Use formative assessment to dramatically improve your students' writing. In "Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment", educator and international speaker Harry G. Tuttle shows you how to guide middle and high school students through the prewriting, writing, and revision processes using formative assessment techniques that work.…

Encouraging students' use of satire, irony, and parody in college writing assignments is recommended to help students voice their concerns, think critically, and discover how a form of discourse contributes to both form and substance of the writing. Samples of student work illustrating the effectiveness of this approach are offered. (MSE)

A rhetorical analysis procedure assists upper-division students in any academic field to learn how to read, interpret, and evaluate disciplinary arguments, and how to communicate this thoroughly and thoughtfully in a well integrated essay. In a warm-up exercise, the class discusses a representative article, research study, or essay in the…

Presents an activity for upper-elementary students that correlates the actions of archaeologists, patrons, and artists with the sequencing of events in a logical order. Features ancient Egyptian art images. Discusses the preparation of materials, motivation, a pre-writing activity, and writing a story in sequence. (CMK)

Describes an art lesson that focuses on developing second-grade students' basic computer drawing skills. Explains that the students created a picture using shapes and copied their artworks onto the computer using a stylus. States that the students also wrote a story to accompany their computer pictures. (CMK)

This paper suggests that composition instructors must prepare their students for the ways in which the Information Superhighway affects professional and academic communication. Students must now be proficient in techniques of composing such as hypertext and the recursive writing process to perform various writing and research tasks as a…

A grid system designed to help students and other writers exploit familiar forms of discourse for better thinking and composing is outlined. The technique helps link topic and discourse form innovatively, promotes understanding of the contextual character of every writing task, and can encourage students to read in order to master writing…

Contends that geography teachers are always looking for ways to excite their students while engaging them in geographic skills development. Describes using "Wanted Posters" as a springboard to geographic learning in middle schools. Includes sources for obtaining wanted posters from government and social service agencies. (CFR)

On the premise that a variety of reading and writing activities will help students develop their thinking skills, this paper offers seven class activities intended to encourage the development of formal and advanced thinking in junior and senior high school students. The activities, intended as basic activities which teachers can adapt to their…

This paper describes the rationale and purpose of a library assignment (suitable for 100- and 200-level communication courses) designed to expose students to concepts about communication research. The assignment encourages students to explore the library, enhances their understanding of the research process and scholarly journals, helps them…

In this lesson, students will explore daily life in the 13 original British colonies and its influences in the late 1700s for two families in different colonies--Delaware and Massachusetts. The lesson asks students to become historical detectives and learn to gather information from artifacts and make inferences about the lives and time they…

Maintains that writing is one of the most important skills students can acquire. Asserts that social studies teachers can help students learn the writing process through a variety of written formats, such as essays, diary writing, and letter writing. Describes a classroom activity using letters and editorials. (CFR)

An experiment sought to determine the effectiveness of a program for improving achievement among black seventh and eighth grade social studies students. The aim was to develop a media center service program that would support school district efforts to provide educational and support services for the black male. An audiovisual tutoring program…