Since good prose is usually prose that has been carefully edited, devoting a significant portion of class time to editing should improve the writing and attitudes toward writing of college students in expository writing classes. By requiring students to edit their essays in class, writing teachers force the students to break their writing into a…

Presents a method for teaching report writing that first establishes the order followed when writing a good business report and then presents, in reverse order, the steps of gathering information, interpreting information, and organizing information. (SRT)

Authors describe a remedial writing course and conclude that individualized instruction is effective, efficient and economical. (Author/HB)

More than 7,000 answers to the question "What can I write about?" are offered in this collection of writing topics for high school students. The topics are categorized in 12 sections: (1) description, (2) comparison and contrast, (3) process, (4) narrative writing, (5) classification and division, (6) cause and effect, (7) exposition,…

Discusses a favorite assignment, which is to require students to write a "real-world" business letter and then mail it with the anticipation of a response. (EL)

Presents strategies that teach children how to write in order to demonstrate, to facilitate, and to record science learning. Also suggests using frame of reference- how a writer views and interprets an issue by comparing different source accounts of science questions. (Author/JN)

Presents 26 composition activities that offer elementary students an opportunity to practice expository writing through the preparation of short written or oral reports on scientific topics. (SJL)

Stephen Tchudi, among others, argues that the distinction between expository writing and creative writing is finally a false distinction. Louise Rosenblatt explains that whether readers are reading creative writing or expository writing, they expect the experience of reading to provide them with both information and pleasure. A corollary of these…

A consideration of real world language use yields five questions that could prove helpful in assessing student writing achievements: (1) What is the writer's purpose or intention? (2) What audience does the writer have in mind? (3) What are the organizing principles of the piece? (4) What range of experience and knowledge might one reasonably…

Describes an assignment that urges expository writers to pursue their own interests and create a fully developed prose project that they will be eager to share. (HTH)

Describes the kinds of difficulties experienced by less able writers and how content area teachers can help these writers produce better expository text. Provides writing activities that shift the writer's attention from language forms to language content. (SRT)

The author explains how she taught third- and fourth-graders the skills needed to produce a class newspaper: note-taking, layout, news writing, and proofreading. She found that learning research skills and disciplined newswriting improved students' writing in general. (SJL)

This booklet is one of a series of teacher-written curriculum publications launched by the Bay Area Writing Project, each focusing on a different aspect of the teaching of composition. Methods are illustrated for teaching students to recognize dishonest language and to write honestly themselves and include cliche/euphemism avoidance techniques,…

Explains reasons for eliminating the requirement of "personal" writing from the curriculum in adult classes. (EL)

Describes a system for arranging assignments in a composition course that aims to prepare students for academic writing, by focusing entirely on exposition and its conceptual demands. (HTH)