A teacher describes how the banning of all forms of the verb "to be" improved not only his students' writing, but also his own. (MT)

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)

Writing well means communicating successfully. To communicate successfully the message must be accurate, brief, and clear. The basic components of clarity are sentence length, story length, and vocabulary. Creative devices and descriptive writing are discussed. (MLW)

Describes a writing assignment (useful for junior high through college age students) that seeks to improve students' descriptive writing through a set of class writing assignments using visual and concrete objects. Allows students to gain awareness, gain knowledge and discuss it, and ask questions as a body of learners rather than in isolation.…

Described are the essential elements of memos; suggested are a basic format for organization, and two problems to which technical specialists' memos seem particularly susceptible. Included is a memo assignment used in senior design classes and professional development seminars. (MVL)

A practicum was conducted to develop critical thinking and improve expression through creative written language utilizing precision teaching as an evaluation of student performance. Six students (grades second through sixth) with low idea generation and few organization skills were trained by three teachers and a teacher advisor using…

Intended for parents and teachers who are interested in the approximate level at which their primary school-age children should be writing, this document describes the type of writing children at each age can produce and how they go about producing it. An introduction makes this point and offers a set of writing process terms to describe…