Students dislike writing essay examinations as much as teachers dislike reading them. Perhaps no alternatives to the essay exam exist, but certainly the task can be lessened by altering the format of the essay exam. In an education class at a California university, students select in advance one essay question from a list of several, and field…

The articles in this journal issue present a wide range of theoretical and practical approaches to helping students benefit from imitating products and processes of writing. The eight articles discuss the following topics: (1) imitating models, (2) summary writing as an aid to using writing models, (3) rewriting "Indian Lad" to show how to imitate…

An examination of approaches to teaching writing and how they relate to tests may help writing teachers discover some ways of improving students' scores on writing tests. George Hillocks in "Research on Written Composition," describes four instructional approaches: presentational, natural process, environmental, and individualized. The…

The rhetorical cycle is a step-by-step approach that provides classroom experience before students actually write, thereby making the writing process less frustrating for them. This approach consists of six sequential steps: reading, thinking, speaking, listening, discussing, and finally writing. Readings serve not only as models of rhetorical…

This paper describes part of a course for college freshmen entitled "Computation, Reasoning, and Problem Solving," which uses the LOGO programming language to integrate computer programming skills, collaborative problem solving skills, and writing skills. Discussion of the computer programming component includes two of the LOGO problem…

In a collaborative learning experience at the South Carolina Humanities and Writing Institute, writing process teaching methods were used to teach literature. "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" was used as a prototype study for the group, while at the same time, each teacher-fellow developed his or her own literature study and teaching…

The 1982 writing objectives presented in this booklet were developed in preparation for the fourth assessment of writing conducted by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The objectives are based on the premise that individuals write for a purpose and an audience, and each objective serves as a section of the booklet. The first…

The teaching of writing as a process can be accomplished through an eight-step "prewriting process" approach. The eight steps include planning, organizing, establishing assumptions and premises, obtaining data, evaluating data, electing a course of action, control, and implementation. In the planning stage, students are asked to complete an…

A crucial concept in Francis Christensen's principles of writing involves the "addition," which may be construed as any grammatical unit that is not a main clause. Obviously the effect of rhetorical writing derives mainly from the number of additions as well as from their placement and function within the single sentence. By means of…

Prewriting involves the entire period of time (and necessary activities) which extends between knowing that one is going to write on something and knowing that one has found something specific and substantial to say about it. In classical rhetoric, prewriting is expressed by such terms as "inventio" (whereby the writer discovers ideas to…

The task of writing teachers is to convince the reluctant developmental writer to see writing not just in terms of grammatical correctness, but in terms of process or of discovery. Once the writer begins to see composition in this way, he or she may see that grammar is not irrelevant or arbitrary. By being taught the revision process, students can…

A committee of the National Council of Teachers of English collected data on the elementary composition teaching perspectives observed in literature between 1900 and 1950. The committee's report on two categories of their collected data--position statements and state-of-the art reviews--shows that English teachers have trended from emphasizing…

Empirical and theoretical research and a teacher's own writing experience provide equally valuable resources in the composition classroom. Current research on the composing process suggests a conceptual change from that of a rigid sequence of clearly demarcated stages to a more recursive, hierarchically structured model. Until recently, the role…

A series of 13 questions is offered for sequencing student writing activities according to a problem solving model of the composing process. The questions are organized in a cyclical framework for approaching any problem solving task that writing students may face. The questions fall into four progressively developed categories, including…

Presents a process-oriented method for teachers of stylistic editing workshops that allows them to (1) focus on individual students, (2) start with students basic repertory of responses and build from there, (3) work with freely emitted behavior, (4) ensure frequent and brief responses, and (5) achieve desired behavior through sequential steps.…