Beyond Measure: The Value of the Memorised Poem

Abstract

For centuries, memorisation was the vital mode through which the ‘uses of poetry’ were realised. Mixed reactions to its reinstatement on the primary curriculum indicate how much has changed. But does memorisation afford a type of understanding not available through reading or critical analysis? This article draws on the initial findings of the Cambridge Poetry and Memory Project, which sought to identify what is distinctive about this mode of engagement. At the time of writing, we are still analysing our findings. Here we explore three emerging themes through which we are starting to make sense of these: the memorised poem experienced as a living entity; as indwelling and indwelt; and within a relationship of love. We suggest that memorisation and literary analysis may become mutually enhancing, and conclude that the memorised poem is a largely unrecognised resource with the potential to enrich people’s lives in multiple ways over many years.     

A computer-based spatial learning strategy approach that improves reading comprehension and writing

This article explores the effectiveness of a computer-based spatial learning strategy approach for improving reading comprehension and writing. In reading comprehension, students received scaffolded practice in translating passages into graphic organizers. In writing, students received scaffolded practice in planning to write by filling in graphic organizers and in translating them into passages. Based on a cluster-randomized sampling process, 2,468 students distributed in 12 schools and 69 classrooms participated in the study. Schools were randomly assigned to the computer-based instruction (CBI) group or traditional instruction (TI) group. Teachers assigned to the CBI treatment integrated the applications into the language arts curriculum during one school semester. A standardized test was used to measure reading comprehension and writing. The data were analyzed through a statistical multilevel model. The findings showed that students in the CBI group improved their reading and writing skills significantly more than students under TI—yielding an effect size d = 0.30.     

Teaching Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders to Self-advocate through Persuasive Writing

We examined the effectiveness of the Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) model of writing instruction with a self-determination training component for middle school-age students with emotional and behavioral disorders. We randomly assigned students to experimental or comparison treatments during which special education teachers provided the intervention. Students in the experimental groups received instruction on how to plan and write persuasive essays, were trained on self-determination skills, and were taught how to use persuasive writing to self-advocate. Students in the comparison condition received writing instruction with the established school writing curriculum. Instruction for both groups lasted 33 days, four days a week during 30-minute sessions. Experimental students significantly outperformed comparison students at posttest in all the persuasive essay-writing components assessed, in their ability to recall the parts of a persuasive essay, in the self-efficacy measure, and on self-determination knowledge. Experimental students were able to maintain gains in almost all writing measures and were able to generalize to content areas, although comparison students slightly increased in number of words. Student and teacher interviews revealed an overall satisfaction with SRSD procedures and the results.     

Teaching writing to middle school students: a national survey

A random sample of language arts, social studies, and science middle school teachers from the United States were surveyed about their preparation to teach writing, beliefs about responsibilities for teaching writing, use of evidence-based writing practices, assessment of writing, use of technology, and adaptations for struggling writers. The findings from this survey raised concerns about the quality of middle school writing instruction. Many teachers believed their preservice and inservice preparation to teach writing was inadequate. Middle school students spend little time writing or being taught how to write. While most teachers used a variety of evidenced-based writing practices and made adaptations for struggling writers, such methods were applied infrequently. Most teachers did not appear to use assessment data to shape how they taught writing, and computers played a relatively minor role in middle school writing instruction. Even though teachers generally agreed that writing was a collective responsibility, language arts teachers placed a greater emphasis on writing instruction than social studies and science teachers.     

高校文科学生学术论文的写作

高等院校的学生应该学习撰写学术论文 ,这既是培养科研能力、创新能力的需要 ,也是发展科学文化的需要。文科类学术论文的撰写可按选题、取材、谋篇 ,行文与修改等几个步骤进行。     

Systematic botany: Science to develop language facility

Classification is a fundamental skill that impacts on our abilities to read and to write text. The structure and sequence inherent in the science of taxonomy can be used as the basis for instruction in reading comprehension and in writing. The use of concrete, readily manipulated materials enhances vocabulary development by allowing the teacher to label objects and processes as the student experiences them. There are numerous activities which can be employed to enrich experiential learning; these can be directly related to reading and writing exercises. Processes learned with simple materials can be generalized to more abstract content as the students’ proficiency improves. The instructor can control the level of difficulty of the class by writing or selecting materials appropriate to the skills levels of the students involved. Language facility is developed as students progress from the known to the less well known in a series of carefully constructed steps.     

建构小学习作教学系统的思考与实践

针对很多小学生的习作既不"得心"也不"应手",很多教师对于习作原理认识不足、习作指导措施不力等问题,遵循系统论、相似论和脑科学等先进理论,从剖析习作心理和客观规律出发,提出构建小学习作教学系统,并从增强习作的动力、丰富习作的内容、落实习作的操作、用好习作的评价四个方面进行了有效的实践,为习作教学插上了有力的双翅。     

初中英语写作教学有效性探索

当前初中英语写作教学现状不容乐观,需要积极探索教学途径与方法,提高教学的有效性。教师要有计划地进行写作安排,周密安排写作内容、写作方式、写作时间;要有针对地进行写作指导,抓好词汇与遣词造句的练习;要有目的地进行写作辅导训练,通过大量阅读、积极背诵、巧妙翻译,促进学生写作。     

Using student-generated questions for student-centred assessment

In small groups, medical students were involved in generating questions to contribute to an online item bank. This study sought to support collaborative question‐writing and enhance students’ metacognitive abilities, in particular, their ability to self‐regulate learning and moderate understanding of subject material. The study focused on supporting students to write questions requiring higher order cognitive processes. End‐of‐year formal examinations comprised 25% student‐generated questions (SGQs), while mid‐year examination items were completely unseen. Data were gathered from repeated administration of a questionnaire and from examination results. No statistically significant changes were identified in self‐rated monitoring of understanding and regulation of learning. The activity of generating questions supported students to work collaboratively in developing questions and answers. The bank of questions was appreciated by students as a source of revision material, even though it was not strongly focused on higher order processes. Based on scores, it would appear that many students chose to memorise the question bank as a ‘high‐yield’ strategy for mark inflation, paradoxically favouring surface rather than deep learning. The study has not identified directly improvements in metacognitive capacity and this is an area for further investigation. Continual refinement of the study method will be undertaken, with an emphasis on education of students in developing questions addressing higher order cognitive processes. Although students may have memorised the questions and answers, there is no evidence that they do not understand the information.     

Encouraging IT students to get serious about assignment writing: evaluation of a Web-based initiative

Traditionally, students attending university have received support for their assignment writing within a face-to-face framework. Academic writing support delivered via the Internet needs to be rendered in very subject-specific terms for the resource to be perceived as valuable. This paper reports on a project involving writing support staff and a computer science subject leader to develop and evaluate a Web-based academic skills tutorial. The tutorial sought to provide online learning support for interpreting an information technology (IT) assignment topic, extracting information from sources, and integrating the material into a report with the support of online lexical tools. The evaluation sought to determine whether the students found the resource helpful, if improvements were still required, and what implications there were for integrating the resource with subject teaching. Students perceived most value in those sections of the resource that provided them with examples and models, and least in those that required them to engage in interactive activity.     

试谈学生写信的特点与兴趣

写信是现实生活、工作中常见的交际手段 ,是学生必须掌握的一种本领。在指导学生写信时要注意针对书信特点 ,强调实用性、程序性、情感性和实践性 ;要激发学生写作兴趣 ,把教学转化为学生的内在需要 ,逐渐由爱写信、练写信到能写信。     

Connecting Literacy and Science to Increase Achievement for English Language Learners

Giving students a purpose and a passion for sharing their thinking through authentic learning experiences and giving them tools for writing through which they can risk new vocabulary, new language, and new thought is critical for the linguistic and cognitive development of students. Furthermore, students develop a deep understanding of content they have heard and read when given time to process information through writing and speaking. This article describes one teacher’s quest to identify and implement effective research-based instructional strategies that she could use to successfully support her kindergarten ELL students during science instruction.     

让作文指导走进学生的心灵

分析作文指导低效的主客观原因,探究如何针对学生的困惑和需要进行有效的作文指导,是解决作文"写什么"和"怎样写"问题的关键。作文指导应当走进学生的心灵,根据学生的年龄特点和作文本身的特点,编排好训练序列,进行唤醒记忆、丰富积淀、思辩提升等训练。     

Black Muslim Girls Navigating Multiple Oppositional Binaries Through Literacy and Letter Writing

Writing alongside 12 African American Muslim girls, we led a summer literacy program in an effort to understand how Black Muslim adolescent girls write about their identities and ideas. The 4-week literacy program was designed to engage and support Black Muslim girls, aged 12–17 years old, in reading, writing, and understanding the multiple contexts that inform their worlds. The girls received writing instruction connected to their experiences and identities in an environment that afforded them time to represent their situated worlds of being Black, Muslim, and girls in the United States. In this qualitative inquiry, we investigated the following research question: How would Black Muslim girls write to encourage a future generation to navigate multiple identities? The participants penned letters to a future generation of African American Muslim girls. Drawing upon methods of thematic analysis, we found that themes of sisterhood and unity, shattering misrepresentations, empowerment, strength through faith, knowledge (education), and speaking up and fighting for rights emerged. These themes indicate the messages Muslim girls write are indicative of the multiple identities they navigate and speaks to how they would encourage youth who share their complex racialized-gender religious identities, as well as the need to open the conversation on Black education to center both Black girls and Black Muslim girls.     

小学作文计算机训练方法

小学生在写作方面存在文字书写困难,难以充实、流畅地用文字表达内容,难以层次分明地表达思想和写出正确完整的句子。随着计算机的发展,电子写作将成为主要的语文表达手段,这就对未来的写作能力提出了新挑战,为此提出小学作文计算机训练方法。训练分为口头表达能力训练、录入自己的口头表达、自己修改完善、批注完善四个阶段。     

Prevention and Intervention of Writing Difficulties for Students with Learning Disabilities

This paper presents six principles designed to prevent writing difficulties as well as to build writing skills: (a) providing effective writing instruction, (b) tailoring instruction to meet the individual needs, (c) intervening early, (d) expecting that each child will learn to write, (e) identifying and addressing roadblocks to writing, and (f) employing technologies. Many students with LD experience difficulties mastering the process of writing. We examine how schools can help these children become skilled writers. Six principles designed to prevent as well as alleviate writing difficulties are presented. These include providing effective writing instruction, tailoring writing instruction to meet each child’s needs, intervening early to provide additional assistance, expecting that each child will learn to write, identifying and addressing academic and nonacademic roadblocks to writing, and deploying technological tools that improve writing performance. The mn was sneB[translation:“The man was scared.”[ I think theu shold no how to speek differint langwges. If theu go to like dutch countri sombodie might ask them something theu cold have two kinds of langage     

Effect of Precise Objectives upon Student Achievement in Health Education

The purpose of this study was to determine what effect the communication of precise instructional objectives to students has on their learning. The study was designed (1) to provide data on whether student achievement can be influenced significantly by providing students, in advance of instruction, information on what is expected of them as an outcome of instruction and (2) to investigate various ways of communicating to students, in writing, that which is to be learned in class. The Ss for this study were selected from five tenth-grade health and safety classes taught by the same teacher. Of the 143 Ss, one third in each class was randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups. For treatment groups one through three, the participants received precisely stated instructional objectives, vaguely stated instructional objectives, and short paragraphs of health information, respectively. Ss receiving prior to instruction precise information on what is expected of them showed greater achievement than those who received vague or related information.     

Explicit instruction in orthographic structure and word morphology helps Chinese children learn to write characters

Previous research in alphabetic languages had shown that children learning to write are sensitive to morphological information, and that it serves as a resource that they draw upon as they acquire writing skills. In Chinese as well, sensitivity to morphological and orthographic information had been found to predict children’s ability to read characters. The present study investigated whether raising children’s awareness of the morphemic and orthographic structure of Chinese words would lead to beneficial results in their learning to write Chinese. An experimental group of 144 first graders from two primary schools in Beijing, China were given instruction designed to increase their knowledge of the orthographic and morphological structure of Chinese words. After two semesters, the experimental group’s ability to copy Chinese characters and to write them from memory were both found to be significantly better than a control group. Theoretical implications are discussed, including how writing benefits from the types of linguistic knowledge that underlie lexical storage and retrieval in reading and speech. Educational implications are also discussed, such as how drawing children’s attention to the morphemic components of Chinese words and the systematic features of Chinese orthography provides them with multiple sources of information they may utilize in learning to write.