Effective feedback is an essential tool for making learning explicit and an essential feature of classroom practice that promotes learner autonomy. Yet, it remains a pressing challenge for teachers to scaffold the active involvement of students as critical, reflective and autonomous learners who use feedback constructively. This paper seeks to…

This article makes a case for the centrality of yearning in fictional representations of characters. With the help of illustrations from Adam Phillips, Olen Butler and Ted Hughes I argue that this key element may be missing from the creative work of students. This is my attempt, through exercises and other stimuli, to generate this yearning or…

A professor explains how he teaches haiku, and includes student examples. (SP)

Presents an instructional unit, "Literary Lifeboat," a purposeful writing exercise in which students write character justifications for familiar stories. Describes the unit's implementation in a Year 5 class, and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of the exercise. (MM)

Discusses how powerful the letter is as a form and vehicle for writing, particularly because the language of letters is the closest to natural speech and represents casual spontaneity associated with conversation. Suggests practical ways of including letter writing in the classroom and provides sample letters as illustration. (KEH)

Discusses a technique for helping students see the value of revision by using a previously written and revised composition as an illustration. (TJ)

Describes three poetry-writing exercises that encourage students to break from linear, normal thinking patterns: answering questions that have no answers; describing impossible objects; and contemplating infinity. (MM)

Describes several exercises to help students change their perspectives when writing poetry. (MM)

Creative inductive exercises for teaching effective writing skills are presented. Basic objectives of the inductive method include: (1) challenging students with creative options; (2) discovering the basics in sentence construction; (3) interpreting the idea of the "levels of generality;" and (4) focusing on the parallel between sentence…

"Doodlefunking" is a useful method for motivating students to produce creative language products: "doodle" suggests aimless drawing directed by the unconscious while the conscious is attending to other matters, and "funking" connotes moving into a mental state in which the conscious mind is shut off while the…

A method for stimulating and facilitating organizational writing in the secondary school is described in this paper. Pictorial sequences are coordinated and arranged to typify the four major styles of writing: narrative, descriptive, expository, and persuasive. These sequences both portray a meaningful event in keeping with the writing style and…

Common approaches to composition teaching are satirized. (JH)

Advantages of peer evaluation of writing are outlined, questions that arise once instructors decide to use this method are presented, and steps to develop students' awareness of what to look for and what to say about the writing of peers in English composition and other disciplines are discussed. (MBR)

Describes a research paper assignment in which students choose a controversial news event reported by six to eight newspapers and arrive at a thesis by comparing the accounts. Notes that students become truly engaged with the assignment and that engagement shows itself strongly in the intelligence and life of the papers. (RS)