Examines one element of rhetorical history--the sorts of subjects teachers have assigned students and their change from objective, centripetal writing tasks to subjective, centrifugal tasks. Documents the historical evolution of rhetorical tradition. (AEW)

Imitation of organizational and sentence patterns is an ancient technique for teaching rhetoric, but to be effective, imitation must be informed, deliberate, and creative. Students must first learn to recognize the characteristics of a given style and then to appreciate the connection between specific stylistic qualities and their cumulative…

A freshman writing assignment sequence encouraged students to use metaphors to think their way through scientific topics, improving their writing skills in the process. The students were all women, aged 18 to 48 years, who had been journal writing for several months but who did not consider themselves competent readers or writers. Reading material…

The instructional practice of imitation works most effectively as a developmental and remedial instrument within a writing-centered, student-centered pedagogy. In this context, imitation can accelerate natural language acquisition and encourage language competence and control, thus enabling student writers to focus their attention on particular…

This book is based on the idea that finding the perfect piece of software is less important than understanding the role of computers in helping all students do what writers do: get ideas, generate material, manipulate that material, confer and collaborate with others in the classroom or over a network, edit the documents, and publish a final copy.…