Argues that children want to write and enjoy writing and that teachers need to provide them with suitable opportunities for doing so. Discusses different kinds of writing that allow children's voices to come through. (FL)

Designed to meet the fundamental state standards and reform agreed upon by educators, this book, with its unique approach to writing, offers teachers an essential resource to spark creativity and skillful writing in all students. Each chapter in the book begins with a question, giving students a hands-on opportunity to explore a specific writing…

Explains the microthemes technique, which involves students responding to assignments chosen to emphasize various forms of writing and thinking with written products no larger than 5 x 8 inch note cards. Reviews four types of microthemes used at Montana State University, explaining the activity and the writing and thinking skills developed. (DMM)

This article describes an activity to generate interest in writing and ownership of the learning experience by students with learning disabilities. An object is placed in a bag, a volunteer describes the item by feeling it, students draw the item, and students then discuss the importance of expressing ideas clearly. (JDD)

An experiment in which students were required to keep journals during a civil engineering course is described. Student benefits (journals as problem-solving tools and forums for personal comments), faculty benefits (sources of background information and use as evaluation/recordkeeping tools), and five major conclusions are discussed. (JN)

Seeking to involve students more actively in their writing assignments, two teachers developed a group of sequential writing assignments with an interdisciplinary emphasis for students in an advanced writing course. The goal of these writing assignments was to give students who had solved most of their mechanical writing problems a chance to…

The brain-flow writing technique, which might also be called the "fast flow" technique, offers a particularly useful means of helping adults overcome writer's block. It also offers some bonuses in the form of enhanced creativity, improved thought-flow, and much faster writing output. There are six steps to brain-flow writing. In the…

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,…

This book, part of a series which serve as guides for K-12 teachers who are striving to align lively, classroom-tested practices with standards, gathers together brief articles spotlighting suggestions for effective instruction. Beginning with activities that help students think through the audience and purpose for their writing, this book offers…

Focusing on techniques for teaching students to integrate diverse ideas at a deep level of cognitive processing, a study evaluated an idea integration package for teaching writing in the college classroom. Subjects, 29 college students from an introductory psychology class at a Utah university, were divided into two groups. The integration group…

Sixth grade students can use cinquain poems to explore language, learn grammar, and write creatively. Before learning about cinquains, students should be introduced to simpler poetic forms. To introduce cinquains, the teacher writes a simple example on the board and has the students informally figure out the parts of speech and grammatical…

This book, part of a series which serve as guides for K-12 teachers who are striving to align lively, classroom-tested practices with standards, gathers together brief articles spotlighting suggestions for effective instruction. The organization and the contents of this book on motivating writing suggest an intriguing profile of how middle school…

Based on the authors' classroom work and observations since the 1930s, this book is intended to help teach children to write correctly and, at the same time, help them learn to enjoy writing so much that they will want to continue writing throughout their lives. The book offers classroom teachers, school library media specialists, curriculum…

Intended for teachers in all content areas, this guide provides activities for teaching formula poetry (poetry written according to a defined format) in all subject areas. First, a rationale for why teachers should include writing in their classrooms is presented. Next, the stages of the writing process are explained and the benefits of formula…

The classroom-tested ideas for teaching writing described in this booklet are based on the beliefs that writing is a teachable skill, that it is a process with constituent steps, and that students need evaluation at each stage of writing. Following an introduction that identifies eight steps in the writing process and discusses class organization,…