Today it is necessary to approach environmental topics with students in an interdisciplinary manner to mitigate the environmental damages that the Earth is suffering. In this paper we report an action-research and innovation study aimed at sensitizing students with respect to the care and preservation of the environment through the writing of…

The back-to-basics movement and arguments by its proponents are examined with emphasis on proficiency in writing skills. Composition course requirements are discussed along with the need of instructors to teach semantic and logical skills. (LBH)

Written examinations are considered to be more searching than oral ones; they are less subject to chance because they give more time to the student for reflection, and they do not favor one type of learner over another. This view is taken even though language is speech before it is writing. While there may be a need for a complementary oral…

The purpose of the study was to compare the effectiveness with which composition skills could be taught by the traditional theme-assignment approach and by an experimental method using weekly multiple-choice composition tests in lieu of theme writing. The weekly tests were based on original but typical first-draft compositions and covered problems…

This booklet provides guidelines to produce effective, responsive business letter writing, which promotes public relations, gives plain answers to questions, clearly states requests for additional information, and increases office efficiency and economy. Four major characteristics of such letters are discussed: (1) brevity and the avoidance of…

The experimental program in remedial composition described in this interim report was designed on the assumption that students could best learn to write minimally acceptable compositions by imitating paragraph and essay models which have been divided into a series of incremental steps. The objectives of the program were to develop a heuristic…

The validity of the multiple-choice Sequential Tests of Educational Progress (STEP) Writing Test (1957) was tested by the University of Chicago Center for the Cooperative Study of Instruction. Seven criteria developed by the center to score essay assignments were used to determine the relationship between STEP and actual writing behavior. Of the…

Designed for use within language arts programs as well as in the content areas, this handbook provides a continuum of activities for developing writing skills in grades five through twelve. The activities, arranged according to a diagnostic grid sheet provided for evaluation of student progress, offer practice in perception of task (point of view…