This guide discusses how computers can be integrated into the writing process. The guide includes sections on stages of the writing process (pre-writing, writing, response, revision, and recognition); letters from children using computers for projects and communication with other children; and a review of some word processors and writing tools.…

The "writing workshop" approach to teaching creative writing, virtually unchallenged throughout the United States, has recently come under fire. Two schools of thought, while agreeing that the traditional workshop needs a thorough overhaul, differ in approaches to that overhaul. One approach, using the theories of Harold Bloom, argues…

Almost 600 questionnaires were sent to private and public colleges and universities in a nationwide survey of their revision practices in advanced composition courses. Among the results were the following: (1) the teacher figured most powerfully in any revision activity; (2) a single mode of revision was the prevailing practice; (3) private…

To determine if using visual patterns can help technically oriented people create coherent papers, 97 students enrolled in a beginning composition class were given five hours of instruction in the use of the "hub and spokes" (central idea supported by examples), "S-curve" (pro-con), and pyramid (inductive or deductive) formats. Holistic…

One approach to teaching organization to a writing class is to subdivide the organizational processes. One subdivision recognizes that certain compositions have a predictable format--they put expected parts in predictable places. Following a format at appropriate times is a skill that should be taught, or at least insisted upon, at the beginning…

At Southerland Institute (a pseudonym), in spite of the teacher's strong statements in favor of encouraging students to think for themselves and to work together, the writing program Southerland's teachers outline is formulaic with its required modes, prescribed five-paragraph-like essay form, and bell-curve grading practices. A new rhetorician…

The duty of conscientious writing teachers is to evaluate the kinds of feedback they are providing students, and to determine if it helps students to present ideas meaningful to them effectively in written discourse. Almost universally, the traditional way of providing feedback on student writing is by the red pencil method, which has made the…

This book examines ways to improve the writing skills of older elementary school students and junior high school students, with particular emphasis on grammatical errors concerning anaphora, connectors, and information gapping. Chapters 1 and 2 discuss the common syntactic errors which regularly appear in essays written by pupils of 10 to 14 years…

A mainstreaming project was carried out in Toronto, Canada, in which four deaf students, ages 5 through 8, were integrated into a classroom of hearing students in grades 1 and 2, for 1 hour, 5 days a week, to participate in a writing program adapting the Graves-Giacobbe process writing model outlined in Donald Graves'"Writing Teachers and…

"Aerobic writing" is a writing center strategy designed to keep students in writing "shape." Like aerobic exercise, aerobic writing is sustained for a certain length of time and done on a regular basis at prescribed time intervals. The program requires students to write at least two times a week for approximately an hour each time. Students write,…

Rhetoric and mathematics have much in common that can help explain the composing process. Common elements of rhetoric and mathematics important to the teaching of writing are (1) relationships between syntax and semantics, (2) practices of representation, and (3) focus on problem solving. Recent emphasis on "repair processes" in mathematics is…

In the area of composition, computer assisted instruction (CAI) must move beyond the limited concerns of the current-traditional rhetoric to address the larger issues of writing, become process-centered, and involve active writing rather than answering multiple-choice questions. Researchers cite four major types of interactive CAI, the last of…

Rhetoric textbooks continue to proliferate while writing teachers continue to grow more skeptical of their usefulness. The key question educators need to answer is whether all available composition textbooks are ineffective in the sense of being based on false notions about the composing process, or whether they are "intrinsically" ineffective.…

Teaching invention strategies on the computer offers solutions to the problems of selection and presence by providing a variety of invention strategy alternatives. These strategies inform the teacher of the rhetorical task at hand and allow communication to exist at all stages of writing. A writer using a computer and a pool of heuristic…

A recent study by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) directly links writing effectiveness to development of skills in critical thinking. This ERIC Digest discusses: (1) recent research on the linkage between writing and learning; (2) successful approaches to teaching writing; and (3) suggestions for including an effective…