This paper examines technical writing at the high school level and suggests methods of teaching technical writing to students. Such topics are discussed as demonstration, mechanism description, causal analysis, detail, spatial order, and chronological order. It is argued that writing about objects can sharpen a writer's powers of observation and…

Suggests ways to help students revise their written compositions by teaching them to "see" their work again. (DF)

Describes the use of Tarot cards to help students achieve clarity in descriptive writing and learn how to interpret symbols. (TJ)

Describes how writing character descriptions of "The Cosby Show" is effective for discussing universal family problems and teaching positive values and standards. (MM)

Designed to combine the science and the art of teaching composition, this series of assignments encourages junior high and high school writing students to explore tone, original visual images, point of view, and other literary techniques. One assignment asks students to write a number of paragraphs alternately using sarcasm, humor, melancholy, and…

Teaching writing on the basis of purposes has certain advantages over teaching on the basis of techniques. The primary advantage is the greater resemblance to "real writing." Most student writing is apprentice work, as students themselves know, but it is far easier to point to nonacademic analogues of the categories of purpose (definition,…

This document outlines an approach to secondary school composition instruction, using wordless picture books. Specific published textless books are discussed as aids in stimulating imagination, tapping the need for sense impressions, developing sequences of events, teaching transition and the passage of time, demonstrating point of view, making…

Students can be taught to create vivid, colorful descriptions. To train their senses and sharpen their word choices and images, they can be asked to (1) list specific adjectives to describe such an image-producing word as "ocean," (2) substitute sharply-etched verbs for general ones in a given sentence, (3) record day-to-day observations in a…

Students can learn to write verse by (1) perceiving that poetic materials are inside and all around them and making lists of items that appeal to their senses, (2) organizing their material through the use of imagery, (3) experimenting with various meters, particularly the ballad stanza, until they can arrange words in rhythmic patterns (4)…

Journal writing can motivate students to write frequently, thereby creating content which can later be properly structured. Students who keep journals tend to write better than those who do not. To help students explore certain ideas in journals further, teachers should ask questions or make statements that relate to the students' ideas. Sometimes…

Recommends a series of sense exploration exercises to help students develop more adequate descriptive writing. (TJ)

Maintains that the five-paragraph essay formula confuses and alienates students and undermines the basic goals of writing instruction. Advocates developing a repertoire of alternatives for teaching form. Suggests that using the metaphor of the essay as journey is one such teaching alternative. (SR)

The poetry unit presented in this paper is designed to teach high school students how to write poetry through personal observation, journal writing, and small group discussion. Using the unit, students progress through the stages of writing according to the following steps: observing a familiar person and noting words and phrases about that…

An approach to teaching expository writing and research in support of that approach are presented in this book. The first section of the book discusses writing from given information, a technique by which teachers give students collections of nonverbal data (charts, graphs, maps, and other pictorial information) that the students must organize in…

AN EFFECTIVE AND PLEASANT THERAPEUTIC EFFECT CAN BE PRODUCED BY ENCOURAGING EMOTIONALLY-DISTURBED ADOLESCENTS TO LOOK AT, WORK WITH, AND WRITE UNRESTRICTEDLY ABOUT NATURAL BEAUTY. THEIR OCCASIONAL UNRESPONSIVENESS IS CHANGED TO WILLINGNESS AND THEIR CREATIVE EFFORTS ARE RE-DIRECTED FROM EXPRESSIONS OF FEAR AND DESPAIR AS THEY OBSERVE COLORFUL…