Students write a great deal during their school years, but they apparently never realize that writing affects their lives outside of school and can often even be important to their success. Research on the composing process has enabled teachers to separate the writing process from its product, but theory, practice, and research still focus on the…

Through the use of WORDSWORTH II, the faculty at Michigan Technological University have found that computer-assisted instruction can be useful in teaching students the processes involved in revision. A series of computer programs, WORDSWORTH II is available outside of and in addition to regular classroom instruction and offers students effective…

Comparing the effectiveness of several comprehensive computer-assisted writing tools, this final report on the Writing Tools Project evaluates five IBM programs--"Writer's Workbench" (WWB), "HBJ Writer,""Rightwriter,""UNC-CH Write," and "Writing Is Thinking"--and two Macintosh…

The study investigated the effects of intrinsic motivation training and/or written language training on the written language achievement and motivation of 55 learning disabled adolescents (grades 10-12). Interventions included Alley and Deshler's "Learning Strategies" approach (writing strand) and "TARGETS," a systematic instructional strategy…

Meaningful use of language involves intending to have an effect and intending the audience to recognize that aim. In a Freudian modification of this premise, allowing for different levels of intentional awareness, writing can be discussed in terms of how writers intend to affect readers, as well as how aware they are themselves of their intentions…

This booklet presents three practical procedures for conferencing to help upper elementary and high school teachers evaluate students' language development while teaching students how to regulate and participate more fully in the process of writing. The booklet includes the following chapters: (1) "The Interaction of Thought and…

Synthesizing research on writing instruction using word processors, this annotated bibliography contains 28 references of articles and papers in the ERIC database. The first section includes strategies, techniques, exercises, activities, and ideas on how to use time on a word processor most effectively. Articles and papers discussing the numerous…

Using the "pattern approach" is a means of teaching students to be confident and competent writers. In this method, the writer uses a device called a planning blank to establish purpose, audience, topic, and role as a writer. Then the overall structure can be planned. A good writing plan should suggest not only a beginning, middle, and…

A perceived relationship between the teaching methods of traditional Zen Buddhism and those of process-based English composition is explored. It is noted that the four main processes of Zen teaching (meditation, physical work, personal interviews, and group lectures) focus on process, not product, as in process writing. Characteristics that Zen…

Several models of the reading and writing processes suggest that the two should be taught together as part of the communication process. The first responsibility of a teacher interested in teaching the connection is the selection of a model that seems to fit perceptions about the connection. Next, the teacher must decide the balance and sequence…

One way of giving students a sense of audience in their writing is to combine speech communication and written communication in the classroom. If students can be taught to write as they talk, they can perceive their audience to be real people rather than the amorphous "indefinite other" they typically write for in the traditional writing…

In a "College English" article, B. M. Kroll describes the educational and philosophical foundations of three perspectives on the teaching of writing: interventionism, maturationism, and interactionism. These three developmental perspectives offer a useful way of reviewing, evaluating, and classifying textbooks written for basic writers.…

Noting that teachers stimulate student writing in three ways--by arousing, directing, and rewarding--this guide offers suggestions for activities in each of these areas for the elementary, intermediate, and secondary levels. Following an introduction, four activities are presented: (1) stimulating student writing through arousal, (2) stimulating…

This collection of papers by participants in the Puget Sound Writing Project (Washington) includes discussions of ideas and strategies that have been used in classrooms and that are based on clear theoretical principles. The topics discussed in the nine entries are: writing as a process through which students discover what is on their minds,…

Taking a cautious view of research into the workings of the brain, this booklet suggests that such research has merely given validity to a truth good teachers have always known: all people have two ways of thinking, a linear, logical way, and a spatial, intuitive way. It also suggests that faced with cries for "basics" in education, it…