Following a major policy statement on writing in the primary school, this document employs a threefold approach to examining the teaching difficulties involved in responding to children's writing. The first section considers expectations that teachers have of children as writers, children's intended meanings, and various kinds of responses to…

A study investigated how and when writing is used at the elementary school level to determine (1) what kind of instructional support elementary students receive, (2) what prewriting support is provided, (3) what support for revising is offered, and (4) what happens to the students' writings. Using preservice teachers as observers, data were…

Dialogue journals can increase hearing impaired students' interest in reading and writing and help them learn to think of written language as a natural and important way to communicate thoughts and feelings. The journals should work as a form of conversation, with the student and teacher equal partners in the dialogue. The teacher does not comment…

Placing a major emphasis on writing activity, this guide provides information and suggestions for implementing the Writing Process Curriculum in secondary schools. Following sections on the philosophy, aim, goals, and objectives of the Writing Process Curriculum, the guide outlines the stages of writing in the third section, including descriptions…

A study incorporated Donald Felker's 5 Keys to Self-Concept Enhancement in 20 minutes of timed writing weekly or bi-weekly for three months using the Coopersmith Adult Form as pre-post measure. Felker's 5 Keys are: (1) adults, praise yourselves; (2) help children evaluate realistically; (3) teach children to set realistic goals; (4) teach children…

Writing is an important tool in teaching skills to adult basic education (ABE) students. To be a successful teacher of writing, teachers must be successful writers. They must be aware of the writing process and willing to use it daily in their own lives in order to convey its importance and its usefulness to their students. One method of teaching…

To learn correct grammar, developmental students must practice writing correctly. However, the traditional exercises offered in handbooks, workbooks, and textbooks not only fail to provide habituation in correctness, they actually provide practice in "wrongness." Instead of isolating individual problems, they promote confusion by linking them.…

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…

Revision, an essential component of the writing process, encompasses two basic elements: rewriting the content to assure clarity, and editing the draft to eliminate mechanical and grammatical errors. It is important for teachers to plan lessons directed specifically toward helping children make more sense of their messages. This document presents…

Based on the notion that children will rewrite willingly if given a definite purpose, three alternatives for revision connect the necessity of revision to the students' acceptance and desire to revise. The first alternative is to have the children revise their original story format, where the basic storyline remains the same, but the ideas,…

James Joyce's use of interior monologue (the interior self of the character is given directly, as though the reader were overhearing an articulation of the stream of thought and feeling flowing through the character's mind) can help basic writers in developmental classes. Students can be given excerpts from Joyce and asked to turn the sentence…

In the spirit of the Texas Hill Country Writing Project and in response to the requirements of the Texas Assessment of Basic Skills, this guide presents writing assignments reflecting a commitment to a unified writing program for kindergarten through grade twelve. The framework for the assignments is adopted from the discourse theory of James…

An experimental program was undertaken to determine the effects of attitude and reading achievement on writing, to ascertain if intervention could improve writing achievement and attitude, and to predict success in the program on the basis of an attitude inventory that measured need for structure and tolerance of ambiguity. Subjects were 15 boys…