This journal article focuses on the return of grammar in composition teaching. After about 2 decades of virtual banishment from the higher reaches of English teaching theory, grammar has returned as a subject of serious discussion. This is the result in part of a new assertiveness by a group of people who never lost interest in grammar as part of…

This practicum involved developing and implementing a comprehensive writing program to improve the academic achievement and increase the writing ability of five home/hospital students in a central Florida county. The target group of home/hospital students was assigned to an eighth grade language arts class. Writing techniques used to build writing…

Four group summary papers from an Australian national workshop on discourse analysis discuss verbal and written discourse and the classroom. Papers reflect the four workshop discussion groups of casual conversation, classroom discourse, expository discourse, and literary narrative. They include: "On Casual Conversation" (M. A. K.…

There is no escaping the oral, but many people believe that it is detachable and not central. A dominant, assumed belief conveys the idea that spoken words (like knowledge in writing) are escapable. This belief is held by people who tacitly view speaking as a convenient tool that can be applied as necessary. Scholar-teachers know that it is not…

This study of a high school in Washington, D.C. is about representation, or imaging, and its effect on the academic performance of African American adolescents. The school had an enrollment of 1,886 students in October 1982 as the study began. The inquiry explored African American culturally and politically constructed views of blackness and…

Reflecting on the partnership that exists between teachers and students, this resource guide provides a glimpse into the experiences of educators who reflect on their own teaching and learning about writing. The resource guide is part of the "Student Expressions" series, whose aim is to provide a forum for celebrating the writing of…

Developed as a teaching aid for a General Educational Development (GED) preparation class, this essay writing guide gives students the tools they need to develop and organize ideas for writing an essay with confidence. By following a sequential procedure in this very structured approach, students learn to turn out a well-organized essay. The…

This paper discusses the Pony Express and offers the use of anecdotes as a way to make history more interesting to students. Along with facts about the Pony Express, there are activities for writing projects for enrichment purposes. Activities include: (1) letter writing; (2) news releases; and (3) diary writing. Suggestions are made for similar…

Presumably the differences in multicultural texts are in part or entirely attributable to the race, gender, sexual orientation, class, and nationality of the writer. As college populations have changed to resemble more closely the writers of "multicultural" literature, instructors have become more interested in teaching literature…

Composition professors are in a valuable and enviable position to create a fairly wide range of collaborative opportunities between the college and the community. It is a natural extension of the collaboration engendered in classrooms, writing centers, and departments. These collaborative projects with the community provide a lot of "bang for…

An exercise in the evaluation of errors in Spanish (second language) composition is reported. The exercise, based on J. M. Hendrickson's "discovery" approach to learning, concerned correction of three error types: lexicon; grammar; and spelling. Subjects were 13 native English-speaking university students in a Spanish language program. In the…

The consciousness of dizygotic twins in their communication of actions and events as seen in the visual cliff pictures published by E. J. Gibson and R. D. Walk (1960) was studied in Sweden. In the process of communication, many different state spaces are generated. The methodology demonstrates that ecological and biophysical properties of language…

Dialogic learning is what one instructor calls "speaking back to other voices as a reader and a writer." The idea is for students to situate their own voices in the voices of classmates and texts on subjects they are studying. Students interview each other, use each other's knowledge along with written sources as part of the…

This guide takes the student step-by-step through the writing process in preparing an application essay for admission to college. It tells the student how to: (1) understand what the admissions committee looks for in essays; (2) choose a topic; (3) get "psyched" to write the essay; (4) bring originality to the page; (5) maintain focus;…

This paper discusses the Modern School Movement (MSM), founded in 1924 by French educator Celestin Freinet (1896-1966) and widely-known throughout Europe yet largely unknown to English-speaking educators. The paper focuses on the MSM as the largest student writing network ever to have employed educational technologies as a central aspect of its…