Since July 2013, our research team has been working on a project that aims at re-introducing rhetorical exercises in Belgian secondary (high) schools and at studying their effects on the pupils. Our hypothesis is that the regular practice of rhetorical exercises, inspired by those practised in Antiquity, could stimulate skills like…

Offers a nonverbal prewriting strategy, writer-based sketches, intended to help students turn their thoughts into words. (MS)

Argues that teachers can address the problem of how to integrate free and structured inquiry in the classical "progymnasmata," exercises designed to train the classical student in the art of "invention." Describes such exercises. (FL)

Describes several activities using postcards as writing prompts at all classroom levels. (MM)

Describes a pre-writing dialogue prompt, a word association activity, and a writing assignment that draw upon students' memories of saying good-bye. (MM)

Imitation of organizational and sentence patterns is an ancient technique for teaching rhetoric, but to be effective, imitation must be informed, deliberate, and creative. Students must first learn to recognize the characteristics of a given style and then to appreciate the connection between specific stylistic qualities and their cumulative…

An upper-division graduate level course at a Northwestern university teaches storytelling by using a rhetorical approach. Students submit three story summaries in assigned format at each class session. Each summary includes a statement of the point or moral of the story, a complete bibliography, and a listing of the story's source. The assignment…

Describes a series of activities designed to encourage students to tap their experiences with other cultures as a resource for their writing. Provides a sample "response sheet" to use with a writer's workshop exercise. (MM)

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)

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…

To provide students with a rhetorical stance and motivation, a college freshman composition class adopted the ideas of the "radical" literacy educator, Paulo Freire, who believes that literacy should allow students and teachers to become truly conscious of the world. Class projects were initiated in which the students had as much…