Provides activities for teaching the skill of comparison using various parts of newspapers. (SRT)

Describes several patterned language books useful in helping students overcome writing apprehension by supplying them with the form, so that all they have to do is provide the creative ideas. (RS)

Explains how to "carve" a text, rearranging or omitting words without altering the basic message. Notes that this exercise helps students become aware of how language can be manipulated for meaning. (MM)

Describes the Semantic Analysis to Writing (SAW) framework in which students engage in a modified semantic features analysis of thematic words in a story, identify specific story events that relate to the definition they are constructing, and organize the material for a written response by ranking the supporting evidence. (RS)

Describes Sustained Silent Reading and Writing (SSRW), in which students write nonstop for five minutes about that day's silent reading. Notes that students using this strategy begin to use metacognitive strategies to increase their comprehension and make evaluative comments on what they read. (RS)

Discusses the rationale for integrating writing in beginning literacy instruction, describes several successful writing activities, and includes recommendations for adult literacy educators. (AEA)

Describes a Silent Directed Thinking Activity that was based on an abridged version of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado" and used with eighth-grade remedial classes. (HOD)

Results on a multiple choice vocabulary test and a final essay writing activity suggest that teaching vocabulary as a writing prompt was more successful than more traditional forms. (RAE)

Describes (1) an activity in which students act out a courtroom drama involving their favorite literary characters; and (2) an activity in which older remedial readers improvise short plays of dramatic conflict based on stories they have read, tape record them, and then edit the transcripts. (ARH)

Contributors offer a writing activity that can help students sharpen their awareness of how authors structure stories, and a scale that can serve as a guide to content area teachers for textbook selection. (HOD)

Presents methods to stimulate students to use their background knowledge in reading content area texts. Offers a technique to teach students common text structures by having them write to a model. (FL)

Suggests ways of using the newspaper to improve students' reading and writing abilities and increase their knowledge of the world. (ARH)

Outlines the steps a college composition instructor can take to help students connect the idea relationships in a reading selection or in a writing assignment. The steps are based on a conceptual strategy known as semantic mapping or semantic networking. (SRT)

Provides teachers with instructions on effectively using student journals in classes at all levels. Gives examples of different types of personal writing students can engage in, suggests ways to respond to them, and lists benefits of and reservations about using journals in writing classes. (SKC)

Describes a procedure for peer editing in a junior high school writing workshop in which sentences of the work to be edited were copied onto individual pieces of paper and rearranged by each peer reviewer. States that differences were noted and the author chose which order to adopt. (RS)