Uses the critical perspectives of Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of language and Lev Vygotsky's theory of language learning to examine the polyphonic texture of writing workshops, the dialogic classroom, the teacher's role as writer and authority figure, and the student's search for voice and role. (RAE)

Claims that writing logs constitute an effective teaching tool in basic college writing courses. Discusses one teacher's success using writing logs to assist the development of students' freewriting skills. Includes sample entries revealing students' comments and progress throughout the term and documenting the teacher's response to these…

Two graduate students teaching a required first-year composition course at the University of Arizona designed a classroom environment in which they could explore with students the invisible rules governing black and white people's notions of what constitutes "appropriate" communication. In many ways, their efforts at this large, public…

Discusses the dangers of writing instruction that encourages "voice" (expressiveness of style) by capitalizing on the same kinds of fears that power evangelism. Claims this approach is not appropriate for all students, may cause problems when a piece is to be written by a committee, and may not be essential at all in factual, informative…

Describes a freshman composition course which employs problem-solving exercises as a writing improvement technique. Notes that sharing ideas while solving problems builds new writers' openness and trust, whereas thinking aloud prepares students to benefit from other writers' thinking protocol methods. Suggests that brainstorming can help students…

Notes that the ability to move from the general to the specific and back again is one of the schemas that basic writers lack. Argues that this schema can be developed through carefully composed writing assignments that employ all of the arts of language--reading, writing, speaking, and listening. (RS)

The purpose of this paper is to present a detailed analysis of the style of exemplary first-year writing in order to establish and understand those features of written discourse that first-year writing teachers most value and reward. Having established the stylistic features of exemplary first-year writing, the paper goes on to provide first-year…

An experimental study evaluated the writing growth of 97 college freshmen before and after instruction to determine whether direct instruction in F. Christensen's "Generative Rhetoric of a Sentence" (1967) made a significant impact on freshmen writers' use of right-branched free modification. The study used a quantitative,…

Suggests that using sociolinguistics as the subject of a semester-long course leads to real and exciting research rather than technically correct but lifeless "dummy runs" for real research in freshman composition courses. (MG)

Studies original and revised essays of 60 university freshmen to determine the effects of attention to audience on improving overall compostion quality. Finds audience attention effective as a revising strategy but more effective as a drafting strategy. (NH)

Focused freewriting, broadly defined as writing without stopping and editing about a specific topic, has been viewed and used as a powerful tool for developing student writing in a wide spectrum of educational contexts. This study aimed to further explore the use of focused freewriting in the context of promoting students' academic skills…

In a composition course, interview assignments have four key virtues: (1) they are interesting in themselves; (2) they ease students into the demands of working with other people's ideas; (3) they offer a rationale for improving rhetorical skills; and (4) they allow students to experience adult, responsible roles in a social context. In addition,…

The relationship between writing-across-the-curriculum (WAC) programs and the first-year writing program has always been a delicate one. Although some WAC requirements have been formalized, faculty participation in programs is still largely voluntary. At Cornell University (New York), for example, teachers must require at least 6 and no more than…

A study explored the constructive, collaborative process of a group of writers under circumstances which throw light on dimensions of meaning making. The writers were college freshmen receiving "process instruction" and working collaboratively in a writing course. Collaborative planning is a loosely structured planning process in which…

In order to support an argument for the teaching of grammar in a writing class, this report first summarizes the descriptive studies done by Kellogg Hunt in 1965 and 1970, and the comparative studies done by John Mellon and Frank O'Hare in 1969 and 1973. The second part of the report consists of five workshop handouts about the following topics:…