Presents a writing assignment from a class in general semantics in which students write about a personal application of general semantics. Presents a paper submitted by one student. (SR)

Examines several pieces of writing (class assignments as well as writing done outside of school) by the author's 10-year-old daughter. Notes the different kinds of learning promoted in them, and maintains that school writing assignments should be as "real" as possible. (SR)

Presents a student assignment which involves interviewing a family member and then drawing images and writing a description of their advice. Includes completed assignments from two students. (SR)

Argues that through poetry students can give voices to people whose voices usually do not find their ways into their classrooms or textbooks. Discusses poetry and literature, poetry in history, and personalizing poetry. (RS)

Discusses and provides examples of seven types of columns for high school newspapers. (SR)

Discusses the rationale for experimenting with diverse discourse alternatives in writing classrooms. Offers examples of the readings that inspire the author and her students, as well as samples of student essays. (SR)

Reviews briefly how imagery is integral to knowing and thinking, and how perception and reason do indeed reside under the same blanket. Details two college writing assignments that require writers to engage in "imaginal processes" in proportion to their verbal process. (SR)

Examines the writing assignments and instruction in 30 introductory literature textbooks. Finds three types of writing assignments: the "ever popular" critical paper, the expressive paper, and the literary paper. Presents excerpts of student papers to demonstrate that writing on expressive and literary topics can help students see the…

Suggests that awkwardness in writing (like good writing) is an interactive nexus of writer, text, and reader and is a matter of subjective judgment. Argues that awkwardness in student writing is a positive sign of a writer's grappling with language complexity. Concludes that awkwardness is rhetorically motivated and therefore complex but…

Describes a project in which students combined personal narratives, drawings, and Japanese woodblock prints. Includes three examples of students' stories and prints. (SR)

Argues that writing teachers must create an organic curriculum with the language of home and community at its core. Suggests that writing teachers help students examine language features, dialects, and language attitudes in their communities. Notes that such student inquiry influences class discussions and can reshape attitudes toward students'…

The popular "Chicken Soup for the Soul" series of books demonstrates the tremendous desire of people in all walks of life to tell their stories. A professor of reading/language arts methods for students in a program leading to teacher certification reads to his classes every day from a wide variety of materials, including stories from…

In a Purdue University English 101 class, students were told to identify an audience outside the classroom for each paper they wrote. The central challenge to composition teachers is preserving elements valued in teaching academic writing in the context of ill-defined problems to be addressed outside the classroom. Most useful for instructors…

Lev Vygotsky and others have shown that "that which is within" is partly the product of socialization--a welter of competing claims, roles and voices. Teachers should aim, however, to achieve negotiation rather than suppression, transformation, or accommodation among these competing elements. With this in mind, 20 minority students at…

Everyone sees through advertisements, yet no one is immune from their appeal. In a writing class the students were able to look at ads without being injured or seduced by them, but doubted that others could do the same. It is important to encourage students to discuss what they actually think about writings rather than what they are supposed to…