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Although this article discusses getting past writer's block for creative fiction writing, I still think that some of Smolens ideas are worth mentioning. His major focus is time. Smolen suggests that writers should give themselves a minimum amount of time to write in a session--just to get ideas flowing. In addition, he suggests that writers ask themselves questions about their environment. Where do they write and what makes their writing focused or distracted because of where they write? What sorts of noise occurs that promotes or reduces the flow of ideas when composing? After each timed writing session, Smolen states that writers to leave their paper and go walk around or visit a new environment for a minimum amount of time. This will help bring in new "fresh" ideas that may help the writing process during the next session. I think Smolen's suggestions of balancing your time between writing and taking constructive breaks can be useful for moving past writer's block, especially giving yourself timed writing sessions and breaks. this gives an external structure on how to compose that may be beneficial to those who feel that they should sit all day, staring at a blank computer screen, hoping to get past their writer's block if they sit there long enough.

This is a .pdf file of a sort of slide show on classroom environment. It looks pretty cheesy when you first open it, but I went all the way through and found some good points. A lot of the content would work best with younger grades, but I think that it is totally applicable to high school levels, too. It focuses on creating a warm, welcoming environment that students WANT to be in. They suggest making changes in decoration, layout, movement, temperature, etc.

This article discusses a study that was done to test the level of social adjustment of college freshmen and the relationship between their living environment and gender. Some of the students in the study were in first year experience resident halls and others were not. The study found that males overall had a more successful adjustment no matter what their living environment was and that all students, male and female, in the first year experience halls had successful transition. Also the students in the first year experience halls had an overall better social experience than those who were not in first year experience halls.

This article addressed the all to common problem of second language students being placed in mainstream English classes well before they have developed second language proficiency. These students are then expected to compete with their fellow peers who have developed proficiency since childhood. This article confronts the issues students face transitioning from ESL classroom environment to the mainstream environment. According Harklau the importance peer interaction and socialization should be used as tools to increase second language proficiency. Peer interaction and peer editing can help students develop a level of comfort and proficiency in their second language that is often missing in mainstream classrooms.

This article is specifically designated for instructing learners of secondary language acquisition. There are many helpful ideas, recommendations, phonetic charts, and pronunciation exercises. This article is also brief, concise, and coherent; and can be applied to secondary learning acquisitive environments. If the learner is experiencing difficulty in certain places of articulation such as: labial, labial dental, velar, glottal, palatal etc. there are a number of references at the bottom that can assist in strengthening the learners' place and manner of articulation (pronunciation). Since some foreigners have native tongues coming form polysynthetic, formative, and/or analytical languages, learning an agglutinative language (English) can be not difficult, but very different for them. Learning grammar if essential, but unified verbalization is just as crucial. This article is most certainly benefit anyone in the SLC or ESL workshop; and honestly will help the instructor with certain obstructive literary shortcomings and/or frustrations hat students may have. So check it out if you're in a secondary learning acquisition environment!

Yes, but it's not about writing--about pronunciation . . .

I really liked the points this teacher made - many of the characteristics I've seen practiced within my workshop. Dr. Davis then explains certain aspects of his/her classroom that have helped shape the environment in a very productive way that has proven helpful for students and him/her. Many of the characteristics provided are very basic; however, they are sometimes not put into practice in this way making it difficult for students to be interested and/or continually participating within the group. Steps I found quite interesting: Step #1 (Introducing Writing) Sometimes students have the tendency of assuming the assignments have no further impact on their lives. But of course, that is not the case - writing assignments help students synchronize their thoughts and ideas about certain topics as well as help them communicate them in clear, understandable ways. > I like the idea of professors introducing the assignment in a way that students can quickly relate to their daily lives that way they aren't as hesitant about beginning the assignment. Step #4 (Model Writing) This concept may help students who are more visual than audible learners. Students are able to visually interpret the steps and structure of a good paper and what the professors are looking for in the assignment. I really liked how the professor provided steps and goals he/she has enforced and continually changed based on students' perspectives in order to maintain a level situated learning environment.

This is an article by Frank Mcguire on (obviously) different strategies that are supposed to empower students and build confidence in their writing. The article starts out with the quote that we have all heard before, "It's so hard to put my thoughts on paper." The strategies listed include how to effectively implement a writing journal, the structure of assignments, discussions, positive feedback, peer tutoring, etc. The author goes through specific ways to make each of the strategies work, in order to create an effective and fun classroom environment.

This is a webpage from UCLA's Office of Instructional Development. It talks about the different things an instructor can do to encourage class discussion and make students feel comfortable enough in their class environment to share their ideas. The webpage mentions tips like really getting to know the students, calling on them by name and having them refer to each other by name, breaking students up into groups of 3-4 people, and how to handle disagreeing with your students when they do share. Other than how to stimulate discussion, the webpage also covers asking effective questions and the cycle of feedback.

The author explores using podcast to get students work on research paper. The professor believes that podcast can help students form group study and really engage in preparing and writing the research paper. From the whole article, the podcast can be considered as a long-term project and send students into groups to study. The podcast group creates a community for students to discuss and revise the research topic; in this sense, students in the group study as co-learners and engage in one another's research paper. This article is again about an invention strategy, podcast, in academic settings. Podcast is done in the group working environment, so this strategy requires creating a community of practice to get students engaged in a common topic---research paper. Even though students' topics are different, they still can help each other and engage in others' success because the requirements for the research paper are the same. I believe this would be a good way to scaffold students to deal with research paper; still, this strategy requires careful designs and attention from professor, and professor works as a facilitator to support the students' learning and practicing in the group work.

This article explains one way to help students explore materials when students need to develop an effective thesis for their profile essay. The professor asks students to do general everyday freewriting related to the topic (an unusual place). Although the author doesn't show all students' freewritings, the only example shown in the article shows a developmental track of how a student explores his/her ideas and write the thesis. It is a process that the student finds and writes the thesis, and it takes time to complete the process. The author posts an invention to help students start essay writing in academic environment. There is no formal rigid writing pattern but a way to help students get into the topic and object; students will use writing as a thinking tool to think and critique the object when they get more information about it. My question is that this invention strategy can be considered as a project for a teacher but an activity in writing process for students. It takes time for teachers to think and design and for students to really do it. There should be more unpredictable problems, so teachers should pay more attention on this strategy.

This article contains a variety of helpful recommendations in assisting others with essays, and beneficial of extensive methods in establishing coherence. There are also intriguing statistics about illiteracy and each section, as well as the subcategory within is very specific and unified. Essentially, the article revolves around the diversified nature of everyone's unique interpretation of writing and is magnified towards all students. There's also information such as: informing others, consulting others, approaching the students, entertaining them, acquiring the knowledge of their materials, appropriately responding, and using moderate persuasion. All in all, there are a total of seven recommendations with very concise explanations of writing instruction, analytical approaches, and assessing the quality of literary works. This article is applicable to our instructive endeavors within our micro, or macro, aggregates of situated learning. The content within this particular article will elucidate the path to molding students into strategic writers, capturing and sustaining motivation, and substantiating an enjoyable environment. So please give it a read! I'm sure you'll find it quite pertinent to our weekly scenarios of peripheral participation and consultative interactions.

In this article, there are 21 steps to assist the literary councilor in teaching writing. Although it is a fairly short article, there is fairly useful information that can be extrapolated and applied to the multiplicity of situated learning that exist. A number of the steps actually have sub sections that pertain to the objective that is listed; furthermore, illustrating pragmatic, as well as feasibly applicable, instructive literary algorithms for assisting others in enhancing their writing skills. Truthfully, these steps contain information that isn't always brought to mind during our workshops; and I veraciously admit to relearning things in which I overlooked and/or have forgotten. Quintessentially, these steps can be applied to out workshop environment, and provide us with a helpful literary approach-instead of accidently sending the wrong idea, or running out of intellectual things to say (it happens to us all from time to time). Before we enhance our workshop surroundings, we should all endeavor to enhance our understandings of the procedural nature of excelling in writing, while simultaneously assisting others. In my opinion, teaching is one of the best, if not the best, ways to teach ourselves; instructing others reveals the hidden connecting points that we subconsciously always knew were there.

This young girl is so brilliant. We as teachers need to have more faith in our students and give over some of the classroom control. A student centered environment needs to be less restrictive and we need to stop underestimating our students abilities.

For the past few weeks in this class I have generated all of my focus on the identity of the students in Enlish 30 workshops. After reading the article, "Exploring teacher-writer identities in the classroom: Conceptualising the struggle" I a new question has stemmed: how do teacher's identity as writers affect students' progress in academic progress? Authors, Teresa Cremin and Sally Baker from the Department of Education of The Open University suggest "that teachers' development as writers has the potential to enrich writing pedagogy and impact positively on young writers." The idea of teachers writing alongside their students is in my opinion highly valuable because students and teachers have the opportunity to experience the writing process together. In previous articles I have read that relatability between students and instructor are essential to the learning environment. If instructors are constantly writing alongside their students trying to establish/re-establish their identity in academic writing, students can learn easily learn how to do the same through "shared challenges" (9). While English 431 students cannot use this strategy because members of their English 30 workshops come from different sections of English 130 we can attempt to produce similar assignments alongside our students. For example, inquiry assignments are a common goal in most English 130 classes. Similarly, English 431 students must write an inquiry essay. English 431 students could incorporate their progress into the workshop by showing the English 30 students what they have done so far, why they are asking certain questions, how they did something, etc.

I've decided to go in a different direction than the posts I have been submitting on diigo; however, where our research starts is certainly not where it finishes. I decided to approach the dynamics of voice and style and its relationship with "good writing." Moving along- This article directly engages in explaining "what makes good writing?" and how teachers view this complex question. Teachers alike analyze students' writing in very, very different ways and all hold their own literary interpretations in accordance to their curriculum. There is also much emphasis on "questioning a standardized writing style," "procedures and participants," and a variety of methodological approaches. There is also a list comprised of 31 perceptions on what establishes writing as "good." There is also much emphasis on the dynamics of structure, clarity, purpose, voice, and correctness. Near the end, there is an evaluation of controversy of a many statements revolving around "good writing", as well as "implications for the classroom." This is definitely a resourceful article for anyone endeavoring literary mentoring, and/or teaching of any kind. The diagrams are very concise and comprehensive, and above all, they are applicable to our instructive environments.

In this article, there are 21 steps to assist the literary councilor in teaching writing. Although it is a fairly short article, there is fairly useful information that can be extrapolated and applied to the multiplicity of situated learning that exist. A number of the steps actually have sub sections that pertain to the objective that is listed; furthermore, illustrating pragmatic, as well as feasibly applicable, instructive literary algorithms for assisting others in enhancing their writing skills. Truthfully, these steps contain information that isn't always brought to mind during our workshops; and I veraciously admit to relearning things in which I overlooked and/or have forgotten. Quintessentially, these steps can be applied to out workshop environment, and provide us with a helpful literary approach-instead of accidently sending the wrong idea, or running out of intellectual things to say (it happens to us all from time to time). Before we enhance our workshop surroundings, we should all endeavor to enhance our understandings of the procedural nature of excelling in writing, while simultaneously assisting others. In my opinion, teaching is one of the best, if not the best, ways to teach ourselves; instructing others reveals the hidden connecting points that we subconsciously always knew were there.

It's very strange, i went to read your article and all it show me was computer stuff, like C++ stuff. This is not about you wrote. It is not about applied multiplicity of situated learning.....maybe i got the web site wrong, can you post your website again?

Thank you very much for pointing that out to me Khou. I must have cut off a fraction of the URL when I pasted it~ I re-posted the article, please check it out! Here's the link if you don't feel like searching for it- it's kind of monotonous digging through postings http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&cts=1331526916842&ved=0CGoQFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmembers.shaw.ca%2Fenglishtour%2Fway_correct_essay.pdf&ei=_3xdT72nO6OPiAKOrIizCw&usg=AFQjCNFFk0ZVEBkpvxpMk6dA-RAZ4ClavQ

This article covers a multitude of steps that assist in teaching the dynamics of writing to others. There is an extensive list of statements that is followed by a descriptions as well as procedural conduct. The first statement is "establish a positive atmosphere for writing, reading, and learning," and proceeds to illustrate the ambiances of a classroom, as well as possible arrangements of desks etc. The primary idea is to establish a sustainably, beneficial community in which the students are free of apprehension and unnecessary judgment of any kind. The classroom should be "inviting," "respectful," and have positive "routines and expectations." There should also be regimented activities and daily-designated prerogatives that allow the students to expand their literary intentions. This is article is utmost beneficial to every student within this English course that is committed to their weekly internships. The informatively instructive articulations of each scenario that is provided within this article are very versatile, and can generally assist us all in our own unique interned environments. I highly recommend giving it a brief glance, if you're busy or have some obligatory escapade to attend to.

This article describes the results of the four OLE (Optimal Learning Environment) approaches to teaching writing used at four different bilingual special education California schools. These approaches include: (1) interactive journal writing: teacher leads dialogue with the students by providing written responses to their daily journal entries. The teacher's responses serve as a model for writing as well; (2) Writers' Workshop - "students go through planning, drafting, editing, revising, final drafting, and publishing each time they produce a written product", i.e. their own class book; (3) expository writing as a process; (4) combination of brainstorm writing, model webbing or mapping the story they have just read, non-interactive journals. The authors emphasize the importance of engaging the learners into the informal creative writing process to increase the intrinsic motivation. They state that often in classes with bilingual students there is a high amount of pressure to speed the students' transition from writing in L1 to writing in L2, which triggers the students' anxiety and reluctance to write. The results of the 10-week experiment in different educational settings showed that OLE program activities significantly decrease stress and increase writing productivity. According to the article, OLE is based on "sociocultural learning theory", and makes use of task-based interactive creative activities. Students are supposed to collaborate while working at their writing (= communities of practice). Writing is considered as a continuous ever-changeable life process. It always implies dialogue (with the teacher, classmates or oneself - in case of non-interactive journals). Response The idea of interactive creative writing is beneficial both for heritage learners, and ESL learners, who often do not feel at ease while writing in L2. Having experienced difficulties in writing in the past, they tend to produce limited quantities of clichéd patterns that lack spo

I like how in your article it state what kind of studies they did. They did Interactive journal writing; Writer's Workshop; OLE; and a combination of journal writing, brainstorming and planning, and spelling practiced for individual group. I think that just using one method from here might help a lot but if a teacher use two or three methods here, then the L2 would improve even more. But i don't know...it's a good article.