Viewing language as both presentational and representational, or as having both manifest and latent content, can help writing instructors and student writers appreciate its full function and better understand the nature of writing errors. This essential duality of language usage is seen by its functions consisting of unconscious (primary process)…

This report describes a federally funded project to study integration of computers into the writing instruction of classroom teachers, and evaluates the impact of a computer-supported writing program on instruction, on the writing process, and on products of normally achieving and learning-disabled (LD) students. The study compared the impact of a…

The work of researchers, theorists, and practitioners suggests that to facilitate academic success for college-level students of English as a Second Language (ESL), attention must focus on, but not be limited to, the following areas: (1) students need to become "acquirers," not just "learners," of the second language; (2)…

This package is intended to assist tutors who are working to improve their adult students' writing skills. It is divided into three parts. The first part, which focuses on the process of writing, includes 13 units in which tutors can explore writing work, either with small groups or individual students. The units, each of which includes…

The validity of recent research concerning invented spelling, the developmental stages in children's writing, and whether children will attempt writing before reading and continue writing while learning to read were examined. Five developmental stages in spelling have been identified: (1) the precommunicative stage, involving the use of random…

A study examined the extent to which computers affect the writing process. In order to test several hypotheses about writing with a computer 15 experienced writers wrote persuasive letters under four conditions--using pen and paper once and a computer the other three times. All of the subjects were experienced with computers having worked daily or…

Content area writers need a method of operating that integrates the ways of science but without using the proofs used by specialists. Two concepts from the New Rhetoric--S. Toulmin's "warrants" and C. Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca's "universal audience"--might enable English professors to serve a regulative or balancing…

A comprehensive, three-dimensional model of peer tutoring, constructed by gathering current theories and research and locating them on a dynamic continuum of the tutoring process, allows researchers to break new ground in tutor research and might eventually offer a new heuristic for training peer tutors. The first axis in the model, the focus…

Using word processors and the traditional handwriting method, a study investigated the relationship of learning styles to performance in twelfth graders' written compositions. Subjects (n=55) were enrolled in a public school in east central Mississippi. The study hypothesized that students using word processors and those using the traditional…

Some of the issues, history, and approaches in the testing of second language writing skills are reviewed. It is argued that because writing serves many important functions in the lives of individuals and activities that speech cannot do equally well, it is time to stop viewing writing as secondary to speech and to accord it equal attention. Most…

Recall data from eight eleventh-grade students were analyzed to determine the effects of writing tasks on recall of content and relationship units at three levels of importance in the content structure of 21 prose passages. The data were colelcted as part of an earlier study of the effects of three writing tasks (notetaking, answering study…

Recent research on writing that sheds light on writing instruction in English as a second language (ESL) focuses on contrastive rhetoric (the interference of first language rhetoric experienced by the second language learner), patterns of development in English scientific texts that cause problems for second language readers, the contrastive use…

A model exit examination for a community college English composition course is presented, along with a discussion of the evaluation criteria used and the content areas assessed by the examination. First, methods of objectively evaluating written examinations are discussed, and analytical scoring methods are contrasted with the holistic scoring…

Teachers of composition have an obligation to students to know what assumptions underlie their teaching methodology. Every writing course, no matter what its format, represents a particular construct of reality, of seeing the world and the individual in the world, which, in addition to writing skills, is passed on to students. Several useful…

A consulting physician's report on the physiological, social, and psychiatric states of an alcoholic patient, written for the attending physician and other interested parties, is analyzed for coherence. The need for coherence in the presentation of the complex interrelationships in the patient's social context is the primary focus of the analysis.…