Place-based writing affords students an opportunity to write meaningfully about themselves, grounded in a place that they know. Place-based writing is versatile and can be additive--taking just a week or two within a semester of different projects--or transformative, if positioned as the theme for an entire course. If students can learn to write…

In this article, the author talks about the use of punctuation and describes a study that confirmed her growing sense that all students need exposure to and instruction on the full repertoire of punctuation. In an attempt to assess how much of the eleventh graders know about the way professionals use punctuation, all teachers at Webster Thomas…

English teachers have a unique opportunity to expand and develop the way their students think. Too often, students are comfortable in thinking about reading and writing processes in a concrete or linear way. They are used to "right" or "wrong" answers in their other studies and look for the same in their English assignments. While teachers often…

In this article, the author shares how she envisioned and created a writing assignment for a ninth-grade English course. The writing project is a class novel comprised of short stories, one written by each student. In the writing assignment, seniors compile their favorite writings from any class in any year of high school and write reflections…

Offers seven effective learning activities for the first day of class. (MS)

Suggests several short, manageable activities for teaching writing, such as writing cereal box copy, characterizations, test items, and obituaries. (JL)

Describes the "Chinese Menu System" of student instructional units based on the ideas of James R. Moffet being used by teachers in the Columbus, Georgia, area in which students select learning activities from categories constructed around a single topic. (JL)

Explains how student-constructed "aliens" were used to generate writing and to encourage the development of writing skills. (JL)

Presents ideas on writing instruction for teachers of mathematics, physics, accounting, biology, and social studies. Contains guidelines for designing writing assignments in various content areas. (EL)

Presents opposing views on the wisdom of teaching student writers to write for an "audience." (JL)

Suggests teaching students four processes for improving sentences: addition, subtraction, substitution, and transposition. (JL)

Describes a synonym exercise--composing an essay without using the verbs "be,""have,""go," or "get"--which increases students' awareness of at least six different language features. (MM)

Describes the characteristics of legalese--inflated and obscure legal language--and suggests strategies for helping present and future document designers create understandable prose. (MM)

Recommends using young adult literature to teach basic composition skills. (JL)

A high school English teacher with repressed urges to write reports on his self-discovery as a result of writing in class with his students. (RL)