Contains suggestions to improve the quality of secondary social studies students' writing. For example, teachers should stagger expository writing activities over an extended period. The intended audience of the writing should include the student's peers. (RM)

The winning entries in this bulletin were chosen by the Illinois Association of Teachers of English as representing the best prose and poetry in the state for 1977. The 14 winners in the prose diviision were chosen from 357 student entries from 67 schools. The prose covers a variety of writing types including fiction, argumentation, and exposition…

Describes how the four traditional kinds of writing (description, narration, exposition, and argumentation) are used in advertising and suggests ways that advertising and the four modes may be used to teach composition. (DD)

Suggests ways to help students revise their written compositions by teaching them to "see" their work again. (DF)

Included among the 10 commandments for good writing are: (1) Write with verbs and nouns; (2) Write for yourself and other people; (3) Do not write in jargon; (4) Read aloud your writing; (5) Do not write cluttered sentences; and (6) Use concrete words and phrases. (JN)

Describes how a writing teacher has his students write about one object in the four modes (description, narration, argumentation, and exposition) as a means of learning about writing and writing to learn. Suggests that students learn about their topics when they write about them in the four modes. (SR)

Retention of prose is examined as it is affected by (1) outlines as advanced organizers; (2) preexperimental familiarity with the material; and (3) text genre. Findings are discussed in the context of current theories in cognitive psychology, particularly those of structure, organization, and representation of knowledge and prose. (Author/GK)

Suggests that mode of discourse, experiential demand, and gender are significant predictors of writing quality. Finds that narrative writing tasks elicit higher ratings than descriptive or expository; writing tasks requiring personal response (rather than impersonal or outside knowledge) received higher ratings; and quality of writing was more…

Analyzes changes in content and shifts in emphasis in rhetoric texts from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the present. Suggests that the current-traditional approach to the teaching of rhetoric used in most college classrooms has a strong similarity to that advocated by early rhetoricians. (RBW)

Describes steps taken in order to make a contribution to professional literature and the practice of the profession. These steps include research, writing, review, retyping, simmering, final review and submitting. Professional writing should be substantive and scholarly. (JAC)

Maintains that the five-paragraph essay formula confuses and alienates students and undermines the basic goals of writing instruction. Advocates developing a repertoire of alternatives for teaching form. Suggests that using the metaphor of the essay as journey is one such teaching alternative. (SR)

Suggests the importance of George Orwell's "1984" for today's students and recommends specific analytic and descriptive writing activities to develop critical reading skills. (MM)

This paper describes an experimental exploration of special procedures used in a game-like online expository writing experience that was designed to help preservice language arts teachers develop descriptive writing skills. Participants were asked to describe a target picture within a picture set to their cohorts in an online discussion in order…

Analyzes the different types of texts that can be used in the teaching of Italian as a foreign language. Based on their communicative function, the texts are divided into the following categories: description, narration, instruction, argumentation, and exposition. Grids with examples of each type of text are included. (CFM)

Outlines an integrated study approach to informational writing for second grade children. Using dinosaurs as the topic, discusses how students solved the problem of selecting, organizing, and structuring their information by focusing on smaller pieces of information or by planning a contents page for their book. (MM)