A study examined the oral comments of writing groups at different grade levels to determine if students are actually able to talk about writing, what kinds of comments they make about each other's writing, and what effects their comments have on the composing process. Nine groups of from four to six members in the fifth, eighth, and senior high…

To test the hypothesis that induced mental imagery would facilitate the contemplation and reflection that have been suggested as being important to the writing process, a study investigated the effects of instructions to induce mental imagery upon the written language of young children. Subjects, 28 third grade children, were randomly assigned to…

Writing research has indicated that exophoric reference--features of linguistic texts that refer to the situations that surround language--are more characteristic of weak writing and possibly associated with socioeconomic status. To follow up on such research, writing samples from 114 ninth and eleventh grade students and college freshmen were…

Prepared by college teachers of writing who are also teachers who write, the papers in this collection appear in a sequence that begins with theoretical issues and problems, moves through the stages of the writing process, and ends with a discussion of revision and evaluation. Specific topics covered in the papers include (1) language theory and…

A project followed the development of a curriculum of editing assignments used to bridge the gap between Miami-Dade Community College students' passive command of grammatical rules and active use of them in their writing. Assumptions and strategies used in developing the curriculum included: (1) the idea that editing must be seen as a part of the…