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The current study compared the effects of hand raising and response cards during a writing instruction class in a middle-school resource classroom with students who were learning English as their second language. Response cards increased the rate and accuracy of academic responding, increased weekly quiz scores, and had mixed effects on off-task behavior, but most students reported that they preferred hand raising. DESCRIPTORS: ESL services, learning disabilities, response cards Active student responding is a critical component of effective instruction in class-room settings (Heward, 1994). One low-tech strategy developed to facilitate active student responding during group instruction involves the use of response cards. Typically, this approach involves the teacher asking questions during group instruction and hav-ing each student write down his or her an-swers on response cards and then display those responses for teacher feedback and cor-rection (Heward, 1994; Narayan, Heward, Gardner, Courson, & Omness, 1990). The present study sought to extend existing re-search by evaluating the effects of response cards on academic and off-task responding during writing instruction in a resource classroom among students with learning dis-This study is based on a thesis submitted by the first author to the Department of Special Education at the University of Utah for the MS degree. We thank the children and their families for participating in the study and Woody Johnson for his input and guidance during the course of the study. Correspondence and requests for reprints should b