While the use of computers in college classrooms and writing labs has benefited some students of writing, these benefits have not been as pronounced for basic or English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) writing students. Operating computers requires motor and mnemonic skills that complicate the task of writing, especially for basic or ESL students, and…

Drawing on findings from psychology, anthropology, and sociology, this book examines motivation for writing and connects writing with the roles each person plays--in the family, the workplace, and in social and cultural groups including school--and with the lifelong search for potential new roles. As a blueprint for changing the writing of college…

This exploratory study evaluated the effects of using word processors to aid fourth- and fifth-graders in developing writing skills. The study focused on the Developmental Writing Program of the Hillsborough County (Florida) School District. A pre-study assessment indicated that, although students wrote well, they were reluctant to revise and edit…

When students write in response to literature, they make reading a creative act. Recording their personal reaction to a poem or an excerpt from a larger work, students become aware of the complex web of past experiences, associations and ideas triggering their responses; they learn to interact more fully, more consciously, with the text. Besides…

The student-teacher memo is a self-evaluative technique that shifts responsibility for writing development from teacher to student. Including descriptions of the intended audience, purpose, and perceived effect of a completed paper, along with specific questions the student would like the teacher/reader to answer on problems in the essay, the…

An orientation course at an Ohio college was designed to help college freshmen adjust to the values of a new living/learning community, using personal journal writing to develop the students' coping skills. Life issues considered essential in adult development theory--identity, intimacy, autonomy, and competency--serve as a background for the…

The approach taken to discourse analysis that classifies text types according to isolated linguistic features is criticized, and an alternative approach to argumentative texts is proposed. This approach looks at the process of argumentation as an instance of the problem-solving process. The argumentative text is then seen as moving from the…

A pilot study explored what children between the ages of 8 and 11 focus on when they write about writing: how children define writing, what features they believe constitute the act and product of writing, and what kinds of writing children consider important and why. During a half-hour period, 36 students in grades 3 through 5 were asked to write…

A study investigated how children's writing reflects the syntactic complexity, style, and format of their basal readers. Subjects were 116 students drawn from 10 second, third, and fourth grade classrooms in two different schools located near Boston, Massachusetts. A matched group design was used, and students using a form of the "Ginn"…

This study investigates the strength of relationships between direct measures (holistic scores for free writing samples) and indirect measures (the Test of Ability to Subordinate) of attained writing proficiency in English as a second language. Subjects were 67 undergraduate foreign language students enrolled in Basic Composition for Foreign…

The Flesch readability index yields meaningful information about the responses of readers to texts. Because the formula is so simple, a group of English teachers wrote a program in BASIC that would count some obvious surface features of a text and calculate Flesch scores. Among the programing problems encountered were counting words (taking into…

Using the file approach in freshman composition gives students experience with the selection and utilization of a range of sources for writing, the awareness of writing as a learning activity that is by nature a process, and the opportunity to write and read across the curriculum. In this approach students are expected to keep a file of…

Intensive peer review is a method of teaching expository writing developed two years ago by A. N. Doane and now used extensively in freshman expository writing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Students meet regularly in groups of four three times a week over the course of the term to share and critique each other's writing. The instructor…

Discussion of the contribution of a particular course toward developing teacher competency raises the question: "Just what does one need to know to teach composition?" If a person were to take only one course, it would likely be "Composition for Teachers." In theory lie answers, so a suitable syllabus would include Beth Neman's "Teaching Students…

Working with a word processor changes writers' behavior. They compose more easily, less anxiously, and more prolifically. The word processor makes them want to sit down and write and makes them feel good about their writing. It does this by encouraging prewriting and invention, by providing a sense of control and mastery over the actual writing…