While the classroom situation and textbook exercises are not irrelevant or useless, business writing assignments need a healthy dose of "real-world experience" to make their importance obvious to students. The instructor has only to ask a local employer if the business students can do some of the writing that is backing up in the employer's…

Even for gifted students, the writing process resulting in an effective composition is a complex one, often overlooked in gifted education. The process begins with expressive writing, wherein the writer explores ideas and tries to find a focus. Subsets in the writing process include inventing, gathering outside materials, drafting, and revising…

Teaching English composition and interpersonal communication concurrently enhances students' opportunities to learn and apply communication skills. Since many of these skills are common to both courses of study, not only is learning reinforced, but the skills can be presented and practiced in a variety of ways. More important, English composition…

Since there are similarities between the process of writing computer programs and the process of writing successful expository prose, a student's knowledge of computer programing can contribute to the understanding of some principles of composition. The establishment of a clear objective is the first priority of both the writer and the programer,…

To determine students' different but equally valid ways of dealing with the composing process, a college instructor developed a questionnaire assessing personality styles. The questionnaire distinguishes between (1) approaches to the writing process, (2) preferences for types of instruction, (3) preferences for types of writing and organizational…

Traditional methods of studying literature have included making assignments, having class discussions of the texts, and then assigning students to write about them. However, based on the concept that reading literature is a form of composing and that aspects of the process model for teaching writing can be applied to teaching literature, the…

Intended for teachers and administrators, this collection of essays focuses on the dual meaning of practice--practice of writing skills, and teaching practices in composition instruction. The process section focuses on the types of activities that build composition skills. The product and program sections shift focus to professional practice, the…

In a composition course, interview assignments have four key virtues: (1) they are interesting in themselves; (2) they ease students into the demands of working with other people's ideas; (3) they offer a rationale for improving rhetorical skills; and (4) they allow students to experience adult, responsible roles in a social context. In addition,…

Sequenced writing assignments--a series of related writing tasks--offer students frequent opportunities to write and to acquire writing skills through redundancy, progressively more complicated cognitive and rhetorical demands, and a diversity of learning activities. The most frequently identified goal of sequencing is to move students beyond…

Following an introduction by James Britton, this book discusses the attitudes and values giving rise to effective writing instruction. The seven chapters examine the following topics: (1) achieving a philosophical perspective on composing through awareness of how writers actually work; (2) assumptions underlying classical rhetoric; (3) writing as…

Teachers can use a variety of techniques to help students learn to manage the writing process of generating ideas, writing, and revising material. To assist students in developing their ideas about a topic, acquiring additional information, and integrating new information with previous ideas--all part of the generating phase--teachers can give…

This monograph is designed to help English teachers see what it is that the literary theory of deconstruction has to offer them as they pursue their work. The monograph focuses on the implications of deconstruction for the English classroom in American schools. It includes a discussion of Jacques Derrida's philosophy of reading and writing a…

The best thinking and writing is at once personal and public, both infused with private meaning and focused upon the world beyond the self. The goal of writing teachers is to help students learn to negotiate between the two, to locate those dynamic points of connection where experience gives rise to inquiry. Notwithstanding the often eloquent…

Because of their egocentricity, many students have a limited sense of other cultures and are caught up in a web of ethnocentric biases without quite knowing how and why these biases exist. A framework, encompassing the theories of J. Moffett and J. Piaget, may be designed to move students through a series of hierarchical writing exercises that…

Having students adapt a play from a strongly dramatic short story through the composing process is a natural and powerful way to integrate the language arts. Using dramatic activities in the classroom naturally leads to two kinds of language activities: receptive (listening and observing), and active (discussing, reading, writing, and presenting).…