To investigate whether a creative writing unit in upper secondary education would improve students' creative as well as argumentative text quality and to examine whether it would change students' writing behavior, we tested a creative writing unit based on encouraging writing in flow by using divergent thinking tasks. Four classes (Grade 10)…

Writing involves a number of skills and being self-directed in the process would contribute to greater effectivity. The concept of autonomography, or being self-directed in terms of writing, draws from the literature on self-directed learning and specifically self-directed writing, where concepts such as self-regulation and learner autonomy are…

This paper arose out of a shared concern about how to explore young children's ways of becoming-writers. A framework based on the nomad thought of French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari was used to develop the analysis. A situated, relational and nomadic analysis offers insights into how processes of becoming-writers are produced,…

A ten-day plan for letting students create their own choose-a-plot books is given. Students develop skills in creating plot structures, coming up with logical story lines, and inventing striking characters. Instructions for adapting the plan to word processing programs are given. (MT)

The author reviews software programs in creative writing for students with learning disabilities. In addition to processing programs, software that focuses on story building, revising, poetry writing, and narrative and expository writing is considered. (CL)

The usefulness of the computer for facilitating children's creative writing and for manipulating structures in writing is illustrated. (MP)

The study compared stories written on either a word processor or handwritten by 15 children (ages 8-12) with learning disabilities. Use of the word processor resulted in fewer spelling errors for children with severe spelling problems and longer stories for children having problems with the mechanics of the writing task. (Author/DB)

Describes clientele who could benefit from software being developed at University of Iowa for writing effective prose; what these authoring tools do and how they work; and design standards likely to produce a successful product. The software's design scheme, general design principles and objectives, and educational potential are discussed. (MBR)

Describes a pilot program that used computers to help teach creative writing to children in New York's South Bronx. (CRH)

This paper outlines a proposed procedure for using an interactive computer-based approach to assist students in composing text on a word processor. It is suggested that the computer could provide the stimulus for writing, assist students during the writing process, and help the student to revise and edit the text. The first section explains the…

The article describes how to use a word processing program and add-on story starters for different genres to enhance elementary students' creative writing skills. Teachers input story starters, then students select a genre and add on a story version in that genre. Students can also develop their own story starters. (SM)

A comparison of compositions written by 19 sixth graders using pencil and paper with those written by 19 sixth graders using word processors found that though the quality of writing, accuracy of grammar, and reading ease did not differ between the two approaches, students using computers wrote more words and sentences. (PEN)

Eleven fifth- and sixth-grade learning-disabled students composed and revised stories using handwriting, dictation, and word processing. Dictated stories differed from other formats on product measures such as length, quality, and grammatical errors. Differences between handwritten and word-processed stories were found on the process measures of…

This article discusses the advantages of using computer-assisted composing (CAC) to teach composition to elementary and secondary school students with learning problems. It also describes the effects of CAC on student writing and offers several caveats for teachers who plan to use CAC in their classrooms. (JDD)

To make learning about various forms of poetry more interesting to high school students, this paper presents ideas based on an example and precept method of teaching instead of an analysis and explication method. In an introductory section, the paper explains how students will produce a poetry portfolio consisting of 10 or 12 types of poems such…