NCTE Council Chronicle & Writing Resources

The September issue of NCTE's Council Chronicle includes a number of resources that will be of interest to teachers of writing, including a new policy research brief: Writing Outside of School.

Training is key to schools' digital media use

eSchool News reports: panelists at a recent Capitol Hill briefing said teachers need adequate staff development to leverage digital media's potential for education. Among those testifying: the National Writing Project.

Literacy Accountability in a New Media Age

A middle school teacher's commentary in the current issue of Education Week urges his fellow educators (and test producers) to consider the kinds of texts young people attend to today. "Reading video, images and other multimodal texts," he says, "demands just as much critical thinking and analysis as a challenging excerpt from Moby Dick."

Cursive may be a fading skill, but so what?

Text messaging, e-mail, and word processing have replaced handwriting outside the classroom, said Cheryl Jeffers, a professor at Marshall University's College of Education and Human Services, and she worries they'll replace it entirely before long. Read the rest of this Associated Press news story and consider posting a response.

Report: Reading and writing skills must be a priority

The findings of a five-year study of U.S. student literacy in fourth through 12th grades has education leaders calling for an overhaul of reading and writing instruction. Among the recommendations in the report, from the Carnegie Corp. of New York's Council on Advancing Adolescent Literacy, is teaching literacy across all subject areas, using data to inform teachers' professional development on literacy and reorganizing schools, if necessary, to focus on literacy. More details from Education Week.

Clive Thompson On The New Literacy

Are students writing more today than ever? Is Web 2.0 the reason? With student fascination and attraction to Facebook (et al), what is the future of writing? Read more at Wired's blog.

Can MySpace Make Better Writers?

The former director of the National Writing Project says yes: Richard Sterling, quoted in this Miami Herald newspaper story, believes that blogs, MySpace, Facebook, email, IM and texting all have potential for improving a student's ability to write.

Take part in NCTE's National Day on Writing (October 19, 2009)

To draw attention to the remarkable variety of writing we engage in and help make writers from all walks of life aware of their craft, NCTE has established October 20, 2009 as the National Day f Writing. To celebrate, NCTE invites diverse participants to submit a piece of writing to the National Gallery of Writing.

Report: Writing exercises built confidence, improved grades

Some seventh graders who were struggling in class did significantly better after performing a series of brief confidence-building writing exercises, and the improvements continued through eighth grade, according to researchers. Read more here.