The importance of direct explicit instruction in secondary schools has been shown to improve student learning outcomes across the curriculum. The question then becomes one of whether adapting direct explicit instruction in post-secondary institutions would have the same impact on student grades. Graham and Perin (2007) identified eleven elements…

Whether novice or experienced, writers must come to terms with the daunting task of filling up a blank page, or screen, in an effort to produce writing. Student writers are no different. They enter teachers' classes having confronted similar difficulties with discovering what it is they want to say. In seeking to help students, they devote…

Urges teachers to keep reading and writing alive in the classroom by assigning a variety of books, including the classics, and by integrating written responses with the reading assignments. (DD)

Fifteen writing instructors report their favorite ways of getting students to write. (RL)

Describes cultural studies as a framework for analysis and critique, not a political agenda. Shows how the author has used cultural studies as a way to get his students to write intelligent, reflective papers about topics that interest them. (SR)

Argues that the use of editing in the classroom involves the students in restructuring, revision, and rethinking as well as correction, extension, and deletion. (HOD)

Argues that writing instruction should lead student writers to find their voice in their writing and that this will only happen if they write often for personal purposes and personal expression. (SR)

Describes a writing assignment based on a teacher-created scenario in which students discover a box (when visiting their grandmother's sister) containing a number of strange items including a written proposal for marriage. (TB)

Argues that, after students are familiar with the characteristics of the five paragraph essay and the expectations of that genre, they can learn to play with those expectations to create lively writing that reveals more individual voice by mixing in other genres. Argues that such a strategy can teach students to engage in academic writing more…

The 1,175 composition topics that appear in this special edition of the "Illinois English Bulletin" are suggested as possibilities for high school student writing assignments. After a brief statement about how secondary English teachers might use the topics in their classes, the topics are categorized by subject matter and types of composition.…

Argues that asking students to write in concrete images about specific events and places serves to emphasize the importance of writing from detailed personal experiences. (RL)

Offers four evaluative questions for revising writing assignments into vehicles that steadily move students toward writing fluency. (RL)

Defines the ballad as the link between the written and the sung. Explains that ballad meter is made of quatrains that alternate between four-stress and three-stress lines, and contain an "abcb" or "abab" rhyme scheme. Notes that ballads are mnemonic devices and tell stories. Discusses modern balladeers and describes ballad writing assignments. (PM)

Describes one teacher's difficulty in getting his eighth-grade students to revise their writing. Discusses his successful use of writing "skeletons" to help define what revision is and to teach a structure for one type of revision. (SR)

Discusses a writing assignment in which students write biographies comprised of literary genres such as dialogues, poems, newspaper articles, obituaries, songs, and letters. (RS)