Describes the difficulties in assessing writing improvement in high school students based on national reports. Discovers that students' fluency, their use of dialogue, and their ease in moving between the abstract and the concrete is increasing. Suggests the resources of the National Assessment of Educational Progress might yield the information…

Describes a study on peer evaluation of students' writing. Indicates that teacher evaluation of students' writing is valuable, though results do not favor teacher evaluation over peer evaluation. (JD)

Reviews recent trends in composition research. Suggests that the apparently divergent directions of study reflect a new interest in writing as a process rather than as a product, and in reading as a response to or re-creation of the text rather than a passive acceptance of textual information. (MM)

Addresses the following questions: (1) why some students are reluctant or unwilling to revise while others revise more readily; and (2) what teachers can do to encourage reluctant revisers. (SR)

Asks the reader to try to make sense out of one student's response to Adrien Stoutenberg's poem "Reel One." Presents the student's reading and an analysis of the student's reading. (HB)

Questions traditional composition techniques and their effects on student thinking and problem solving. Demonstrates how one high school English teacher responded to these classroom issues by reading relevant research and supplementing it with a study conducted on her own students. (HB)

Evaluates "Editor," arguably the most sophisticated grammar and style checker. Tests its effectiveness by using samples from one student and one published writer. Finds that "Editor" is limited to identifying problems in surface structure and that it sometimes identifies "errors" which are not errors while failing to…

Reviews the research done on the evaluation of student compositions. (JL)

Reports the results of a study that revealed that the instructional activities that precede writing are more important to student improvement than longer comments on the writing itself. (JL)

Describes an informal experiment designed to explore the relationship between drawing and writing, and the meaning held in the drawings. Finds that drawing should not be relegated only to small children, but should be used to help older students explore their thoughts and feelings as well. (PRA)

Discusses the composing processes of speakers of English as a Second Language (ESL), and suggests teaching strategies to be used with ESL writers. (MM)

Reports on writing research about revision. Notes the implications of this writing research for classroom applications. (RL)

Reviews research on sentence combining. Notes some of the specific problems of using sentence combining and points out the particular values that make it an instructional device both for the teacher and for the student. (RL)

Reviews writing research and practice to formulate directions for developing student writing processes. (RL)

A review of the writings of a former "English Journal" editor shows a maturing growth in his conception of the composing process and reveals him to be the percursor of many present composition practices. (Author)