This current study aimed to reveal expert opinions on the development of informative text-writing skills through descriptive writing practices. The methodological design of this study is a case study that is one of the qualitative research types. In the process of data collection, 65 expert opinions were sought, 55 of whom were Turkish Language…

Strategic and Interactive Writing Instruction (SIWI) has led to improved writing and language outcomes among deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) middle grades students. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of SIWI on the written expression of DHH elementary students across recount/personal narrative, information report, and persuasive…

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.…

Based on courses showing teachers how to use many kinds of objects to teach writing and stimulated by ideas from teachers across the country, this booklet contains suggestions for helping students improve their writing. The booklet discusses writing about objects as a process involving the following steps: making observations and gathering data,…

Designed to combine the science and the art of teaching composition, this series of assignments encourages junior high and high school writing students to explore tone, original visual images, point of view, and other literary techniques. One assignment asks students to write a number of paragraphs alternately using sarcasm, humor, melancholy, and…

Unlike less skilled writers, who are intensely writer-oriented, skilled writers of personal essays and autobiographies are reader-oriented and demonstrate a conscious concern for their external audience. Student writers can develop a sense of an external audience by analyzing parallel autobiographical text selections of skilled and unskilled…

This report describes a program for enriching language use in writing. The targeted population consisted of one classroom of fourth grade students in a public elementary school. This school is in the small rural community near a large city in the Midwest. The problem of lack of language skills in writing was documented with teacher and student…

Presents two assignments that are designed to help students (at the high school and college levels) to develop a sense of place while building skills to improve their narrative writing. Includes the assignment sheet. Describes how students create a Michigan Travel Guide from their final drafts. (SR)

Maintains that the five-paragraph essay formula confuses and alienates students and undermines the basic goals of writing instruction. Advocates developing a repertoire of alternatives for teaching form. Suggests that using the metaphor of the essay as journey is one such teaching alternative. (SR)

A practicum used an integrated writing approach to improve 28 third-graders' ability to write descriptive paragraphs. The program consisted of two strategies: a process approach and a step-by-step approach. Success was measured by comparing the statistics of a pretest and a posttest and through observation, computer generated worksheets, and…

A study investigated whether 10-grade English students would write more descriptively when their thinking was stimulated through viewing images, or hearing music, or both. Subjects, 49 students in 2 intact classrooms in a middle-class, suburban high school in the Jurupa School District, were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 groups that administered…

Group activities in the classroom can be a useful way to explore various standard rhetorical patterns. For descriptive writing, students can select and write about unsigned collages made by classmates. The writer can try to find a unifying theme that characterizes the artist's personality. A narrative component can be added to descriptive writing…

Noting that effective writing instruction depends on careful planning informed by knowledge of the writing process and its variations in relation to different audiences and purposes, this teacher's guide explains the nature of the writing process and how it relates to instruction. The purposes of the guide are threefold: to highlight current…

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…