Presents a procedural model for use as a prewriting strategy to help students "decenter" or distance themselves from their writing and avoid the generalities that characterize egocentric writing. The model provides opposing viewpoints in a student's analysis of problems or issues. (HTH)

Describes a "composing process paper" assignment designed to make students aware of their own writing processes and to teach important problem-solving skills. Provides a series of protocol questions students can discuss before writing descriptions of their individual writing processes. (HTH)

Presents a writing exercise which involves students in their own and their peers' writing. Claims validity in that it personifies one of the most persistent blocks to expression--the inner critic which causes the writer to reject too soon and discriminate too severely. (RAE)

Adapts Edward de Bono's "Intermediate Impossible" strategy--for considering ideas that normally would be discarded as stepping-stones to new ideas--for use as a prewriting activity to enhance creative problem solving. (HTH)

Suggests using poetry's short short forms for a methodical and rapid series of writing assignments that emphasize both careful writing at the sentence level and overall planning and respect for form. (HTH)

Presents a simple writing assignment, composing an anthology, in which students have some control over their learning and gain confidence, enabling them to approach class discussions with more personal involvement and leading them to find more for themselves in poetry. (RAE)

Describes how generating effective advertising copy affords students practice in aspects of persuasive writing, such as developing a thesis, refuting counter-arguments, and writing in a comparison-contrast mode. Notes that this approach helps students negotiate the problematic shift from expressive to persuasive discourse without losing their…

Suggests a set of sequenced writing assignments based on language use. Argues that language study involves learning how to observe as much as observing something particular. (MS)

Describes a teaching unit designed to help students discover the interaction of writer, subject, and audience. Reviews the major types of writing used in the unit and the various audiences for whom the students wrote. (FL)

Describes a six-phase writing assignment for ESL students to help them grasp the concept of an audience beyond the writing instructor. (HTH)

Suggests activities for using newspapers in the composition classroom. Activities include using information from newspapers during the creative process, using journalistic style to illustrate composition techniques, and using the paper as a tool in learning how to evaluate writing. (HTH)

Offers a series of exercises designed to facilitate both discovery of content and its development into a written draft. (FL)

Presents step-by-step instructions to help developmental writing students write a cohesive essay by combining individually written paragraphs. (HTH)

Offers an activity for use in helping students become aware of the importance of voice in writing and reading. (FL)

Describes a writing assignment in which students must complete a page of coherent prose using only one word containing the letter "n." The exercise serves as a prelude to the concepts of revision and of passive and active vocabularies. (HTH)