A world literature course for gifted and talented high school students is described. J. Renzulli's Enrichment Triad concepts form the basis of the model. The course begins with general exploration activities on the various cultural settings and genres in the literature of the world, and proceeds to the selection of specific novels and topics for…

This booklet provides Grade 6 teachers, administrators, and students with samples of students' writing that exemplify the criteria used to score students' written responses on the June 1988 Grade 6 English Language Arts Achievement Test. The writing assignment required students to read the beginning of a story and use their imaginations to…

The literature on journal writing to learn supports journal writing as a means of enabling students to understand and modify their own academic habits and attitudes. Dialogue journal writing adds another component in which the academically skilled adult offers support, insight, and feedback through written interaction. A study was conducted in…

The graded response (GR) model of Samejima (1969) and the partial credit model (PC) of Masters (1982) were fitted to identical writing samples that were holistically scored. The performance and relative benefits of each model were then evaluated. Writing samples were both expository and narrative. Data were from statewide assessments of secondary…

This professional development package is designed to assist General Educational Development (GED) instructors in developing teaching skills to help them prepare students for the written essay part of the new GED exam. An introduction discusses some research and theory that support collaborative teaching situations that most efficiently and…

In comparing 50 English as a second language (ESL) compositions written in class to 50 ESL compositions written at home, accuracy on the syntactic level and fluency on the discourse or rhetorical level for the home and class conditions were examined. The subjects, twenty-five undergraduate foreign students enrolled in special sections of freshman…

Under the leadership of the Language Arts Curriculum Committee, the Greater Albany (Oregon) Public Schools conducted a district assessment of writing skills of students in grades 5, 7, 9, and 11, using the "analytic trait scoring" method (ATS). The testing procedure conformed to the writing process implemented through the district's Real…

Recent research on children learning to write, coming from a mix of disciplines (English education, linguistics, psychology, anthropology, and rhetoric), is described in this volume. The introduction, by Marcia Farr, emphasizes how the research contributes to understanding (1) of research methodology and theoretical frameworks, and (2) of…

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…

Intended for teachers, this bibliography contains 30 brief reviews of recent books on the theory and practice of teaching writing. The first section, on theory, focuses on "Famous Last Words, The American Language Crisis Reconsidered" (Harvey A. Daniels); "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" (Betty Edwards); "The Role…

A study evaluated a composition grading scale used in the University of California at Los Angeles' program of English as a second language (ESL). It looked at (1) the comparative difficulty of the subscale categories; (2) the interrelationships of the subscale categories; (3) the incremental arrangement of the subscale categories and performance…

Designed to provide a broad introduction to the subject of educational objectives, this booklet discusses an objectives-based approach to course design, highlights the key role played by educational objectives in any systematic approach to course or curriculum design, distinguishes between the terms "aims" and "objectives," and…

There is a movement at the Community College of Philadelphia to develop an interdisciplinary humanities course for both general studies students and career students. The goal of the course is students' active appreciation of the humanities, by their learning to perform basic rhetorical analyses of historically situated works, while understanding…

This text, designed for future teachers of English as a second or foreign language, considers language teaching methodology in the light of recent research in psychology and linguistics. Many aspects of language learning that contribute to effective language use are discussed: oral communication, pronunciation, grammar instruction, listening…

The effect of evaluation method on English as second language (ESL) learners' revisions of their compositions was investigated. Teacher comments, peer evaluations, and English-speaking peer reformulations were compared. Judges rated the revised compositions of 9 advanced and 14 intermediate college ESL students using the ESL Composition Profile.…