Courses: This activity can be used in writing-based (communication) courses across various disciplines including, but not limited to, introduction to writing and rhetoric, business communication, and communication research methods. Objectives: On completion of this activity, students will develop critical reading, thinking, and writing skills as…

In the English classroom, narrative writing is often separated from the work of reading literature or used merely to coax reluctant students into discussing textually relevant topics. This article discusses a close writing activity, Image Explosion, that engages students in narrative writing that brings attention to the smallest details of…

In this article, the author shares how a simple writing assignment sharpens students' minds and challenges their biases. He asks his students to go find a place on campus where they can comfortably sit down, a place where anybody associated with the school can go and without leaving this spot to write for 30 minutes, nonstop, about everything they…

Describes a three-part exercise used in a first semester freshman composition class, intended to show students the world of details in even the most ordinary, everyday objects by having students write about a plastic coffee mug. (SR)

Describes a writing assignment useful for high school and college students in which students ponder, discuss, and write about collecting, collectors, and the human impulse to collect. Includes some samples of student writing. (SR)

Writing instructors who would like to move beyond the collaboration provided by workshops and peer-response groups might consider asking groups of students to write a collage together. According to Peter Elbow, a collage "consists not of a single perfectly connected train of explicit thinking or narrative but rather of fragments: arranged how…

Suggests using jump-roping rhymes and rhythms as an energetic way to guide students to a basic understanding of poetic principles. (MS)

Describes a program designed to familiarize students with library research methods. (FL)

Teachers teach literature to help students expand and develop their image-making powers, "to imagine, conceive, fancy, picture," to think. To get students involved in literature, especially poetry, Robert Frost's poem, "The Witch of Coos," is particularly useful because it is so immediately accessible. In order to help engage…

Describes an approach to composition instruction in which the students are given a body of real or fictional evidence about a particular case and asked to interpret or explain it by means of a closely-reasoned argument. (HTH)

Discusses a method that reinforces and monitors "correct" writing and editing, reviews the rhetoric for "effective" writing, and demonstrates how specific technical writing tasks fit into an engineer's everyday writing. An example of a technical writing task used in sophomore engineering classes is included. (JN)

Discusses a degree requirement of a Bachelor of Management Studies program at a New Zealand University: the writing of an investigative report for a company or government department. (AEA)

"Revision: Who, Why? How?" is a four-part article consisting of a "test" on revision, an explanation of revision tactics, three forms for writing revision, and five sample papers for classroom use. (Author)

Reports on a study of errors made in dictation exercises (German as a foreign language, Hamburg University). Notes that aural misunderstandings lead to erroneous original interpretations which distort the message of the text. Calls for caution and further research on the use of dictation. (IFS/WGA)

Describes a writing exercise which helps students understand the distinction between mere proofreading and actual revision. (MM)