The teaching of writing in secondary English subjects in Australia, as in other countries including England and the United States, has become increasingly formulaic. Pedagogies including direct instruction, modelling, scaffolding, and genre-based approaches involve the implementation of formulas for writing sentences, paragraphs, and entire…

The author, who teaches the English Methods class in the credential program, knew from entries in students' Writer's Reader's Notebooks (Rief) that they were struggling with the articles assigned about a five-paragraph essay. Following a discussion of form-first instruction and CCSS assessments, this article provides concrete suggestions for…

Suggests that using Francis Christensen's method of analyzing paragraphs can help students improve their own paragraph development. (TJ)

A humorous satire suggesting techniques for paragraph composition. (RD)

Summarizes a method for teaching composition that allows for practice in straight composition, the opportunity for self-expression, and the getting of feedback by asking students to write a paragraph in response to a specific question about the text for the week and a second paragraph of reaction to the text. (TJ)

Describes a method for teaching students in college composition courses how to construct a paragraph. (RB)

Illustrates how a controlled writing exercise for students of English as a second language can be used to help native speakers of English learn paragraph development. (TJ)

Presents step-by-step instructions to help developmental writing students write a cohesive essay by combining individually written paragraphs. (HTH)

This paper explains the teaching strategy inherent in the model expository-paragraph program, a plan for middle-school, student writing based on imitation of and reaction to a model paragraph written by the teacher. The model paragraph provides material for the teaching of spelling, grammar, and composition skills and is a springboard for creative…

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which the currently taught methods of paragraph development are actually used in contemporary expository writing. Composition textbooks published since 1960 were examined to ascertain which methods of development are being taught. To discover the types of paragraph development found in…

Three authors comment upon each other's views as expressed in previous articles on the paragraph. Francis Christensen discusses the "sentence-based" theory and compares it to other descriptions of the paragraph. A.L. Becker compares Christensen's and Paul Rodgers' views and discusses their major differences in (1) identity and variation in…

Students who are taught to understand and apply Korzybski's uses of semantics to their writing will learn to write more concretely. As students locate words and descriptions vertically on Korzybski's scale of abstraction levels, they will become able to perceive how meanings change when descriptions become either more general or specific, to…

"Muddiness" in student writing can be eliminated, and students can learn to write with clarity, through the employment of a 1-3-3-3-1 pattern: one opening sentence, three paragraphs of three sentences each, and one closing sentence. To this basic pattern, the concept of key words may be added to help students develop a focus for each piece of…

The ten articles in this journal report on research and practice in the teaching of writing. Topics covered include sentence combining as a composition technique, peer evaluation in a technical writing class, a plan for teaching paragraph construction, the use of literary humor in a writing class, methods for setting the scene, how students view…

Pupils can learn to write more effectively if they go through the cycle of prewriting, writing, and rewriting practiced by the publishing author. The writing class should not be hampered through studying writing backward, from the process of reading, or through the restrictive efforts of a too-precise teacher. By becoming aware of his world and…