This book describes "Writing Pictures," a daily developmental writing exercise in which students visualize a moment in their life of their own choosing, sketch it quickly, and write four guided sentences in paragraph format about it. Beginning with level one, it takes students through the basic format, and, with time, students progress upward…

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,…

Logical strategies used in informative writing include factuality, comprehensiveness, and surprise value, which provides the focus of the paper and guides both the organization and the thoroughness with which each subtopic must be covered. Failure to teach surprise value is the main problem behind the uninteresting reports that teachers must face…

Describes writing a novel about the "expectancy-loss" burden of a special needs student and the "teratophobia" of ordinary people. Discusses examples in literature, such as Charles Dickens's character Tiny Tim. Explores special needs student's way of awkwardly examining his life, as well as the trials of an author trying to…

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…