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 heuristic for writing about literature, especially drama and fiction. Questions from the heuristic cover character, plot, setting, and literary devices. (HTH)

Claims that self-evaluation instruments strengthen students' ability to evaluate their own writing and improve writing instruction. Argues that self-evaluation exercises should (1) help students evaluate their writing, (2) demystify teachers' grades, (3) encourage students' awareness as writers, (4) require written responses from student, and (5)…

Offers five tips from writing teachers on writing activities that work well in their classrooms. (SR)

Suggests a method of tapping students' visual literacy to reach four interconnected pedagogical aims by using a brief film segment in conjunction with a series of writings tasks. Offers two additional incentives regarding teacher's knowledge of film and the necessary element of play to keep students engaged. (JK)

Presents sequential approach to writing instruction that draws on power of rhetoric to help students connect with real world. Exercises focus on country's literacy problem and allow students to work with all kinds of discourse in logical sequence while learning to summarize, to analyze their own and their classmates' styles, and to work with…

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)

Includes five teaching suggestions: "From Marvell to Tennyson to Eliot: Or Are You a Prufrock or a Ulysses?" by Bill Shaw; "Attendance and Contact Records," by Kaye E. White; "Viewer Mail," by Paul Hunter; "Electronic Journal," by James W. Smith; "Responding to a Need-for-Advice Question," by John…

Contains one-paragraph descriptions from six college English instructors describing successful lessons and techniques used in the classroom. Covers collaborative teaching with letter writing; notetaking and paraphrasing; a first day ice-breaking activity; a writing development check; linking assignments in basic writing; and a descriptive writing…

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…

Offers a humorous strategy for enlivening composition courses that involves having the students emulate Andy Rooney's writing style. (NKA)

Describes the writing of the formal technical report as a project for students in technical writing courses. Includes grading criteria for such a report. (HTH)

Examines the discrepancy between writing ability in composition classes and poor writing in other classes and suggests exercises that will better prepare composition students for the writing that will be required of them in other courses and in their careers. (HTH)

Presents a more practical orientation for the composition classroom that would allow technical students to demonstrate and improve competency in the realm of technical employment while at the same time improving their written communication skills. (HTH)

Describes a series of exercises the author developed to help college writers identify wordiness, reword, and revise carefully. Notes that these lessons build from simple recognition and repair to writing a 100-word piece. Concludes that many students choose this series of assignments as their favorite semester activity and one that influences how…