Presents the journalistic essay as both appealing to college composition students and helpful in teaching them writing clarity, accuracy, organization, and the integration of narration, description, and exposition. (DD)

The purpose of this study was to determine what effects the Christensen Rhetoric Program, a method of teaching sentence and paragraph development, had upon the attitudes of 43 black college freshmen just entering Tennessee State University and upon the persistence of these students in using free modifiers after a lapse of time and instruction.…

This is the fourth and final report in a series dealing with the impact of the modes of discourse (description, narration, exposition, and argumentation) on written syntactic complexity at the elementary school level. The first three reports dealt in turn with the three grade levels involved in the study (third, fourth, and fifth grades). This…

A study examined two questions: Do students include more information or present it more concisely and explicitly when speaking or writing? and, Does language show different thematic relationships (through syntax or diction) depending upon the mode? Twenty-four community college students viewed one of two brief films and responded orally or in…

Created as one part of a comprehensive curriculum for teaching writing from kindergarten through twelfth grade, this guide focuses on expressive writing. Following an introduction describing the goals of the writing project, the preface points out that the guide is based on the comprehensive model of James Kinneavy's "A Theory of Discourse,…

The fourth part of a four-year K-12 curriculum guide project for teaching writing, this guide deals with the literary aim (or purpose) for creating composition--which challenges the individual to develop a creative style found in the novel, short story, drama, or poem, and which encompasses both fiction and nonfiction. The preface explains that…

This book explores the many visually oriented activities that can be used to teach the composition process. Chapter one outlines the format of the book and discusses the composition process in terms of visual perception and reaction to visual stimuli. Chapter two introduces the general aspects of composition that are pertinent to all types of…

In order to determine the effects of writing for different audiences and in different modes of discourse on the syntactic complexity of compositions written by sixth and tenth grade students, 240 students were asked to write in three different modes (argumentive, descriptive, and narrative) to be read by a teacher and a best friend. There was a…

This paper demonstrates the compatability of Aristotle's Four Causes (material, formal, efficient, and final) and George Campbell's Four Forms of Discourse (description, narration, exposition, and argumentation) and synthesizes them to form an ordered yet flexible writing model that can be used in composition instruction. Within the context of…

This study was undertaken to investigate approaches fifth grade children of similar mental ability follow when writing narrative compositions, to identify procedures unique to good and poor writers, and to observe sex differences relative to quality of written expression and ability to verbalize concerning the writing process. A sample of 230…

This teaching guide on composition for grades 7-12 has been designed as a supplement to aid in encouraging the student to understand the importance of the spoken and written word. Included are sections on (1) research in grammar and usage, with annotated assessments of more than 50 current studies, (2) sentence structure, with lesson plans on…

This handbook is one of a set of six which provide a systematic means to help students in grades 4 through 8 learn the process of writing while building specific writing skills. The handbook focuses on paragraph writing, and offers 25 reproducible lessons, in a variety of formats, to help students improve their use of descriptive, narrative,…

A year-long study of the writing growth of eight seventh grade children was conducted to determine whether knowledge of reading rhetoric could be directly applied to personal writing behavior. It was assumed that active comprehension of a distinctive literary model would provide awareness of the structure of narrative prose and improve the…