GLOSSARY

Academic Discourse	the writing students learn in school and do only for school purposes, including book reports, laboratory reports, research papers, and themes
Analysis	one of the upper-level thinking skills as identified in Bloom's taxonomy; involves recognizing the relationship of parts to whole
Analytic Scale	a scoring device which provides a clearly stated set of criteria used in evaluation; used to identify specific features of writing and suggest a relative scale and point value for each feature
Audience	the person or groups of people for whom a piece is written; audience is understood to include self as audience for certain types of writing
Author's Chair	a special chair in the classroom from which students and teacher read trade books and the students' own published writing; author's chair is used to celebrate student writing and to provide students with opportunities to be authors
Brainstorming	a prewriting activity in which students either alone or in groups jot down all words or phrases that come to mind on a topic; responses are not critiqued during this time and may be quite far-fetched
Cloze	a technique in which words are eliminated from a passage or rhyme; students are asked to complete the selection
Clustering	a heuristic or prewriting activity, similar to webbing, that involves placing a topic, word, or phrase in a circle in the center of a page, and as ideas flow through the mind, writing down related words randomly around the center word
Collaborative Learning	the learning that occurs when students work together sharing ideas and actively teaching each other; teachers act as facilitators
Competency-Based Education	an Ohio Department of Education program designed to assure appropriate instruction, assessment and testing, and intervention for Ohio's students in grades K-12
Comprehension	constructing meaning as a direct result of reading or listening experiences; gaining an understanding of meaning allows the reader or listener to establish connections among ideas presented and relate the information in alternative forms based on the reader's or listener's experience; comprehension is generally influenced by background knowledge, familiarity with the presentation format or structure, interests, and attitudes
Computer-Assisted Instruction	in language arts, interpreted as work on computers with the intention of encouraging students to create and design; may also include software designed to reinforce skills
Concrete Poetry	poetry that takes on the shape of the subject; often creative or playful in form
Conferencing	a short (three-to-five minute) meeting between teacher and student(s) for discussing progress in writing or reading; provides verbal feedback to students; may be formal or informal, individual or small-group; determined by research to be highly effective in helping young writers; may also include students meeting with other students
Cooperative Learning	the learning that takes place when students work collaboratively on a carefully structured project; information is widely available in current educational journals and books
Course of Study	prescribes the content and processes of all curricular areas that all students will be expected to achieve
Cueing Systems	three of the language systems on which we rely for cues when seeking meaning from text, including semantic (based on meaning), syntactic (based on grammar), and grapho-phonetic (based on surface display and letter-sounds); include everything people do within a context and with expectations of some sort, including reading
Drafting	an attempt to formulate ideas on paper; may lead through a series of drafts to a final revised and edited product
Editing	the stage in writing in which writers examine their draft for technical and mechanical correctness, such as spelling, punctuation, and correct word use
Environment for Language	the classroom atmosphere needed to promote readers' and writers' efforts to express themselves; includes both physical and psychological aspects related to caring, comfort, and support
Environmental Print Display	a display board on which children post signs, labels, and other examples of print from their own environments
Expressive Writing	writing in which students respond to stimuli in a personal, unrestrained way; may take the form of summaries, associations, questions, comments, predictions, journal entries, logs, or free writings; may or may not become a finished piece of writing
Evaluation Conference	a conference usually held at the end of a marking period; a time in which teacher and student cooperatively assess the student's progress and set goals for future performance
Figurative Language	language enriched by word images and figures of speech
Formative Evaluation	ongoing, periodic assessment used daily to guide instruction and to make instructional decisions, including intervention
Focused Writing	a short piece of writing that students do to explain what they know and/or think about a topic
Free Writing	a prewriting technique; writing with no definite purpose and continuing until the purpose becomes known to the writer; sometimes referred to as automatic writing
Genre	a form or type of literary and other artistic content, as a novel, tragedy, comedy, poem, fairy tale, science fiction story, mystery, etc.
Grammar	the means by which the different components of our language can be put together in groups of sounds or written symbols so that ideas, feelings, and images can be communicated
Heuristic	any of several prewriting activities writers do to help determine what they know and what they need to find out; helps writers discover an ordering hypothesis for their writing
Holistic Evaluation	a guided procedure for sorting and ranking written pieces following a quick, impressionistic reading; reading is often guided by a scoring sheet which describes each feature and identifies the characteristics of high-, middle-, and low-quality papers
Intervention	alternative or supplemental action designed to remediate, reinforce, or support pupil learning relative to specified performance objectives; an instructional action taken when a planned learning activity is judged to be wholly or partially inappropriate for helping a student achieve a desired level of competency
Invented Spelling	the process young writers use to make markings and letters to represent words before they have learned conventional spelling; follows a predictable developmental pattern beginning with sound and moving to sound-symbol relationship' sometimes called temporary spelling
Journal	a notebook in which students collect original writing; may serve many different purposes
Learning Log	a record kept by students of their personal responses to what is occurring in the classroom, including responses to ideas, reading assignments, class discussions, and/or class activities; provides a means for students to become personally involved with the subject and permits teachers to perceive problems that need to be addressed
Legibility	able to be read or deciphered; has handwriting which is neat and readable; erasures and cross-outs seldom occur
Linear	describes an arrangement which proceeds in a fixed, unalterable sequence
Listing (jot listing)	a heuristic or prewriting activity, which involves first making a list of all the ideas, words, and thoughts that come to mind on a given subject
Main Idea	the central thought, meaning, or gist of a passage; the chief topic of a passage expressed or implied in a word or phrase; a statement in sentence form which gives the stated or implied major topic of a passage and the specific way in which the passage is limited in content or reference
Metacognition	the student's own awareness and understanding of the processes and procedures needed to perform certain functions; demonstration of the student's knowledge and evidence that the student recognizes how to use information and monitor progress
Mini-conference	a brief teacher-student conference about the student's writing; focuses on only one or two aspects of the student's writing
Miscue	a reading response that differs from the expected response to the written text; miscues reflect the strengths and weaknesses of the reading strategy of the reader; an analysis of the miscues of individuals may provide information for planning reading instruction
Mnemonic	a device or association used to aid the memory; rhymes make good mnemonics, for example
Monitoring	a process classroom teachers, building administrators, and central office administrators use to evaluate student achievement and the CBE program
Modeling	specific and deliberate behaviors by the teacher to demonstrate processes or procedures to be used by students
Narrative	writing that tells a story; usually expected to include a beginning, middle, and end
Ownership	in writing, the concept that writers own and value their work; others may make suggestions, but writers decide what suggestions to accept and/or reject; in reading, implies engagement with text
Peer-Group Conference	conference in which a group of students meet to discuss their writing; most successful when the group has a specific agenda and a strictly enforced time limit
Peer Editing	students work together to find and correct errors in such areas as spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and word choice
Peer Revising	with another student, revising a composition to improve content, organization, style, tone, unity, clarity, and coherence to suit rhetorical situation, purpose, and audience
Phonics	one of three cueing systems (semantic, syntactic, phonetic) designed to help readers make sense of print; a method of sound analysis; an approach to teaching sound-symbol relationships as a word attack skill; cueing systems are best taught in context, not in isolation
Portfolio	a collection of the student's best or most representative work (understood to include reflection and evaluation
Prewriting	initial stage in the act of writing; refers to activities writers use to generate ideas for writing, such a s brainstorming, researching, drawing, talking, listing, questioning, webbing, and clustering
Process-Based Writing	an instructional approach to teaching writing growing out of reach in the past twenty years; also refers to processes writers engage in as their work progresses from idea to finished piece
Prompt	a writing suggestion or topic, designed to help students focus their writing; an assignment
Purpose	the writer's reason for writing; may include writing to entertain, to persuade, to inform, etc.
Publishing	state in writing that involves making the writing public; in classroom, publishing may include posting writing on bulletin boards, producing class magazines, making an oral presentation, giving a performance, or binding books for the classroom or library
Reading Strategies	those techniques a reader uses when meaning is lost; techniques include such strategies as re-reading, reading on to the end of a sentence, skipping a word, asking for help, etc.
Reading/Writing Center	an area of an elementary classroom devoted to language arts activities; often divided into sections for a class library, audio equipment, child-initiated displays, and writing; also a computer- and/or teacher-assisted area where students at all levels of instruction may go for help with specific reading and writing problems
Revision	the stage in writing during which writers survey what they have written to determine what needs to be added, deleted, or reorganized and whether tone, voice, language choices, and structure are appropriate for the intended audience and purpose
Revision Guide	a handout specifically designed for a piece of writing which makes students focus on pertinent elements of that writing
Schema, pl., Schemata	a conceptual system for understanding something
Self-Assessment	student evaluation of own work; an often overlooked aspect of evaluation
Semantic Cue	evidence from the general sense or meaning of a written or spoken communication that aids in the identification of an unknown word
Story Mapping	the outlining of a story using a format that includes all basic story elements
Summative Evaluation	a measure of student growth which determines program/instruction effectiveness and compares group achievement; measures progress according to a set of criteria
Sustained Silent Reading (SSR)	a period of time during the school day when students in a class or in the entire school read books of their own choosing
Sustained Silent Writing (SSW)	time set aside for the writer to build fluency by drafting without interruption; topics are selected by the writer but may be related to classroom themes or literature being read
Syntactic Cue	evidence from a knowledge of the rules and patterns of language that aids in the identification of an unknown word from the way it is used
Synthesis	one of the upper-level thinking skills identified in Bloom's taxonomy; involves identifying the relationships that exist among two or more ideas
Theme	a major idea, proposition, or topic broad enough to cover the entire scope of a literary or other work of art; may be stated or unstated
Thesis Statement	a single sentence, usually but not always found in the introductory paragraph of an essay, that makes clear the purpose, controlling idea, and direction of the paper
Timed Writing	a heuristic or prewriting activity, in which writers write nonstop for a specified time (5-10 minutes) on a topic they select
Trade Book	a book published for sale to the general public
Voice	the sound of the writer in the writing; the writer's personal style
Webbing	a strategy used for the purposes of developing ideas and organizing them; the major topic is usually centered, with lines drawn to details, subtopics, etc
Writing Folder	collection of student work kept in the classroom over the course of a semester or a year; enables students and teacher to assess the patterns of strengths and weaknesses in students' work and set goals for improvement; may be kept in conjunction with a portfolio