This article explores the use of a social science-fictional play to teach macro-structural concepts related to global capitalism and surplus labor in a small and large Introduction to Sociology course. Relying on a cross-disciplinary and critical pedagogical approach that combines theory and practice to empower students to develop a critical…

Describes a journalism internship program at an Alaskan university that bridges the gap between theory and practice by requiring a series of reports that make students reflect on their media experiences and discover how these experiences relate to concepts studied in coursework within and outside the journalism department. (HTH)

Suggests strategies for applying Kenneth Burke's theories of rhetoric and dialectic to technical writing instruction. Shows how teachers can use Burke's dialectic heuristic, the Pentad, to analyze writing situations they present to students. Describes how writers can use Burke's concept of "identification" as a strategy for analyzing and…

Describes an undergraduate women's literature course in which students write in journals. Argues that the course may resolve conflict between feminist teachers, who dislike some theorists' uncritical view of feminism, and theorists, who dislike the taint of male philosophy in feminist teaching. Suggests that course interaction can bridge these…

Students write a great deal during their school years, but they apparently never realize that writing affects their lives outside of school and can often even be important to their success. Research on the composing process has enabled teachers to separate the writing process from its product, but theory, practice, and research still focus on the…

Based on a year's work with 16 second grade students, this two-part paper reports the successful use of the Marathon Writing (continuous writing for short periods on a regular basis) strategy in encouraging beginning writers to write independently. The first part of the paper explains the technique of marathon writing, and notes that even though…

Presents the idea that many tactics sports coaches use in training and improving athletes' performance can be adapted for the instruction of remedial writers. (JC)

Presents numerous whole language activities used by kindergarten teachers, including experience charts, dictated stories, student-written "books," and recipe writing. (RS)

Intended to help teachers avoid the problems of privacy posed by asking students to keep journals or personal notebooks, this starter sheet outlines some of the assumptions behind journal assignments and suggests guidelines for assigning journals. The first section presents a list of assumptions about the connections between thought and language…

Laments the discrepancy between the process approach to reading and writing instruction advocated in research and the skills approach manifested in homework assignments. Decries the unsatisfactory role this kind of homework forces parents to assume. (HTH)

The product of a course at the University of Pittsburgh, this book offers educators the opportunity to see how the acts of reading, writing, and thinking that characterize work in academia appear to those students who lack adequate preparation for such work--namely, basic writers. The introduction to the book presents an overview of the course and…

The 23 original essays on sentence combining in this volume range in focus from classroom methodology and effectiveness, through theoretical issues and syntactic constructions, to current issues in the field. The essays and their authors are as follows: (1) "The Role of the Elaborated Dominant Nominal in the Measurement of Conceptual and…

Intended for college-level basic writers, this booklet integrates training in selected oral communication activities with writing instruction in order to improve students' academic writing. The first section discusses oral communication theory, emphasizing the underlying rhetorical abilities of invention, audience adaptation, and argumentation, to…

Providing a mix of theoretical and practical suggestions, the articles in this focused journal issue present strategies for teaching various aspects of creative writing. The articles included and their authors are as follows: (1) "What Are We Up To?" (K. Stein); (2) "And Now a Word from Molly and Ned" (M. Martone); (3) "Student Fiction Writers and…

The implicit assumption behind personal writing assignments given at the beginning of a writing course is that personal essays eliminate the writing apprehension of having nothing to say. However, college freshmen find it very difficult to write about themselves and their own opinions because this writing involves abstract mental processes and…