Presents a procedural model for use as a prewriting strategy to help students "decenter" or distance themselves from their writing and avoid the generalities that characterize egocentric writing. The model provides opposing viewpoints in a student's analysis of problems or issues. (HTH)

Presents a writing exercise which involves students in their own and their peers' writing. Claims validity in that it personifies one of the most persistent blocks to expression--the inner critic which causes the writer to reject too soon and discriminate too severely. (RAE)

Adapts Edward de Bono's "Intermediate Impossible" strategy--for considering ideas that normally would be discarded as stepping-stones to new ideas--for use as a prewriting activity to enhance creative problem solving. (HTH)

Presents a simple writing assignment, composing an anthology, in which students have some control over their learning and gain confidence, enabling them to approach class discussions with more personal involvement and leading them to find more for themselves in poetry. (RAE)

Describes how generating effective advertising copy affords students practice in aspects of persuasive writing, such as developing a thesis, refuting counter-arguments, and writing in a comparison-contrast mode. Notes that this approach helps students negotiate the problematic shift from expressive to persuasive discourse without losing their…

Suggests a set of sequenced writing assignments based on language use. Argues that language study involves learning how to observe as much as observing something particular. (MS)

Describes a teaching unit designed to help students discover the interaction of writer, subject, and audience. Reviews the major types of writing used in the unit and the various audiences for whom the students wrote. (FL)

Describes a six-phase writing assignment for ESL students to help them grasp the concept of an audience beyond the writing instructor. (HTH)

Offers a series of exercises designed to facilitate both discovery of content and its development into a written draft. (FL)

Presents step-by-step instructions to help developmental writing students write a cohesive essay by combining individually written paragraphs. (HTH)

Offers an activity for use in helping students become aware of the importance of voice in writing and reading. (FL)

Describes a writing assignment in which students must complete a page of coherent prose using only one word containing the letter "n." The exercise serves as a prelude to the concepts of revision and of passive and active vocabularies. (HTH)

Explains how journal writing, taught with some direction, can guide students' writing and provide them with a sense of self-discovery. (HOD)

Provides a rationale for allowing students to write in journals that the teacher will never read. Suggests requiring students to write responses to their journal writing at the end of the semester, which would be shared with the teacher and the rest of the class. Includes a sample response. (HTH)

Describes assignments that integrate ideas from student journals into expository and deliberate essays. (HOD)