Writing Revision: Evidence for Learning

ABSTRACT

This paper identifies evidence that significant procedural learning can emerge from process approaches to teaching writing, including from the transition of pupils’ writing from draft to revision. It shows how writing schemes that use an underlying process framework to structure learning, give pupils ownership of their own writing and exploit the resources of classes as learning communities can enable pupils to learn how to write more effectively, and in some cases to discover what they want to say through the process of composition. The paper draws on this and other work to set out a number of implications for teaching and classroom practice.     

Counseling: A view from the Middle East

Summary Societies throughout the world are experiencing rapidly changing conditions. Individuals in these societies are wrestling with a situation where the old order is disappearing and a suitable replacement has not yet stabilized. The Middle East is no exception to this phenomenon. That there will be a fundamental change in family patterns, vocational choice and life styles for women and men is inevitable. In the final analysis, it is all of a piece for a change in one cannot occur without a change in the other.Nowhere will this change be felt greater than in the status of women. Urbanization and industrialization combined with government campaigns have created political and economic opportunities to a large number of Middle Eastern women. More importantly though, these changes bespeak an intimate message to both men and women that they must re-evaluate each other, as well as their family values, courtship patterns, socialization of their children, and the authority of ancient family traditions' (Goode, 1970, p. 146).Counseling has a major role in the modernization process taking place in the Middle East. This process will undoubtedly cause a certain degree of personal disruption. The disruptive forces of modernization seem a natural part of the process. It is in this area that counseling can play a major role. To be aware that there will be personal disruption is not enough. The counseling enterprise in developing countries must provide support services to its people. It must provide and equip individuals to live in a different society from which they are presently living. Ministries of education, by providing proper guidance and counseling services to its students can help case the shock of modernization.It's an exciting time in the Middle East. And it is one in which counseling has an unlimited potential to develop itself and aid in the area's struggle toward modernity. Before counseling can make an impact in the Middle East it must develop an indigenous philosophy of counseling. Recognizing that the Middle Easterner is a product of an authoritarian society, for instance, approaches to counseling which depend on counseling initiative, such as a strict nondirective approach, may not be appropriate. The philosophy must take cognizance of a deeply rooted history of tradition on the one hand and a strong desire to modernize on the other. Counseling in the Middle East could play a significant role as individuals struggle to reach a new identity that will reconcile the past with the future with a minimum of dislocation.     

LEARNING TO BE IN PUBLIC SPACES: IN FROM THE MARGINS WITH DANCERS, SCULPTORS, PAINTERS AND MUSICIANS

ABSTRACT:  This article reports research in three Nottingham schools, concerned with (1) 'The school as fertile ground: how the ethos of a school enables everyone in it to benefit from the presence of artists in class'; (2) 'Children on the edge: how the arts reach those children who otherwise exclude themselves from class activities, for any reason' and (3) 'Children's voices and choices: how even very young children can learn to express their wishes, and then have them realised through arts projects'. The research methodology was rooted in two modes of inquiry, philosophical investigation and action research. The article draws on this research to argue that arts-based work in school has helped disadvantaged and/or disaffected children to engage in activities (both arts-based and others), and to be able to lay the groundwork for exercising voice and agency as they did so. If social justice is to flourish there is a need for particular kinds of public spaces and a need to create conditions such that children can learn to participate in those spaces, whether or not they are comfortable with the usual settings for 'rational argument' or 'deliberative democracy'. It is suggested that arts-based education, in some forms, is one good way of creating these conditions.     

Parental educational level,gender differences,and seniors' aspirations for advanced study

Many factors affect an undergraduate student's postbaccalaureate plans. Academic interests, career-related factors, finances, and various psychological and sociological factors all have been found to be related to interest in advanced education. Few studies, however, are gender-specific in examining the relation of parental educational attainment to their children's aspirations. Such data would be helpful in the attempts to understand the continued underrepresentation of women in most fields requiring advanced degrees. All seniors at a large Midwestern university with at least a 3.0 cumulative grade point average planning to graduate in spring or summer of 1986 were sent questionnaires dealing with their postgraduation plans. Of these 1900 surveys, 791 (42%) were returned. Results reported here examine the relation of future educational plans to gender of student, educational level of parent, and field of study. A modeling effect not noted in previous literature is discussed.     

Long-term unemployment: Effects and counseling interventions

The authors provide an overview of the psychosocial impact of unemployment. Case studies, based on interviews with the long-term unemployed during 1988 and 1989 are presented to highlight the Personal Employment Identity Model. The PEIM is a service delivery paradigm designed to assist counselors when working with the unemployed. It utilizes an individuals's ego identity in relation to their self identification with their previous work role to recommend interventions. Interventions will vary according to the inherent and expressed needs of the individual on the continuum of the Personal Employment Identity Model.