Seven methods for helping students find theme topics are presented in this document. The methods include the following: setting up a library browsing table of records, books, and criticism related to the work of literature that is being studied; permitting students to choose topics based on observation of the surrounding community or reactions to…

Presents a writing exercise which stimulates college freshmen's imaginations and suits adolescents' interest in a favorite subject for composition--themselves. (JM)

Suggests ways to help students revise their written compositions by teaching them to "see" their work again. (DF)

Presents two teaching methods that lend structure to the teaching of poetry writing. (MAI)

Describes the use of Tarot cards to help students achieve clarity in descriptive writing and learn how to interpret symbols. (TJ)

Students should be encouraged and taught how to write more effectively. This may be accomplished by involving them in two types of writing--the journal and the essay. The student is encouraged to record in his journal what he did and thought during the day, regardless of the trivialities. The journal is never evaluated by the instructor unless the…

Presents a method that enables students to become aware of nonverbal communication and to incorporate it into their descriptive writing. (TJ)

Teaching writing on the basis of purposes has certain advantages over teaching on the basis of techniques. The primary advantage is the greater resemblance to "real writing." Most student writing is apprentice work, as students themselves know, but it is far easier to point to nonacademic analogues of the categories of purpose (definition,…

This document outlines an approach to secondary school composition instruction, using wordless picture books. Specific published textless books are discussed as aids in stimulating imagination, tapping the need for sense impressions, developing sequences of events, teaching transition and the passage of time, demonstrating point of view, making…

Students can be taught to create vivid, colorful descriptions. To train their senses and sharpen their word choices and images, they can be asked to (1) list specific adjectives to describe such an image-producing word as "ocean," (2) substitute sharply-etched verbs for general ones in a given sentence, (3) record day-to-day observations in a…

Students can learn to write verse by (1) perceiving that poetic materials are inside and all around them and making lists of items that appeal to their senses, (2) organizing their material through the use of imagery, (3) experimenting with various meters, particularly the ballad stanza, until they can arrange words in rhythmic patterns (4)…

Writing an interview paper provides students with a contextual framework for research inquiry because it helps them to identify and develop their own conceptual and investigative skills through dialogue with another person. Before the actual interview, it is important to choose a subject to interview and to organize the background material, to set…

Journal writing can motivate students to write frequently, thereby creating content which can later be properly structured. Students who keep journals tend to write better than those who do not. To help students explore certain ideas in journals further, teachers should ask questions or make statements that relate to the students' ideas. Sometimes…

Recommends a series of sense exploration exercises to help students develop more adequate descriptive writing. (TJ)

Francis Christensen's Rhetoric Program stresses narrative-descriptive and expository writing, and offers a guide for the structure of the paragraph. In this approach, students develop their composition skills by writing sentences similar to model sentences that Christensen has extracted from the works of successful writers. The basic model is the…