Today's colleges and universities are faced with the challenges of reforming their curriculums in an effort to hold a generation of students who are now demanding more than just a degree. Today prominent writers in the field of higher education point to the necessity of assessing and reconstructing college courses so that new direction will be provided. Each student entering college for the first time usually must enroll in an English composition course. Such a course offers great potential to encourage the creative capacity of the incoming student and foster an attitude of personal inquiry. The diversity of subjects and intentions which can be introduced in the beginning composition course offers a healthy reservoir of opportunity for exploring personal meaning. Introducing some of the goals and concepts of creativity may thus inspire the design of a new course given to meeting the challenges of higher education.The problem of this study was to develop a course in freshman English composition based on the theories of creativity and directed towards the development of the student's creative and critical capacity.

For teachers of freshman English composition, the most time-consuming aspect of teaching is responding to student papers (Anson, 2012; Straub, 2000b). Teachers respond in various ways, but most teachers agree that they should offer written feedback to students (Beach & Friedrich, 2006). However, little research has been conducted to determine how teachers’ written feedback practices reflect their beliefs about the purpose of such feedback. This qualitative study explores the relationship between English composition teachers’ beliefs about written feedback and their actual written feedback practices. The participants were a sample of four instructors of freshman English composition at a mid-sized metropolitan public university. Interviews, classroom observations, course documents, and samples of teachers’ written comments were analyzed to determine teachers’ written response practices and their beliefs related to the purposes of freshman writing and their roles as writing teachers. Results suggest that teachers were aware of their beliefs, and their written response practices were consistent with their beliefs. Teachers utilized different approaches to respond to student writing, but those approaches are consistent with current recommendations for responding to student writing. Three major themes emerged from the study. First, teachers must be given the opportunity to reflect about and articulate their beliefs about written response so they will know why they respond in the way they do. Second, teachers work within the boundaries of their specific writing program to organize their written responses to student writing. Third, teachers must respond to student writing from varying perspectives as readers of the text. The findings support studies which indicate that written response is a sociocultural practice and teacher beliefs are just one aspect of the complex nature of teacher written response. The study should add to the fields of response theory and the formation of teacher beliefs.

Examinations have been known since the earliest times. Many of them were in the form of oral examinations, or disputations, but there also exist records of the written examination of candidates for official positions in China at least two thousand years ago. However, written examinations were seen as necessary in North America as the number of candidates availab1e for examination increased beyond the ability of examiners to examine in one day. [...]

Thesis (M.A.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of English, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 89-95).

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傳統作品導向(product-oriented)英文寫作教學重結果、輕過程，加上傳統學習環境多以教師為中心，重講述、少建構，不僅容易限制寫作內容的創意展現與發展，同時，學生在學習上亦容易處於一個被動獲知的角色。知識翻新理論中的知識建構歷程與想法創化環境，則提供了英文教師與學習者一個另類的教學設計原則以及學習環境感受。因此，研究者希冀能透過知識翻新教學理論之原理原則，設計出一套適用於高中生的英文寫作活動，幫助學生產出想法、發揮創意、提升寫作品質。有鑑於此，本研究旨在探討結合電腦輔助平台（即知識論壇）之知識翻新教學活動對高中生學習環境感知與英文寫作表現之影響。研究方法採個案研究法，研究對象為39名高二文組班學生。 　　本研究除了探討知識翻新活動對學生學習環境感知與英文作文寫作表現的差異情形之外，更進一步探討學生於構思階段寫作想法的轉變歷程以及教師在進行教學時的反思情形。本研究的資料來源包括：（1）知識創新學習環境問卷；（2）英文寫作成品；（3）構思活動記錄；（4）開放式問卷；（5）教師教學反思記錄。上述資料分析採量化的成對樣本t檢定、Pearson相關、描述性統計、獨立樣本t檢定、與單因子變異數等統計分析以及質性的內容分析，藉以瞭解學生對知識翻新創意氛圍的感知情形與英文寫作表現，以及以知識翻新原則導向的想法演變歷程與教學反思情形。 　　研究結果顯示：（1）知識翻新有助於提升學生的創意氛圍感知；（2）知識翻新英文寫作活動能提升學生的寫作的內容與表現能力；（3）以知識翻新理論為基礎所設計的英文寫作構思活動，能促使學生發想與精進寫作的想法；（4）知識翻新原則取向所進行的教師教學反思，能幫助教師改進與調整其教學信念與教學模式。最後，根據研究結果，本研究提出相關討論與建議，以供後續英文寫作教學及研究之參考。 / Traditional product-oriented English Composition pedagogy tends to focus on the writing results but not the writing processes. Accordingly, traditional learning environment also tends to be teacher-centered, emphasizing teacher’s lectures rather than students’ knowledge construction. Such pedagogy and environment not only restrain students’ development of creativities, but also turn students into passive learners. In contrast, the emphasis of a process of knowledge construction and idea development in a knowledge building environment has provided teachers and students an innovative pedagogy and an alternative learning environment. Therefore, the researcher in this study decided to employ the principle-based knowledge building theory to design more suitable English composition activities, in order to help students learn how to generate writing ideas, develop creative writing capacity, and eventually improve the quality of their English composition. As such, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of computer-supported knowledge building activities on high school students’ perception of learning environment and English writing performance. To this end, this research employed a case study and the participants were 39 second grade high school students. In addition to understanding how students perceived their learning environment and advance their English composition performance, this study further discussed the process and the transformation of writing ideas in three different stages and the condition of teacher reflection during the teaching. The data of this study mainly came from: (1) a knowledge building environment scale; (2) students’ English composition works; (3) the records produced during three ideas generation stages; and (4) the teacher’s teaching reflection. Quantitative and qualitative measures were applied in this study, and data were analyzed through paired-samples t tests, Pearson's product moment coefficient, descriptive statistics, independent-sample t test, one way ANOVA, and content analysis. The main findings were as follow: (1) knowledge building activities improved students’ perception of learning environment; (2) English composition activities which were based on knowledge building theory were able to advance students’ writing contents and performance; (3) brainstorming activities assisted students in idea generation, idea improvement, and idea synthesis; (4) teaching reflection affected teacher’s teaching beliefs (from cognitivism to constructivism) and teaching models (from teacher-centered to student-centered). Based on the results, some suggestions and implications were discussed.

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