Explains how an exercise for high school or college students can be disguised as a lecture. States that the first step is to have the students write a conversation, and that after this is done, a whole range of writing devices can be demonstrated, including use of characterization, tone, environment, and plot movement. (PA)

Emphasizes classroom study of poetic patterns and images to enable students to see how poems work without overwhelming them with terminology. (MS)

Describes how creating a poem that focuses on memory, understanding, and emotion can lead to the construction of a meditative poem. States that poetry of meditation can be modified for use in almost any writing or literature classroom environment. (PA)

Provides a method for students to involve themselves in the lives of characters from two books, "The Catherine Wheel" and "Love Medicine." Presents writing assignments that actively engage students with these characters who confront emotions in radically different ways. (MS)

Provides a step-by-step approach to teaching students the elements of poetry, such as similes, acrostics, metaphors, and odes. Copies of handouts are included. (HTH)

Describes three exercises which use creative spelling in student-generated advertising, poetry, and dialect. (MM)

Describes a collaborative writing activity, designed to promote free and creative writing, in which groups of students each write one section of a collective short story. (MM)

Presents an assignment in which students use their study of poetry to think critically and write creatively. Describes how students synthesize inferences about a poem to write character monologs based on the poem. (MM)

Describes an activity that develops student writers' individual voices, even when collaborating closely in a writing workshop. Notes that the writing workshop allows students access to each other's writing processes and encourages consensus on revision directions. (MM)

Describes a writing assignment based on a "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode in which an alien sacrifices his life so two cultures can come together. Provides questions for students to answer during the viewing of the episode. Suggests a writing assignment (and several variations) in which students create their own alien. (TB)

Provides eight sequential, process-oriented writing assignments: (1) diagnostic essay, (2) personal account, (3) ghost writing, (4) summary, (5) developing a thesis, (6) exploratory essay, (7) proposal, and (8) final paper. (HTH)

Outlines exercises for high school and college students that use student-written poems, published adult poems, and synectics (a game-like forced comparison between dissimilar objects) to help students understand the writer's most powerful comparison device: metaphor. (SR)