Intended for junior high and high school writing instructors, this booklet provides prewriting activities designed to help students master the thinking strategies essential to effective written communication. The first portion of the booklet discusses theory and research on the role of thinking strategies in writing and gives an overview of the…

Although sentence combining practice has been shown to be an effective instructional technique for improving students' writing, scant attention has been paid to the appropriate sequence for such instruction. Studies of the natural development of oral and written language point out two general trends that should be considered in sequencing sentence…

Research in secondary school composition instruction indicates that (1) emphasis on writing for the teacher-as-examiner is prevalent, (2) prewriting activities are limited, (3) there is little discussion of approaches to the topic or what information should be included, and (4) activities to help students while they are writing are almost…

Provides eight sequential, process-oriented writing assignments: (1) diagnostic essay, (2) personal account, (3) ghost writing, (4) summary, (5) developing a thesis, (6) exploratory essay, (7) proposal, and (8) final paper. (HTH)

With support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, writing teachers at three central Illinois high schools, a community college, and Illinois State University (ISU) are addressing the problem of getting composition teachers to cooperate in developing long range curricula and sharing actual classroom practices through a collaborative…

A sequential series of writing assignments designed and tested for a tenth grade writing workshop through the cooperative efforts of college and technical high school English teachers is discussed in this paper. Twelve assignments and their underlying educational theories are explained. The first six assignments are described as progressive and…