To teach effective business communication, instructors must target students’ current weaknesses in writing. One method for doing so is by assigning writing exercises. When used heuristically, writing exercises encourage students to practice self-assessment, self-evaluation, active learning, and knowledge transfer, all while reinforcing the basics…

Suggests metaphor is a linguistic tool for discovering meaning and a fundamental form of understanding. Recommends instructing students to produce and analyze extended metaphors by composing biographical portraits. (MS)

A student's fear of giving oral reports and the instructor's objection to using too much class time on oral reports are often seen as the major barriers that prevent an oral communication unit from being included in a business or management communications course. One approach to easing both concerns is the use of videotaping as a self-discovery…

Appraises the computer as a prewriting aid. Evaluates both the quality and quantity of ideas produced by various invention techniques and programs, and compares results of similar studies by Hugh Burns and Helen Schwartz. (NKA)

Outlines the steps a college composition instructor can take to help students connect the idea relationships in a reading selection or in a writing assignment. The steps are based on a conceptual strategy known as semantic mapping or semantic networking. (SRT)

Imaging, or disciplined daydreaming, can be used in the composition class to expose students to their innate creativity, lessen writing anxiety, refresh memories before writing of personal experiences, and make impersonal subjects, such as historical events, vital and personal. Teachers can construct a classroom imaging session (which takes about…

Noting that students in groups learn more effectively when working cooperatively than when working competitively or individualistically, presents guidelines, assignments, and class activities designed to foster cooperative learning. Describes such student-student interaction sessions as describing sense perception details, receiving peer feedback,…

Gives recommendations for sequencing writing assignments in courses structured by genre or definition, by chronology, and by theme. (CRH)

Describes how consistent focused and sequenced freewriting with sequenced procedures for moving from it to additional writing leads students to more effective writing. (CHR)

Posing as an avuncular letter writer, the author discusses the problems faced by first-time teachers teaching fourth-grade composition. Proposes exercises to motivate children to write, communication inspiring ways to arrange classroom environment, guided free-writing assignments, and heuristics prompts for writing a fairy tale. (JG)

The integration of content area writing instruction into the history curriculum has been a slow process. A history course at Ohio University (Athens) offers students experience in writing the type of materials written by practicing historians: book reviews, journal articles, and articles for encyclopedias and biographical dictionaries. Such short…

Numbers 1 through 5 of the 1982 TECFORS newsletter include these articles: "A Comprehensive ESL Reading Program" (Carol Qazi); "The Purpose of the Passive" (Virginia French Allen); "'Standards' Seconded" (Timothy H. Robinson); "Vocabulary and the College-Bound International Student" (Parts 1-3) (Kerry Segel); "Using Invention Heuristics to Teach…

Sentence combining is a powerful tool for structuring information and can be used effectively throughout the composing process. The teaching of composition can integrate into the composing process a number of concepts, including the use of heuristics, intellectual strategies, organizing principles, and sentence combining. A useful model for the…