Intended for high school composition instructors, this book resolves the seeming contradiction between creative, expressive writing and formal exposition and argumentation by presenting a teaching method that treats creative writing as a necessary--if not sufficient--cause for exposition. The first two chapters describe a sequence of short fiction…

This collection of 26 brief essays by college and high school faculty represents a variety of practical approaches that can be used in composition classes. After a foreword by the editor, the essays and their authors are as follows: "Writing as a Moral Activity" (Judith Anderson); "Specific Details (Orangen't You Wise to Use…

This curriculum guide is designed to aid in the planning and execution of a writing course for verbally gifted elementary school students. The course is designed for students ranging in age from 8-11 years whose verbal reasoning skills are at least 3 years above grade level. The course instructs students in the fundamentals of communication…

To teach creative writing effectively, teachers must be writers themselves and be willing to pass on their tricks of the trade to students. Conducted to determine what structures existed to help teachers pass on their skills, a survey of creative writing in high schools in the Chicago suburban area revealed a continuum, with only one school having…

A computer program entitled "Story Time" encourages preschool children to use the important language skills that develop during the first 3 or 4 years of life to create and print original stories. Although the computer does not write the stories, it aids the children in the creation of stories by prompting them with questions. In order to use the…

Intended for teachers who would like to correlate creative writing with creative ideas and activities, this publication presents ideas that will serve as springboards to other creative ideas and activities. Consisting of six main sections, each containing an introduction, the first section of the book presents: a statement of purpose; a discussion…

Composed by English teachers at the elementary, secondary, and college levels, this book describes practical methods for teaching writing. Part one contains essays on issues related to teaching writing, such as motivation, evaluation, and teaching sequence. Part two describes more than 100 practical lessons for classroom use, each of which…

This article discusses the potential for creative language production through poetry writing in the foreign language class. Specific techniques and activities which stimulate creative thinking, speaking, and writing in the foreign language are presented. The techniques are (1) collaboration poem-wishes; (2) comparison poems; (3) metaphor poems;…

In a study of differences and similarities between children's oral and written stories, 23 third grade pupils wrote stories about a given topic and then, two weeks later, told stories about the same topic. Analysis of the stories revealed five types of narrative structures, of which the most commonly used was a "situation-problem-solution"…

A personal account of an English instructor's experiences with poetry therapy--the use of poetry to help people get in touch with, and begin dealing with, their problems and feelings--is provided in this paper. Among the topics dealt with are the following: the scope of poetry therapy, the instructor's early dissatisfactions with traditional…

In this collection of 18 essays drawn from reports of the Yale Conferences on the Teaching of English, high school teachers present ways to handle problems relevant to all English classrooms. Essays on the teaching of language include a discussion of grammar, a definition and illustration of language study, and a consideration of the kinds of…

The composition teacher in the primary grades should emphasize content and ideas, not form and properly written expression, to develop the students' interest in writing. By surrounding the students with fine literature, by presenting them with model stories to imitate, and by letting them make up alternate endings and illustrations for stories,…

The articles in this journal reflect the change that has taken place in the study of women's literature and language: women writers are now judged on their own merits, rather than by comparison to men writers. Included are the following: "A Feminist Perspective in the Classroom," a discussion of the ways in which a feminist perspective has…

This collection focuses on writing exercises, both expository and creative, as well as areas of adjacent concern. The book is divided into nine major sections: prewriting; diction; theme, thesis, and paragraph; style; ideas for whole papers and special topics; description; research; the short story; and rewriting. The exercises deal with such…

Observations of American instructors and students in England, as well as English publications, reveal that English primary teachers treat writing as a way for children to share their personal experiences, and they correspondingly emphasize freedom of expression, fluency, and the retention and development of imaginative responses. Teachers enrich…