A fifth-grade school teacher discusses the usefulness of brainstorming as a prewriting activity and illustrates how she used this activity with her students. (MP)

Semantic mapping is offered as a prewriting strategy to help students (of all ages) with hearing impairments organize and structure their writing. Semantic mapping can offer these students a visual access to the writing process. (DB)

A practical guide to establish an early writing program begins in kindergarten with children dictating a story that a teacher or parent volunteer records on paper. In first grade, 30 minutes are set aside for writing. Additional ways are suggested to infuse writing activities into every subject in a child's schooling. (MLF)

Outlines the characteristics of policy and procedure manuals. Focuses on some of the difficulties in writing these: (1) maintaining legality; (2) maintaining accuracy and consistency; (3) finding an appropriate style; and (4) handling the review and approval process. (JAD)

Describes methods for organizing and developing booklets of technical articles emphasizing engineering innovations, used as a marketing tool by corporate sales divisions. (JAD)

The article describes an approach by which word processing helps to solve some of the writing problems of learning disabled students. Aspects considered include prewriting, drafting, revising, and completing the story. (CL)

Writing strategies encourage beginning writers to collect, explore, and focus ideas. This paper presents a rationale for fusing the word processor with the writing process and offers a series of pre-writing strategies, such as brainstorming, clustering and chunk writing, to help learning-disabled writers begin writing. (Author/PB)

Presents some general principles about using computers in writing instruction. Describes several categories of computer software, including word processing, pre-writing programs, revision tools, text analysis, and tutorials. Answers several questions commonly asked about computer programs in writing instruction. (MM)

Writing of quality resumes and resume alternatives can be taught using a curriculum called "Write Into a Job." In the prewriting process, students develop lists of words describing their abilities and skills, write proofs, and read sample resumes. Students then write skill statements, develop them into draft resumes, and edit. (JDD)

As an orientation to the actual composition process, learning-disabled students should be taught methods for the development and organization of ideas. Strategies are presented for helping learning-disabled students improve composition skills by improving flexibility in vocabulary and sentence structure and by planning and sequencing ideas and/or…

In craft training, children are taught preschool skills as they create art projects with an adult. By creating toys, pictures, and other projects from readily available materials, children become involved in cooking, coloring, cutting, drawing, gluing, and beginning writing. The first rule of craft training is to let the child do the work of…

To illustrate ways that students might generate ideas for writing, this article presents a list of 20 suggestions for using prewriting to explore fiction, along with 8 guidelines for teachers to use in responding to students' writing. (43 references) (LB)

The creative writing process, like any writing process, begins with a prewriting activity. Story starters are one such activity which teachers can use to begin the creative writing process with their students. For example, large cartoon-like characters made on an opaque projector can be used to initiate discussion. The second step requires a…

Describes how a teacher-as-researcher project led the author to create more opportunities for remedial high school students to "talk out" their writing as a prewriting exercise. (MM)

This article presents a three-stage writing process designed to enhance the writing skills of gifted students, increase their engagement in the subject matter, and provide a greater degree of understanding of the content area. The stages are referred to as prewriting, writing, and rewriting. (JDD)