Describes a two-part approach to teaching the student research paper that encourages students to make a science of developing research gathering techniques and an art of blending the gathered materials with a perspective that will make the paper more than just a summary of facts. The approach uses biography as a model for research. (HTH)

Advocates teaching both classical argumentation and Rogerian rhetoric back-to-back. Advocates assignments using both to highlight the role of audience, the importance of arrangement, the value of tone, the nature of the writer's "ethics," and the use of evidence. (MS)

Argues the necessity of bridging the gap between the personal writing traditionally assigned in basic writing courses and the academic writing which students are expected to produce in their other courses. Offers manageable strategies that enable students to articulate arguments based on sources. (MS)

Careful use of analogy can create interesting and sharp writing. Some of the problems are that an analogy imposes an attitude, there must be a counterpart, details may or may not correspond point-for-point, and an analogy starts in difference and is then brought into the realm of likeness. (TJ)

Describes using the beginning of a Western story in a story completion exercise to stimulate writing. (TJ)

Describes a final writing assignment in which students themselves must propose a writing assignment and rationale for future use in the classroom. The assignment forces students to examine what they have learned in the course and gives the teacher some insight into what has not been taught successfully. (HTH)

Describes a three-part exercise used in a first semester freshman composition class, intended to show students the world of details in even the most ordinary, everyday objects by having students write about a plastic coffee mug. (SR)

Describes an exercise in which students cut out T-shirt drawings, sort the T-shirts into groups, and "write" a classification essay by pasting the T-shirts on sheet of paper. The T-shirts in each group become the examples used in one body paragraph of the classification essay. (HTH)

Describes an activity in which students must invent graffiti that might have been written by one of the characters studied in the class's literature assignments. (HTH)

Describes a teaching game for bibliographic formatting that emphasizes the importance of noting author, title, and publication information precisely while using accurate formatting and punctuation. (HTH)

Describes a writing assignment useful for high school and college students in which students ponder, discuss, and write about collecting, collectors, and the human impulse to collect. Includes some samples of student writing. (SR)

Explains how an exercise for high school or college students can be disguised as a lecture. States that the first step is to have the students write a conversation, and that after this is done, a whole range of writing devices can be demonstrated, including use of characterization, tone, environment, and plot movement. (PA)

Suggests writing exercises which involve composing the solution to a mystery. (JM)

Emphasizes classroom study of poetic patterns and images to enable students to see how poems work without overwhelming them with terminology. (MS)

Suggests that through the shared experience of producing a story, students can understand plot on a deeper level and remember it more vividly than simply having it explained to them. (MS)