In order to determine if homogeneous grouping in basic expository writing classes makes teaching more effective, 2,212 incoming college freshmen were given a two-hour essay placement examination and divided into four groups according to the kinds of writing problems they had. They then enrolled in sections designated by placement group, except for…

The interview process provides students with a contextual framework for writing essays (reports, profiles, and arguments), because it helps them to identify and develop their own conceptual and investigative skills through dialogue with another person. Before the actual interview, it is important to choose a subject to interview, form a sense of…

In teaching students to write for an audience, teachers should stress the meaning and purpose of the composition over rhetorical correctness and should emphasize style as well as content. Four teaching approaches through which students may establish and communicate their purposes are (1) "immediate feedback," in which teachers motivate pupils…

Examining student reactions to teachers' comments on themes, this study aimed to determine the effects of various combinations of reinforcement upon three dependent variables: (1) student perception of comments as positive or negative, (2) student satisfaction with comments, and (3) student confidence in writing ability. Six intermediate and…

In the Quinmester course "Tie it All Together," students read a variety of short expository pieces, discovering inductively the structure of the sentences and paragraphs in the works, and then proceeding to develop their own. The subject matter in regard to sentences includes: word meanings; sentence elements; sentence structure.…

Students need to be equipped with a rhetoric which emphasizes relationships rather than analytic separations.

Examines the effects of three text signal types (headings, previews, logical connectives) on relatively sophisticated college age readers and their comprehension of technical expository prose. Concludes that all three types can enhance comprehension, but that facilitation depends on passage length and difficulty. (FL)

Compares the rhetorical strategies of 20 opening paragraphs from "Psychology Today" to those in 20 first paragraphs from student essays. Observes that professionals regularly begin exposition with narratives, indirection, and irony, while students begin with rhetorical questions, truisms, and muddled strategies. Concludes that students'…

Four television journalists address television's impact on student cultural literacy. Comments indicate television's superior use of language teaches how to use language effectively, television has a tremendous impact in shaping our culture, and teachers can help students be better media consumers by involving them in critical thinking about…

Argues that many interventions for introducing Aboriginal children to literacy continue to be based on "language deficit" models. Examines whether there is indeed a mismatch between the nonstandard spoken language of some Aboriginal children and textbook language. (RAE)

Discusses (1) strategies that make learning disabled adolescents independent in subject area classrooms, (2) the use of medieval rhetoric to help modern students expand their writing, and (3) students' opinions of sustained silent reading. (NKA)

Investigates the quality of 800 business letters using 43 business communication and writing deficiency criteria placed within one of the following categories: form, grammar, content, sequencing, and style. (NKA)

The effects of four major types of expository text on the comprehension performance of 69 third and 69 sixth graders were investigated. Results suggest that knowledge of discourse types underlies effective expository comprehension and that this ability increases as children reach the upper elementary grades. (BS)

The emptiness and nothingness associated with writer's block is often described as a kind of death, a place where there is nothing to decide, nothing about which to express an opinion. However, for students who enter the writing classroom from a different culture, the problem may not be lack of ideas, but conflicting ideas. Some of these students…

This study examined the effects of training community college students in two reading strategies, self-questioning and summarization, on their comprehension and retention of expository material. Eight developmental reading students from a community college in central New Jersey were taught the strategies of summarization and self-questioning and…