<p> This research study investigates the manifestations of the core deficits of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in the writing process of three school-aged individuals diagnosed with this disorder. A qualitative research design was employed in order uncover the effects of the core deficits on the social interactions surrounding a constructivist approach to writing development. The ethnographic methods used during this investigation allowed the identification behavioral strategies employed as a result of the core deficits of ASD as they occurred during the authentic context of interest. The results of this study suggest underlying cognitive deficits described as an inaccurate locus of joint attention, rigid and restrictive conceptualizations of the writing process, and non-social use of the writing process. These underlying cognitive capacities decrease the ability of the individual with ASD to engage in the writing process in conventionally appropriate and effective manners. In response to a social constructivist approach to the writing process, the manifestations of the core deficits changed in each of the three participants followed in this study to include the establishment of joint action routines, integrated conceptualizations of the writing process, and the emergent use of writing for social purposes. The results of this research investigation support the theoretical standing of pragmatics as an emergent epiphenomenon (Perkins, 2005). For the three participants in this investigation, the social use of both the writing process and of written language emerged as other core capacities in social interaction and rigid conceptualizations responded to the social constructivist approaches employed in this study. As the writing process and written language became part of the social interactions of these IASD, the communicative functions of writing became apparent as a way to share their interests and experiences with others.</p>

<p> According to the Nation&rsquo;s Report Card (2011), America&rsquo;s students are not proficient in writing. Because self-efficacy is a primary predictor of the actual outcomes, educational research (Zimmerman &amp; Bandura, 1994) has focused on means of developing beliefs of self-efficacy to increase outcomes (Bandura, 1997). </p><p> The purpose of this sequential mixed methods single case study was to explore grade 12 students&rsquo; perceptions of self-efficacy in terms of academic writing. This study also evaluated the effectiveness of the writing curriculum in increasing students&rsquo; self-efficacy with respect to writing and exploring students&rsquo; and teachers&rsquo; perceptions of the writing process and the Senior Project Research Paper curriculum and highlight necessary changes. </p><p> The primary research questions were: 1. What is the relationship of students&rsquo; self-efficacy with respect to academic writing competence and writing outcomes? 2. Are there gender differences in pre-test and post-test perceptions of self-efficacy in academic writing and writing outcomes? 3. What are students&rsquo; perceptions of the implementation process of the writing program? 4. What are students&rsquo; and teachers&rsquo; assessments and recommendations of the writing program? The framework for this research was based upon Stufflebeam&rsquo;s (2007) program evaluation model with emphasis on the implementation of the curriculum and outcomes. The instrument, administered to students (<i> N</i>=78), revealed a significant correlation between academic writing self-efficacy and outcomes. The results for pre-test Writing Process (<i> r</i>=.29, <i>r</i>²=.08, <i>p</i>=.010), Creativity (<i>r</i>=.30, <i>r</i>²=.09, <i> p</i>=.008), and Time-Management (<i>r</i>=.29, <i>r</i>²=.08, <i>p</i>=.012) dimensions and the post-test Writing Process (<i>r</i>=.33, <i>r</i>²=.11, <i> p</i>=.003), Creativity (<i>r</i>=.31, <i>r</i>²=10, <i>p</i>=.006) and Time-Management (<i>r</i>=.41, <i> r</i>²=.17, <i>p</i>&lt;.001) dimensions were positively related to Actual Grade attainment. Student (<i>N</i>=14) focus group findings indicated that students&rsquo; self-efficacy is increased through constructive teacher feedback, incremental goals presented by the curriculum, and topic interest. Teacher (<i>N</i>=5) focus group findings revealed that teachers feel that students are unwilling to meaningfully engage in the writing process, that they wish they had more time to address student needs and provide feedback, and that they value the writing curriculum which promotes collegiality and standardized expectations within the department. </p><p> Results of this study will help educational leaders promote effective and meaningful writing instruction to foster student&rsquo; academic writing self-efficacy.</p>

<p> Ill-structured problem solving requires a variety of skills and strategies that K-12 students often lack due to limited exposure to these problems and a reliance on superficial problem-solving strategies (Greiff et al., 2013; Jonassen, 1997, 2000; Mayer &amp; Wittrock, 2006). This study employed a computer-based problem-solving program called Solve It!, which scaffolds students through a general problem-solving process to identify and support solutions to ill-structured physics problems. Using a sequential explanatory mixed methods design, this study examined the impact of the prompt response and narrative writing tasks on seventh grade students&rsquo; (N = 117) physics content knowledge and problem-solving strategy acquisition while solving ill-structured problems in Solve It!. Students were randomly assigned to one of four conditions, which varied in the type of writing tasks students completed. Findings from this study revealed a significant increase in physics knowledge and problem-solving strategies across conditions. Due to the small sample size and several limitations with the study design, condition effects did not emerge. However, students in the narrative writing condition with low physics prior knowledge did benefit from the narrative writing task. Implications for this research include the use of computer-based environments to teach both content and problem-solving strategies simultaneously and the potential to use narrative writing tasks for learning.</p>

<p> At a time when state standards and assessments drive educational policy and literacy is defined as print-based, students who don&rsquo;t meet external benchmarks for developing skills along what is considered to be a &ldquo;normal trajectory&rdquo; are often seen as &ldquo;at-risk&rdquo; or diagnosed with learning disabilities. While there may be real variations in the ways that individuals learn, schools have a responsibility to offer a variety of pedagogical approaches in order to meet the needs of all children within an inclusive setting. This practitioner research dissertation seeks to better understand the ways that students identified as having learning disabilities create and communicate using a variety of modes including narrative writing, dance, and digital composition. Using qualitative data collected over the course of a school year while teaching full-time at an urban school with a folk arts focus, the author looks closely at the multimodal writing practices of four Black middle school girls identified as having learning disabilities. Drawing upon a theoretical framework rooted in Disability Studies/ Critical Race Theory (DisCrit) and New Literacy Studies, this study investigates the ways that students use multimodal composition to construct identities as able learners, thereby challenging deficit orientations at the intersection of race, gender and ability. By examining the artifacts that these students created over the course of an academic year as well as their reflections, and by extending a definition of literacy to include multimodal representations of knowledge, the relationships between curriculum and identity are explored. Findings reveal a complex interplay between multimodal composition and collaboration, and suggest that curriculum embedded with multiple modes for representing knowledge can create pathways to culturally relevant and inclusive pedagogy, and contribute to the construction of powerful writing identities.</p>

This study came out of multiple, displaced returns to my own remembered sites of learning, loosely anchored in the four schools that I attended as a K-12 student in a suburb of Boston, Massachusetts and in a suburb of Tel Aviv, Israel. These returns opened up ways of theorizing relationships between my own sociocultural contexts of learning (and teaching) and how I have come to learn through, with, and by poetry. Collapsing constructed distances between present, past, and future states of education as well as distances between academic disciplines, this study brings the question of what it means to learn and know through poetry into multifaceted relation to the (not) teaching and learning of poetry in schools today. Through visual and written experiments with poetic inquiry onto autobiographical sites of learning, I labor to understand what poetic inquiry might do as an educational practice in the context of an unequal system of education which has shaped me and which I can participate in reproducing and/or changing as an educator, scholar, researcher, and poet/artist. Also, through both the form and content of this study, I look to trouble dominant modes of knowledge production and to explore how poetry can work as a way of making new forms of thinking/feeling possible. I intend for the visual images and text to touch on the same plane. Neither is illustrative of nor dependent on the other; instead, each becomes reactivated and reconstituted in relation.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--University of Delaware, 2007. / Principal faculty advisor: James Raths, School of Education. Includes bibliographical references.

A controversy regarding literacy lies at the heart of debates over the current state of American education. In response to the debate, this study reviews and analyzes the literacy theories of E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Walter Ong, Sylvia Scribner and Michael Cole, Shirley Brice Heath, and Paulo Freire. The author presents a language arts teacher's perspective on these literacy theories and their implications for her own pedagogy by addressing the following questions: What is meant by the literacy crisis? How is literacy defined by contemporary literacy theorists? What are the implications of these theories for the teaching of language arts? The author concludes that literacy involves a repertoire of social and cognitive practices which inform a critical pedagogy in language arts. / Graduation date: 1992

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 74-77).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 57-60).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2003. / Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains x, 259 p. Includes abstract and vita. Advisor: Caroline T. Clark, College of Education. Includes bibliographical references (p. 246-259).