In an effort to reduce student writing apprehension, an informal, in-class study was conducted in a lower-level college writing course at an Alabama university. The 16 students in this course took a Writing Apprehension Test (WAT--pretest) on the first day of class. Throughout the course, all writing was based on student experiences and came from…

Two main points should be noted concerning strategies recommended for teaching basic writing students. First, teachers can develop only those strategies that are consonant with their own personalities and that will enable students to develop their own writing strategies. Second, whatever strategies are selected should lead students beyond the…

Intended as a tool for school district personnel as they develop competency-based education programs for English composition, this document presents objectives and guidelines for improving composition quality and instruction. The chapters cover the following topics: (1) the writing process, (2) the relationship between the writing process and…

Noting that effective writing instruction depends on careful planning informed by knowledge of the writing process and its variations in relation to different audiences and purposes, this teacher's guide explains the nature of the writing process and how it relates to instruction. The purposes of the guide are threefold: to highlight current…

Contributed by high school English teachers across the United States, the activities contained in this booklet are intended to promote the effective teaching of English and the language arts. Activities in the first section of the booklet focus on language exploration--the subtle nuances of meaning, rhythm in poetry, and the power of the…

Written by teachers, linguists, psychologists, and reading specialists, this book elucidates the relationship between reading and language, and explains why reading should be regarded as a language-based process. The book is divided into eight sections, each of which includes an introduction and sources for further reading. The essays for each…

Intended to categorize the literature on writing with word processors in high school and college classrooms and to determine the quality of the literature as well, this critical review looks at selected works on word processing in English instruction. The first section examines studies and methodologies, while the second section investigates…

The ability to infuse language with qualities of the human voice in the act of speaking is what distinguishes autobiography as a genre and makes it most suited to teaching students subtle features inherent in the complex act of writing. When students write from personal experience, they consciously begin to shape their identities in one direction…

The case approach to academic writing requires a student to use subjects in an active way while writing. This approach, appropriate in content courses as well as in composition classes, improves a writer's logic more quickly and effectively than concentrating on logic alone. In the case approach, a student is given a body of information about a…

Recognizing the differences between reading and writing is as important as recognizing their similarities for improving current methods of teaching composition. Environment and motivation are two areas in which these differences are most noticeable. Since motivation is a preexisting quality that can only be fostered and not implanted, environment…

In integrating word processors into the structure of a freshman writing class, the instructor has two alternatives: to teach the course specifically as a word processing course, or to offer a word processing option to students on a volunteer basis, either in substitution for some other activity or as extra credit. The first method is good if one…

Viewing writing as both a form of language learning and an intellectual skill, this book presents essays on how writers acquire trusted inner voices and the roles schools and teachers can play in helping student writers in the learning process. The essays in the book focus on one of three topics: the language of instruction and how response and…

Intended to help writing teachers create a classroom climate where real writing can be inspired, valued, and enjoyed, the WEDGE (Writing Every Day Generates Excellence) manual addresses first the problem of motivating students to communicate in writing, next, finding words and structures appropriate for clarity and eloquence, and finally, the…

The writing of five consecutive classes of first grade students was analyzed to investigate the selection of topic, theme, and mode in six-year-old children learning to read and write through the use of an invented spelling approach in an open classroom. The writing studied was in the form of 993 "books" (several sheets of paper stapled…

On the basis that English as a Second Language (ESL) writers encounter cross-cultural interference when dealing with the five-paragraph essay, a study was conducted to examine the writing of three ESL writers in a basic writing class. The case study of one of the subjects, a woman from Hong Kong, focused on her comments relating to the structure…