Makes a case for students' using a focused, carefully phrased question as the basis for prewriting and writing, as opposed to a thesis sentence which can more easily lead them astray. (TB)

Examines two contrasting perspectives of invention: rhetoric as "art," and rhetoric as "knack," derived from talent and experience. Argues that inventive strategies should be viewed within an axiological perspective, and notes that instructors can teach students to combine different types of inventive strategies, avoiding a…

Labeling Peter Elbow an "expressivist" is an ironic reduction of his multifaceted thought to a one-dimensional term at a time when postmodernism stresses heteroglossia. This paper outlines the recent history of "expressivism" to demonstrate its curious social construction. The paper then calls for an "end of…

Argues that the word "creativity" can inhibit students from writing because they feel what they write must be completely new and original. Offers suggestions for helping alleviate writing apprehension such as stream of consciousness writing or free writing. (SRT)

Offers guidelines on helping young children develop into independent writers. Explains what to expect at different stages, such as semiphonetic and phonetic stages, drawing as a prewriting activity, and writing and revising once drawing no longer dictates writing. Offers suggestions for providing an environment that supports the writing process.…

This digest discusses expressive writing and the expressive mode, which is seen as a recurring stage in a writer's process of writing. The digest suggests that by structuring expressive writing activities and correlating them with particular stages of the writing process, a teacher can draw the natural linguistic activity out of a student. The…

In a study to determine whether the writing apprehension of college writers is diminished by regular freewriting and whether apprehension affects the quality of writing, two experimental classes spent ten minutes freewriting each day while two control classes spent ten minutes on vocabulary building. The pretest and posttest consisted to two…

Suggests techniques from Peter Elbow's book, "Writing with Power," for an advertising copywriting class. Describes in detail an eight-step procedure: warm-up, loop writing, sharing, revision, sharing, revision, editing group sharing, and revision. (MS)

Results of a study which tested the effect of four instructional strategies on students' (N=138) writing indicate that the most effective instructional strategy for informational writing was presentation of model pieces of writing, followed by free writing. (IAH)

In addition to enabling students to discover ideas and providing them with raw materials that they can shape into polished drafts, free writing can give students experience, thus making them more comfortable with writing. Beginning each class with free writing activities on topics of enough interest that they distract reluctant writers from…

Contains suggestions from five teachers on (1) the power of imagery and lessons on poetic form, (2) a writing assignment designed to arouse students' memories in writing, (3) the uses of free writing, and (4) the value of writers' conferences for writing teachers. (RL)

Reviews automaticity, effortless writing that enjoys freedom from excessive conscious interference, in terms of its origins in automatic writing and growth into contemporary techniques. Characterizes automaticity as a (1) form of dissociation from consciousness; (2) succor to spontaneity and creativity; and (3) key to understanding why some…

Defines free writing, reviews the philosophy and history of free writing, and discusses some problems that it entails. (NKA)

Invisible writing is a technique whereby the composer writes with an empty ballpoint pen on a blank piece of paper backed by a piece of carbon paper and a bottom blank sheet. An informal experiment in which graduate students used the invisible writing technique was conducted to replicate earlier studies indicating that invisible writing is…

Explains why structured composition assignments produce better writing than nondirectional writing experiences, explores the reasons for this, and establishes hypotheses based on these reasons for developing a theory of composition instruction. (HOD)