical Research at Intuitive Surgical, is an expert in the field of robotic surgery, but writing is anything but robotic for her. She shares why she writes—to organize her thoughts and ideas, to understand, and to communicate. More ›

Why I Write: Dyan deNapoli Writes for the Penguins

October 2011
Dyan deNapoli, a penguin expert and author of the award-winning book, The Great Penguin Rescue, shares her reading and writing background and how she came to write about penguins. More ›

Why I Write: Ann Powers Reflects on Writing About Rock

October 2011
Ann Powers, a music critic who has written for The New York Times, National Public Radio, the LA Times, and the Village Voice, discusses the figures who have inspired her, how being female affected her perception of music, and how writing about music should be about trying to capture how it feels to listeners. More ›

Why I Write: Evan Grant's Words Seep into his Technology

October 2011
Evan Grant, a creative technologist, founder of seeper, and student of the sensory interactions between users and technology, describes the different ways he writes and the cathartic release he feels during the process. More ›

Why I Write: Susan Gerhard Finds Life in Cinema

October 2011
Susan Gerhard, a San Francisco-based writer and editor, became a film critic to explore the world of ideas that films present. The best movies are those that spark arguments at dinner parties, she says. More ›

Why I Write: Anthony Atala's Words Are as Powerful as Sci-fi Gizmos

October 2011
Regenerative medicine specialist Dr. Anthony Atala's state-of-the-art lab grows human organs—from muscles to blood vessels to bladders, and more. Although he's immersed in sci-fi gizmos in his work, he says writing "is the communication vehicle that moves science forward." More ›

Why I Write: Arvind Gupta Plays with the Words of Science

October 2011
Arvind Gupta, an Indian toy inventor and popularizer of science for kids, is known for turning trash into seriously entertaining, well-designed toys that kids can build themselves—while learning basic principles of science and design. He brings a similar spirit of exploratory playfulness to writing about science. More ›

Why I Write: Gary Giddins Riffs on Jazz

October 2011
Gary Giddins, long-time columnist for the Village Voice and unarguably the world's preeminent jazz critic, writes about jazz to let the world know about America's "fecund and flowing" musical tradition, which is sometimes treated as though it doesn't exist—or exists only for those "in the know." More ›

Why I Write: Freeman Dyson Puts Words to Mathematics

October 2011
When people hear the name Freeman Dyson, they tend to think of breakthroughs in quantum physics, but Dyson is a prolific writer as well. He's known for bringing conscience and compassion to his books, which interweave scientific explanation and humanism. More ›

Why I Write: Timothy Ferris on Writing to Learn

September 2011
Timothy Ferris, who has been called "the best science writer of his generation," discusses why he writes—and the importance of writing about science. More ›

Why I Write: Writing about Science—A Way to Pay Attention to Nature

September 2011
Anil Ananthaswamy
Anil Ananthaswamy, author of The Edge of Physics, says that writing is important in science to make jargon come alive with stories, to capture the precision and skepticism that's intrinsic to science, and to inform the world of the scientific truths that are so critical to our lives. More ›

Green(ing) English: Voices Howling in the Wilderness?

English Journal, August 2011
Heather E. Bruce
Heather Bruce, director of the Montana Writing Project, discusses how writing instruction should include "an embrace of environmental and human peace" to raise new questions about humanity's role as a citizen of the ecological community. More ›

Cultural Landscapes for Literacies Learning: An Innovative Art Museum and Teacher-Research Community Partnership

The Missouri Reader: Journal of the Missouri Reading Association, July 2011
Two educators and researchers, one from a university teacher education setting and the other from an art museum, create museum-school partnerships. Drawing on sociocultural and ethnographic approaches, they argue that a co-expertise approach is required if the two institutional settings are to learn from each other and transform what is possible for the professional learning of teachers and students. More ›

The Writing Assignment Framework and Overview

July 2011
Developing creative and rigorous writing assignments can be challenging. To support teachers in planning and reflecting on writing assignments in all content areas, a group of teacher-consultants and Writing Project site directors collaborated to create this new framework for writing assignments. More ›

Interactive Version of Water Wonders

June 2011
This interactive version of Water Wonders / Las Maravillas del Agua features two young scientists, Sydney and Symon Starr, a sister and brother team who explore their world by asking questions and conducting experiments with help from their family and teachers. More ›

Writing and the Brain: Neuroscience Shows the Pathways to Learning

May 2011
Judy Willis, a neurologist and teacher-consultant with the South Coast Writing Project, explains how the teaching of writing is important for learning based on neuroimaging and brain mapping. More ›

NWP Congressional Briefing: How Writing Supports STEM Education

April 2011
The National Writing Project joined a panel of literacy and science education experts on Capitol Hill to champion a new approach to STEM education that will make these critical disciplines more accessible to young people. More ›

Turning STEM into STREAM: Writing as an Essential Component of Science Education

March 2011
Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein
Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein, the authors of Sparks of Genius: The 13 Thinking Tools of the World's Most Creative People, make the point that writing is essential for teaching the entire range of disciplines and critical to the training of innovative and successful scientists. More ›

Music in Schools Celebration Is Also About Writing

February 2010
March is "Music in Our Schools Month," so the NWP is celebrating the intersection between music and writing by providing resources that link music, reading, and writing. More ›

“Third Space” Inquiry Group Examines Intersections of Multiple Literacies

September 2010
Kristin Schweitzer
A group of history and science teachers from Writing Project sites across the nation gathered—in person and online—to read about and reflect on content area literacy and delve into creative ways to support multiple literacies in content area classrooms. More ›

Content Area Literacy and Learning—Selected Sources for the 21st Century

June 2010
Judith Rodby
This bibliography contains resources about content area literacy that teacher leaders in the National Reading Initiative have found useful in their professional development and classroom work. More ›

An Annotated Bibliography for Elizabeth Birr Moje

May 2010
Judith Rodby
Elizabeth Birr Moje, self-described "friend of the National Writing Project," offers some of the most provocative viewpoints in content area literacy research today. This annotated bibliography can serve as a primer of some of her recent works. More ›

NWP Radio—What’s Next: Possibilities for Literacy and Content Area Learning

March 2010
Listen to a post-conference discussion with NWP leaders about the Writing Project's work with content-area teachers and disciplinary literacy. This program follows up NWP's "What's Next: Possibilities for Literacy and Content Area Learning conference" held in March 2010 in New Orleans. More ›

Disciplinary Literacy: Why It Matters and What We Should Do About It

March 2010
Watch the video of Elizabeth Birr Moje delivering the keynote speech on "disciplinary literacy" at the 2010 National Reading Initiative Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana. More ›

Iowa Teachers Focus on the 'How' of Teaching

February 2010
Art Peterson
Iowa Writing Project leader Barbara Turnwall has spent almost a decade—through her Pedagogy Project—helping faculty at Northwestern College explore and reflect on how their students learn rather than on their own performance in the classroom. More ›

Elizabeth Birr Moje on “Disciplinary Literacy” and Reading Across the Content Areas

January 2010
Art Peterson
Elizabeth Birr Moje makes the case for a disciplinary literacy that, rather than hewing to generic literacy “strategies,” focuses on the literacy skills required of practitioners in a content field. Moje will be the keynote speaker at the 2010 National Reading Initiative Conference. More ›

Book Review: Writing Without Boundaries: What's Possible When Students Combine Genres

December 2009
Rosalyn Finlayson
Rosalyn Finlayson, a teacher-consultant with the Northeastern Pennsylvania Writing Project, finds Writing Without Boundaries a well-ordered and expansive introduction to strategies that lead students toward multigenre writing. More ›

Student Press Initiative Motivates Young Authors

July 2009
Gavin Tachibana
Working to turn a broad range of students into published authors, the Student Press Initiative deepens the learning experience for thousands of young writers. More ›

Students Write Tabloid Tabulations in a Math Gossip Magazine

November 2008
Tom Murray, Joe Bellacero
Eighth grade math teacher Tom Murray and on-site teacher-consultant Joe Bellacero recount their innovative collaboration: they have Murray's students write gossip tabloid articles about math topics, which heightens the students' engagement, increases their understanding of math, and develops their writing skills. More ›

Book Review: Three Books Frame Content Area Literacy in Discussion of 21st Century Literacies

October 2008
Ken Martin
Three books on content area literacy instruction aim to help teachers think about the literacy demands of all content areas while framing their arguments in a larger discussion of 21^st century literacies. More ›

Redefining Content Area Literacy Teacher Education: Finding My Voice through Collaboration

Harvard Educational Review, September 2008
In this essay, Roni Jo Draper shares her journey as a content area literacy educator, her belief that content literacy should promote mastery of the intellectual discourse of the discipline, and her ideas about how to increase collaboration between literacy and content area specialists. More ›

Writing Very Useful Method for Learning Math, Other Subjects

El Paso Times, August 2008
Evangelina Rogers, a West Texas Writing Project teacher-consultant, says writing assignments such as journals, learning logs, and poetry in mathematics courses often ask students to apply currently studied concepts to concrete "real life" situations. More ›

Writing Can Make Learning Math Personal

El Paso Times, July 2008
Melinda Cofield, a math teacher and teacher-consultant with the West Texas Writing Project, contends that writing should be an integral part of teaching math. More ›

A Moment of Understanding: Getting on the Bus of Justice

April 2008
Jan M. Sabin
In this chapter from Writing Intention: Prompting Professional Learning through Student Work, Jan Sabin, who is with the Upper Peninsula Writing Project, demonstrates how she pushes her second graders to write about social justice issues by focusing on familiar things like the cafeteria, the playground, and their homes. More ›

Using Genre in the Social Studies Classroom

April 2008
Keri E. Scheidel
In this chapter from Writing Intention: Prompting Professional Learning through Student Work, Kari Scheidel, who is with the Lake Michigan Writing Project, discusses how she immerses her students in the study of American history by introducing them to writing in genres such as plays, news articles, and brochures. More ›

Statewide and District Professional Development in Standards: Addressing Teacher Equity

National Writing Project at Work, 2006
Richard Koch, Laura Roop, Gail Setter
Koch and Roop present a model of standards-based professional development drawing on their experience developing statewide standards in Michigan. Setter describes the implementation of the model in one school district. More ›

Book Review: I Am a Pencil: A Teacher, His Kids, and Their World of Stories

The Quarterly, 2005
Mike Rush
Rush reviews this text, which chronicles the author's transformative experience working for three years with a class of children in Queens through the Teachers & Writers Collaborative. More ›

Horn Island and Beyond: Mississippi Teachers Find Inspiration for a New Curriculum

The Voice, 2005
Mary Ann Smith
Mary Ann Smith recounts her visit, along with 15 others, to a remote, uninhabited island off of Mississippi—where artist Walter Anderson spent long periods painting and writing—for the purpose of contemplating harmonic learning. More ›

Writing to Learn for Preservice Teachers

The Quarterly, 2005
Samuel Totten
Why do few teachers incorporate writing-to-learn strategies into their classrooms? The answer, according to the author, is not very complicated: they have never been taught these strategies. More ›

Joined at the Hip: The Joys and Travails of Teaching "Linked" Courses

The Quarterly, 2004
Matthew Teorey
Teorey describes how the practice of linking English courses with social or hard science seminars can create cooperative learning communities, and shares how he learned to develop a robust, interactive environment that benefits both students and instructors. More ›

Book Review: A Field Guide to Using Visual Tools, by David Hyerle

The Quarterly, 2003
Julie McDonnell, Jane Zeni
Julie McDonnell and Jane Zeni review A Field Guide to Using Visual Tools by David Hyerle, which consists primarily of verbal snapshots showing schools and classrooms where visual tools have been used, illustrated with thinking maps, reviews of software, and visual representations of projects by students. More ›

Of Paint and Poetry: Strengthening Literacy Through Art

The Quarterly, 2003
Judith Jester
After freeing herself of a bias toward print-only learning in English class, Jester found that correlating skills between visual and language arts helped her students generate lively writing and discussion. More ›

Writing Across the Hidden Curriculum

The Quarterly, Winter 2003
William Strong
Strong's "hidden curriculum" is a collection of assumptions, such as "writing in school is something you do to get a grade." Writing-to-learn strategies can provide an antidote to the mind-numbing effects of this hidden curriculum. More ›

Sculpture Inspires Chicago-Area Students

The Voice, January-February 2002
Judith Ruhana
A Chicago-area middle-school teacher used a nearby sculpture park and a grant from the James Moffett Memorial Award to create a multidisciplinary project for student learning and high-level interpretation of art. More ›

An Art History Lesson at Sierra Vista

The Voice, March-April 2002
Rudy J. Miera
Miera describes a lunchtime conversation with a student about comparing a Rembrandt painting to a Seurat that becomes the kind of moment that makes teaching worthwhile. More ›

Making the Right Connections in High School: Developing Teaching Teams to Integrate the Curriculum

The Voice, March-April 2002
Carla Gubitz Jankowski
Integrating high school curriculum isn't easy, but Moffett award winner Gubitz Jankowski affirms it is worth the effort and produces powerful results for students and teachers. More ›

Multiple Texts: Multiple Opportunities for Teaching and Learning

Voices from the Middle, May 2002
Laura Robb
Robb stresses the use of multiple texts in exploring content areas so that students with varying reading skills have an opportunity for optimal learning, and all have a chance to consider a topic from multiple perspectives. More ›

Writing to Build Community in a Time of Stress

The Voice, September-October 2002
Sarah Robbins
Robbins describes the work of the program Keeping and Creating American Communities (KCAC), and the writing assignments that a group of middle and high school teachers developed after September 11. More ›

Book Review: Listening Up, by Rachel Martin

The Quarterly, Summer 2002
Shirley Brown
Shirley Brown, reviewing Listening Up: Reinventing Ourselves as Teachers and Students by Rachel Martin, finds that Martin writes simply and makes abstract theories such as poststructuralism and psychoanalysis accessible and applicable to the classroom. More ›

How to Build Better Engineers: A Practical Approach to the Mechanics of Text

The Quarterly, Fall 2001
Ron E. Smelser
In engineering, the transition from idea to product requires that the engineer produce clear proposals demonstrating the idea's practicality and economic feasibility. Smelser describes how writing is a key element in this process. More ›

Teaching Mining; Mining Teaching

The Quarterly, Fall 2001
Peggy Riley
When Riley comes into possession of a packet of poems written by her great-grandfather, she finds a way to explore them from both historical and literary perspectives that enhances her classroom work. More ›

Reflective Friday: Time Out to Think

The Quarterly, Fall 2000
Kim Douillard
Once a week, Douillard leads her students through a series of reflective strategies that involve brainstorming, reflective writing, sharing, imagining, dialogue journaling, and more. More ›

Joni Chancer Wins Fred Hechinger Award

The Voice, January-February 2000
Art Peterson
A profile of 1999 Hechinger Award Winner Joni Chancer. Chancer describes the influences that lead her to "inquiry learning," a method that starts with a "genuine question," that grows out of a student's need to know. Chancer is the author, with Gina Rester-Zodrow, of Moon Journals: Writing Art and Inquiry Through Focused Nature Study (Heinemann, 1997). More ›

Writing in the Museum: Myths, Images, and Language at the Palm Springs Desert Museum

The Voice, May-June 2000
Martha Plender
Plender recounts how the teachers at her site partnered with a local museum to use its rich resources to inspire student work and then feature that work in an exhibit. More ›

The Other Side of the Stone: Student Conversations with a Graveyard

The Quarterly, Summer 2000
Patrick C. Pritchard
Pritchard, a teacher at an alternative school for adolescent boys, uses a cemetery as source material for writing and learning. More ›

Note-Taking and Note-Making in Freshman Composition

The Quarterly, Winter 2000
Mark Farrington
Teaching writing in a college class linked to a psychology course, Farrington discovers that by requiring students to read the text before they attend the lecture he can convert them from "note-takers" to "note-makers." More ›

Taking Out the Furniture, or What's Obvious: Lessons from the Literature Institute for Teachers

The Quarterly, Winter 2000
Marjorie Roemer
More ›

Book Review: Engaging Ideas, by John C. Bean

The Quarterly, Spring 1999
Mary Beth Culp
Culp finds Bean's "aptly named" text will help instructors plan assignments that provoke exploratory writing and creativity as well as promote more successful academic writing. More ›

Book Review: Vision and Voice: Extending the Literacy Spectrum, by Linda Rief

The Quarterly, Spring 1999
Nancy Kersell
Kersell finds Rief's text "a useful guidebook for reawakening our imaginations to the power of artistic expression in all its forms and sharing this appreciation with our students." More ›

Where's the Beef? Mississippi's Tech-Prep Initiative in Action

The Quarterly, Summer 1999
John Dorroh
More ›

Writing Workshop and Real-World Learning: A Deweyian Perspective

The Quarterly, Summer 1999
Jo-Anne Kerr
In this case study, Kerr links the theory of John Dewey to the format of writing workshop. Students develop into proficient writers while also learning life skills useful in contributing to society. More ›

Let's Take Another Look at the Fish: The Writing Process as Discovery

The Quarterly, Fall 1998
Bob Tierney
Tierney describes some writing strategies that place concepts of a lesson in long-term memory by building connections to what students know and linking to their emotional concerns. More ›

Mississippi Teachers are Big on WONDER

The Voice, Fall 1998
Sherry Swain
Swain describes how the Mississippi Writing/Thinking Project has responded to teachers throughout the state who want to implement writing/thinking approaches in their science classrooms. More ›

WONDER of Learning Leads to WONDER of Science

The Voice, Fall 1998
John Dorroh
Science teacher Dorroh describes his experience learning and practicing interdisciplinary writing and teaching methods as a participant in Mississippi's WONDER project. More ›

Book Review: The Art of Workplace English: A Curriculum for All Students, by C. Boiarsky

The Quarterly, Summer 1998
Ann Dobie
Dobie finds this is a book "whose time has come" as she presents the author's argument for curricula that will prepare students for the world of the 21st century without sacrificing essential traditional learning. More ›

Myths, Images and Language: One Site's Effort to Inspire and Exhibit Student Work

The Voice, Fall 1997
Martha Plender
Plender describes how her writing project site organized a museum experience as an inspiration for student writing. More ›

"Write for Your Life" Promotes Teen Literacy, Well-Being

The Voice, Fall 1996
Ten NWP sites are involved with this program, which empowers children to create healthier futures for themselves by making their health the focus of their study. More ›

How Enzymes Act: Skit Writing in Science Class

The Quarterly, Fall 1996
John Dorroh
More ›

Muscle Car English

The Quarterly, Fall 1996
JoAnne Dowd
When Dowd allows two unsuccesful students to plan and implement a car show, she is pleased with the results, but left with doubts about the significance of what she and they have accomplished. More ›

Energy Conversion: The Evolution of Experimenters' Workshop

The Quarterly, Summer 1996
Alexa Stuart
Stuart applies the principles of writing workshop to science class. Just as student writers perform as "real" writers, students engage in the core activities of science: designing, testing, and writing about their own experiments. More ›

Writing History: Before and After Portfolios

The Quarterly, Winter 1996
Stan Pesick
Pesick demonstrates how the use of writing portfolios in his history class prodded students to engage in aspects of "historical thinking." More ›

Widening the Circle: Poetry, Math and Beginning Adult Students

The Quarterly, Fall 1995
Lynn McGee
As an instructor of adult literacy and basic math skills, McGee encourages an understanding of math concepts such as percentage, shapes, and depth by asking students to create poems on these topics. More ›

Historiography? What's That?

The Quarterly, Spring/Summer 1994
Alice Kawazoe, Sue Johnson, Miriam Laska, Kathy Lee, Renee Swayne
Kawazoe describes a workshop in which professional historians share their expertise with teachers, kindergarten to 12th grade. The other authors describe how they applied their learning from this workshop to the classroom. More ›

Reflections on Expressive Writing in the Science Class

The Quarterly, Summer 1993
John Dorroh
Dorroh shares how the expressive writing he has his students do in science class tells him much about what and how they are learning. The students are becoming "responsible, curious producers." More ›

Writing and Performing Across Cultures

The Quarterly, Summer 1993
Carol Collins, Barbara Everson
The two writers describe an activity in which they use improvisational drama as a tool for eliciting strong voice in their writing students. More ›

TR 59. Constructing a Research Paper: A Study of Students' Goals and Approaches

National Center for the Study of Writing and Literacy Technical Report, 1992
Jennie Nelson
This study of twenty-one college freshmen considers the processes involved in writing an academic research paper in order to determine whether "high-investment" reading and writing processes such as note-taking led to higher-quality papers. More ›

TR 61. The Development of Writing Abilities in a Foreign Language: Contributions Toward a General Theory

National Center for the Study of Writing and Literacy Technical Report, 1992
Maria Paz Echevarriarza, Paz Haro, Guadalupe Valdes
The authors test the assumptions propagated by the Foreign Language Proficiency Guidelines, analyzing writing produced by university students studying Spanish at three levels of proficiency. More ›

TR 55. Writing from Sources: Authority in Text and Task

National Center for the Study of Writing and Literacy Technical Report, 1991
Stuart Greene
Fifteen undergraduates were asked to write either a report or a problem-based essay, integrating prior knowledge with information from six textual sources. The groups differed significantly in their interpretation and performance of the two tasks. More ›

OP 16. Using Student Writing to Assess and Promote Understandings in Science

National Center for the Study of Writing and Literacy Occasional Paper, 1990
Paul Ammon, Mary Sue Ammon
This paper suggests that writing assignments can be a rich source of information for science teachers who wish to take their students' present understanding into account as they plan instruction. More ›

TR 40. Reading, Writing, and Knowing: The Role of Disciplinary Knowledge in Comprehension and Composing

National Center for the Study of Writing and Literacy Technical Report, March 1990
John Ackerman
To explore how experienced writers use both knowledge of a specific discipline and knowledge of general rhetorical skills, Ackerman analyses 40 synthesis essays written by graduate students in psychology and business. More ›

Silent Voices: How Language Minority Students Learn in the Content Areas

The Quarterly, Winter 1990
Beth Winningham
Through interviews with ELL students and their content–area teachers, Winningham is led to some concrete suggestions in math, science, and social studies. More ›

TR 31. Strategic Differences in Composing: Consequences for Learning Through Writing

National Center for the Study of Writing and Literacy Technical Report, May 1989
Ann M. Penrose
Penrose reports on a study of college freshman writers in which she identifies those features of the writing process that may influence learning. More ›

TR 08. Writing and Reading in the Classroom

National Center for the Study of Writing and Literacy Technical Report, August 1987
James Britton
Britton discusses strategies teachers have developed for encouraging children to learn to write-and-read—activities that together create a literacy learning environment. More ›