Given complaints about preparation of international students for their writing-intensive courses, a director of first-year writing and an undergraduate researcher at a Midwestern research university conducted a needs assessment based on Kaufman's model. Instruments used included a survey, interviews, and analysis of commentary on sample papers.…

Peer tutoring has a long historical precedent in western civilization. Since its reemergence in the United States during the 1960s, it has been used for every age group, subject matter, and level of intelligence. Numerous research studies have shown the benefits of peer tutoring, its efficacy in the college writing center has caught the attention…

Summarizing the best current thinking about what classroom approaches produce sound writing experiences in the first eight grades, this book offers teachers a means of checking on their own practices and perceptions about how writing can best be learned. The first chapter of the book presents a historical review of authoritative opinion regarding…

Discusses the potential of microcomputers for accomplishing educational goals beyond drill and practice software. Describes a program in which students have access to a computer-based network that connects classrooms in four states, which allows peer response, develops a sense of audience, and gives students greater control over their literacy…

Based on a writing program evaluation project that took place in the Ferguson-Florissant School District in suburban St. Louis, Missouri, this booklet provides administrators and policymakers with a plan for evaluating their own writing programs and also provides results of the Ferguson-Florissant evaluation. The first chapter contains…

A training program designed to teach high school students to be specific in their writing is described in this booklet. The first section of the booklet explains the three stages of the program: (1) daily practice in translating a "telling" sentence into a "showing" paragraph; (2) application of "showing" writing to…

Noting that American elementary schools over the years have emphasized reading to the detriment of writing, a study examined the efficacy of a writing program that places the student and the teacher in direct contact with the writing process by (1) requiring daily student writing and suggesting the teacher frequently write with the students, (2)…

Outlines elements of instruction--knowledge, information, action--and describes each in the context of writing instruction, reviews writing research, and uses these components of instruction to explore possibilities for automated writing instruction. The Writer's Workbench language analysis programs are used to illustrate major points. Program…

Intended for composition teachers and researchers, as well as those involved with educational issues apart from the writing community (legislators, administrators, researchers in other fields, parents), this book contains essays that take a critical step beyond the standard arguments of the profession, pushing hard for example, at some of the…

Articles in these proceedings of a conference of the Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication represent the views of professional communicators and academicians who share a concern for providing breadth and quality of preparation for present and future technical communicators. The topics of the 19 papers include the…

Focusing on the topic of composition, especially in the state of Illinois, this special journal issue begins with a description of the Illinois Articulation Project, a network developed to share and coordinate writing in the state. The second article describes Illinois State University's National Endowment for the Humanities program for…

Describes how the Writing Lab at Hazelwood West High School, in Missouri, was designed and initiated. Reveals that computers are used there: (1) in teaching whole classes, (2) with individual students, (3) to teach skills, and (4) for keeping records. (SKC)

Presenting classroom experiences and a process to help writing teachers see their own hard-to-reach students with new eyes, this book tells the story of a 6-year action research project committed to building classroom environments where cultural differences are affirmed and high achievement is fostered among all students. The book notes that the…

Articles in these proceedings of a conference of the Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication represent the views of professional communicators and academicians who share a concern for providing breadth and quality of preparation for present and future technical communicators. Among the topics discussed in the 17 articles are…

Designed to supplement the day-to-day planning, teaching, and evaluation activities of writing teachers at all educational levels, this compilation contains 711 citations of documents that appeared in "Resources in Education" from 1966 to 1981. Section headings include (1) the prewriting stage; (2) informative, persuasive, and literary…