This paper reports on degrees of awareness and use of specific metacognitive strategies by 16 students in a final-year high school biology class in New Zealand. The aims of the intervention were to broaden students' thinking about bioethical issues associated with cancer and to enhance students' use of metacognition. Cues and prompts were used in…

More empirical studies are needed that evaluate interventions to improve the academic functioning of students with Asperger syndrome (AS). The purpose of this exploratory study was to evaluate the use of Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) writing instruction (Graham, Harris, MacArthur, & Schwartz, 1991) with an adolescent with AS. A…

The author, a high school teacher and forensics coach, describes ways to teach writing--including on-demand essays--that draw on successful practices she developed in coaching. Students learn the importance of using personal conviction and qualified thesis statements to build arguments, as well as learning "The Debater Four-Step," an effective…

An intervention aimed at improving academic writing--in particular, synthesis writing - was conducted with 52 undergraduate students of psychology of the University of Padua (Italy). Before and after the intervention, which lasted 12 weeks, participants were administered a questionnaire on beliefs about writing and a synthesis writing task. During…

Although the FCB (Foote, Cone, & Belding) grid was never intended to serve as an educational tool, it can be applied successfully in advertising classes to address the three areas that S. E. Moriarty considers to be the minimum for writing strategy. To demonstrate the superiority of the FCB grid as a pedagogical tool, a study analyzed…

Many basic writers, who are virtually unable to create a coherent paragraph, are nonetheless capable of presenting orally well-constructed narratives of depth and feeling. Thus, teachers must try to get students to harness the strength of their oral abilities to improve their writing skills, and Kenneth Burke's pentad may provide a key. Burke's…

At Utica College, Anthropology 101 seeks to help students begin to detect ethnocentrism in themselves and others, to get an understanding of the varieties of cultural systems, and to see their own society as simply one example of shapes a society can take. An "ethnography project" is a useful device in advancing these goals. Students are…

Three adult males met 2 hours a week for 26 weeks in a non-academic setting to explore writing. Adult One (A-1) and Adult Two (A-2) were limestone miners and close friends. Adult Three (A-3) had some limited academic writing experience, so A-1 and A-2 thought that he knew more about what made writing effective. A-3 observed the others' writing…

This practicum addressed the problem of Chapter 1 fourth grade students not being able to compose a paragraph using correct spelling and language arts skills. The subjects were 16 predominantly Black and Hispanic students in a school in an old small southern city. The students had paragraph composition assignments weekly. The goals were: (1) to…

At the Writing Center of the Virginia Technical Institute and State University, several methods of publicizing the writing center and developing good public relations have been developed. Through the writing center's brochure or an article in the faculty/staff newspaper, it can be made clear that writing center staff would be willing to talk to…

Describes a sociology course in which the word processor was used as an aid for teaching writing. States that the personal computer could have its greatest pedagogical impact as a device to improve students writing. Concludes that word processors have been shown to be effective tools for encouraging students to write and improve required papers.…

Notes that there are two common definitions of writing style, one monistic and one dualistic, both of which make style unteachable. Reviews these two concepts and then offers an alternative definition of style that unites the advantages of each. (FL)

Evaluates New Mexico State University's remedial writing program for beginning journalism students. Reports that students may benefit from the program. (MM)

Claims students' use of the cliche is unavoidable and relative to culture, place, and time, and that the cliche can, and often does, communicate efficiently. Suggests six techniques such as extending, inverting, punning, and combining, that combined with some imagination, can turn cliches into small teasures. (NH)

Reports that professional writing students using computers wrote significantly better papers than their counterparts in traditional classrooms. Attributes the success of this study (other studies have failed to find significant differences) to the population of skilled, motivated, upper-level students and consistent use of computers from planning…