For beginning college students, effective paraphrasing is the most difficult of the research-writing skills they must learn and demonstrate. Many students understand summarizing, and the frequent appearance of unwieldy block quotations in their essays suggests their preference for using a source's exact words. But the art of paraphrasing escapes…

Describes a method for teaching writing in which a series of passages are rewritten by the student, altered by progressively difficult transformations and manipulations, as an alternative to grammar instruction. (HTH)

Describes a freshman composition class in which students write essays about pollution. Explains that students classified and divided problems, cited examples, explored pollution's processes, used narrative, and offered comparisons. Describes how students prepared cause-and-effect oral presentations and then wrote persuasive letters. Concludes that…

Describes a writing exercise with the "Oxford English Dictionary" that teaches students about research and attention to detail. Describes how the exercise, which involves the student in a set of serial tasks, makes students comfortable with the OED, teaches them how to extract full details of any word, and teaches students to take…

Presents five short teaching tips written by five different authors on the following topics: newspapers, writing exercises for aspiring elementary school teachers, telephone directory as research tool, structured essay assignments, and teaching description with Raymond Carver's "Cathedral." (TB)

Argues that careful assignment scaffolding combined with substantial training and ample opportunities for peer collaboration can make response groups a highly successful classroom practice. Describes what happened when some inexperienced students participated in peer response groups. Describes revisions that students made in their writing. (TB)

Addresses both pedagogical and logistical concerns and objections to writing-across-the-curriculum programs in introductory content-area courses. Explains how instructors may use writing to help students master course content and how instructors can create a classroom structure to ease the pressure on themselves to respond to student drafts. (TB)