Writing is the highest form of thinking, as evidenced by neuroimaging that shows how more neural networks are activated simultaneously during writing than during any other cognitive activity. This book will help teachers understand how the brain learns to write by unveiling 15 stages of thinking that underpin the writing process, along with…

This article presents the process approach as an effective way of teaching braille writing to young children who are blind. The writing process used in the primary grades establishes a foundation for development of future literacy skills, and instills enthusiasm and confidence in children approaching the complex task of braille writing.…

Presents a nine-step program for reviving a school's teaching of writing, including gaining faculty participation, compiling a bibliography, getting participants' descriptions of effective methods of teaching writing, and having participants present workshops built on doing, looking at, and learning from their teaching methods. Provides a…

This article presents a writing process wheel that has been designed as a task-specific tool for assisting teachers of students with learning disabilities to develop writing competence. The wheel displays five writing stages (prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publication) in a circular fashion with appropriate activities for each stage.…

Presents desirable teaching behaviors that can help teachers provide effective instruction in writing and deal with all three stages of the composing process. (FL)

Argues that comparing developments in the process approach to writing and the design methods movement sheds light on the evolution and future direction of the writing paradigm. Argues that sensitivity to the variety of writing tasks and social contexts is more effective than a single amorphous model. (RS)

Describes the efforts of one teacher-researcher to explore the effectiveness of different peer response strategies in the writing class. Notes that teacher-researcher projects can help to develop and assess writing curricula in ways that are outside the scope of specialists and external evaluators. (MM)

Explains how the Sophistic tradition, an alternative to the Platonic-Aristotelian rhetorical tradition, provides the historical foundation for a paralogic rhetoric that treats discourse production and analysis as open-ended dialogic activities and not as a codifiable system. Argues that teachers must examine the powerful paralogic/hermeneutic…

Argues that, although Peter Elbow's and David Bartholomae's pedagogies attempt in different ways to authorize students to write, both rely on the experience and resistance to language as the primary means of empowerment. Suggests that Elbow and Bartholomae must continually defer authority, keeping it suspended between experience and its…

Describes using meditation to write with greater concentration, continuity, and depth, at any level of writing skill. Describes how to consciously cultivate the ability to focus, follow, and trace ideas through writing. (SR)

This article identifies flaws within current writing programs for gifted and talented students and lists necessary content, process, and product modifications, all of which can be implemented in either pull-out programs or regular classrooms. Recent literature on writing instruction reform is reviewed. (Author/PB)

The 1982 writing objectives presented in this booklet were developed in preparation for the fourth assessment of writing conducted by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The objectives are based on the premise that individuals write for a purpose and an audience, and each objective serves as a section of the booklet. The first…

The theoretical bases of process-oriented approaches for teaching writing to mildly handicapped students are described. Instructional features of such approaches include opportunities for sustained writing, establishment of a writing community, student selection of topics, modeling of the writing process and strategic thinking, reflective thinking…

Argues that the metaphor of writing as cognitive mapping can serve not as a basis for a new model or theory of writing, but as an attitudinal guide for concerns with writing and instruction. Notes that the term "cognitive mapping" suggests that the mental world can be seen metaphorically as a physical world. (RS)

Four principles are presented for teaching children, across age and grade levels, to write and enjoy writing: interrelating literature and writing, teaching writing as an intellectual rather than a mechanical process, emphasizing process over product, and teaching writing as a holistic process rather than a set of isolated skills. (PB)