Syntactic complexity has long been used to gauge language learners' performance, proficiency, and development, offering language teachers valid recommendations for syllabus design and materials development. Progress in syntactic complexity research foreshadows the imperative of measuring syntactic features at a high level of granularity, which…

This article describes one MSW program's innovative and informed response to the pervasive problem of inadequate professional writing skills. We articulate the rationale, implementation, and assessment of our systemic response, which includes (a) requiring a professional writing course, (b) implementing curricular infusion of a standard writing…

Describes a summer writing course by presenting a diary embellished with writing exercises, a course guide, a list of writing activities that can be taken as starters, and assessments. Discusses how each participant is asked to create a text about a city which has a considerable visual presence, and to explore stereotypical and mythical versions…

Discusses how a high school English teacher expanded the audiences for her students' writing by developing an advanced senior writing seminar and using portfolios, peer evaluation, and parent participation. Notes that a community formed and was held together by mutual respect. (RS)

In this article, the authors argue that evaluation courses grounded in assessment theory and situated within a cultural context of actual workplace practices enhances student learning. Giving students the tools that assessors, both formal and informal, use helps them learn to anticipate and generate those tools for writing situations they will…

Developed and put together by the Department of Humanities at Umpqua Community College (UCC) in Roseburg, Oregon, this booklet is intended to clarify (for students, faculty, staff, advisers, and community) the specific function and scope of the writing courses offered in the department. The booklet offers an overview of the department's general…

Combining three strategies, a composition instructor has attempted to bridge the gap between peer response and teacher expectation in the first-year writing course taught at Florida State University. The focus is on writing that is exploratory and based on personal experience. The instructor: (1) establishes a criteria for producing and evaluating…

Designed for use by technical and vocational education teachers, this monograph describes techniques for combining writing across the curriculum strategies with reading and study skills approaches. The teaching and classroom techniques presented were developed as part of the Writing and Reading in the Technologies (WRIT) project undertaken by a…