Explains four visual composition preparations providing both concrete experiences to stimulate student writing and a nonverbal means of teaching the internal structure of discourse. (MM)

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. The introduction describes an analysis of predication that offers teachers insights into ways of helping students develop an expository thesis and study more…

This article suggests several proven strategies to help students move beyond the knowledge-telling stage of writing to the knowledge-transforming approach, which involves not only putting one's knowledge into words but the reflection upon, revision, and improvement of that knowledge. Eleven references are listed. (DCS)

To explore student facility with argumentative writing, 40 persuasive essays of 5th, 7th, and 11th grade students were analyzed for their relative percentage of reporting (narrating), interpreting, generalizing, and speculative sentences. Fifth and seventh graders were found to use significantly more narrative and fewer generalizations than older…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 16 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) a study of the meanings of experience of ten published feminist women writers; (2) the composing activities of computer literate writers; (3) the informational…