Recommends ways teachers can help students write better research papers. (JL)

Provides an absorbing analysis of the composing process as the author reflects on the act of writing in which he is himself engaged. (HOD)

A five-part computer program helps college students generate essays. Its first part, a list generator, forces students to consider a number of subjects and to select one that is reasonably defined. The second part of the program asks a series of questions to elicit information about the chosen topic and to shape the information into appropriate…

Describes a way to teach children the research paper through personal discovery without constraints that usually compel them to copy from reference books. The process demonstrates that organizational schemes for children are intuitive, and that teachers can show children how to use peer response groups during their writing to aid in…

Recounts a teacher's involvement with students in the spontaneous process of learning to write. Presents the benefits of such an approach as preferable to conventional structured methods of writing instruction. (HTH)

Focusing on the teacher's role in helping students to be creative in writing while expressing themselves more clearly, concisely, and accurately, the first four chapters of this guide offer a simple three-step process with strategies for teachers to follow when teaching writing. First, the guide discusses how the teacher can more thoroughly…

Discusses (1) the practice of giving examinations and how this contradicts current theory about the writing process, (2) how students spontaneously became involved in reading and writing activities, and (3) the implications of not teaching traditional grammar. (SRT)

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…

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…

Teaching always occurs in a rhetorical context. It involves discovering and maintaining a proper balance among three elements at work in any communicative effort: the available arguments about the subject itself, the interests and peculiarities of the audience, and the voice of the speaker. Teacher management of the classroom, writing assignments,…

Studies in developmental pragmatics have demonstrated that language learning is a fundamentally social (rather than fundamentally cognitive) phenomenon. It would seem, then, that teachers of writing need to find ways to create situations in which written language serves purposes the students see as real and is supported by an authentic, pragmatic…

Suggests methods of promoting original writing in the classroom, from freeing writing from the notion of failure to working with word variations and rhythms. (MM)

Uses personal experience to show how writing instructors can help students articulate their audience and purpose, use written products purposefully, identify the intellectual demands of their task, and then consciously formulate their ideas in light of these demands. (MM)

Sixth grade students can use cinquain poems to explore language, learn grammar, and write creatively. Before learning about cinquains, students should be introduced to simpler poetic forms. To introduce cinquains, the teacher writes a simple example on the board and has the students informally figure out the parts of speech and grammatical…

Intended to aid any teacher at any level to assist students who are having major difficulties with writing experiences, this handbook presents basic writing skills that students should be able to perform upon graduation from high school. The handbook begins with a definition of writing and a word about the North Carolina competency testing…