To teach effective business communication, instructors must target students’ current weaknesses in writing. One method for doing so is by assigning writing exercises. When used heuristically, writing exercises encourage students to practice self-assessment, self-evaluation, active learning, and knowledge transfer, all while reinforcing the basics…

A student's fear of giving oral reports and the instructor's objection to using too much class time on oral reports are often seen as the major barriers that prevent an oral communication unit from being included in a business or management communications course. One approach to easing both concerns is the use of videotaping as a self-discovery…

Noting that students in groups learn more effectively when working cooperatively than when working competitively or individualistically, presents guidelines, assignments, and class activities designed to foster cooperative learning. Describes such student-student interaction sessions as describing sense perception details, receiving peer feedback,…

Describes how consistent focused and sequenced freewriting with sequenced procedures for moving from it to additional writing leads students to more effective writing. (CHR)

Posing as an avuncular letter writer, the author discusses the problems faced by first-time teachers teaching fourth-grade composition. Proposes exercises to motivate children to write, communication inspiring ways to arrange classroom environment, guided free-writing assignments, and heuristics prompts for writing a fairy tale. (JG)

The integration of content area writing instruction into the history curriculum has been a slow process. A history course at Ohio University (Athens) offers students experience in writing the type of materials written by practicing historians: book reviews, journal articles, and articles for encyclopedias and biographical dictionaries. Such short…