This is one in a series of eight discussion pamphlets produced by the Writing Across the Curriculum Project dealing with some of the issues connected with writing in the schools and their relation to learning. This pamphlet focuses on project work in the humanities. It uses examples of the writings of 14- to 16-year-old students to demonstrate the…

The 22 articles in this collection, written by experienced teachers of English, present effective learning activities for developing a variety of skills, qualities, and attitudes in writing. Demonstrating different teaching methods, the articles relate to key principles advocated by the National Writing Project: attention to fluency, peer…

Much recent research into college writing has focused on syntactic measurements. Significant problems inherent in such use of these indices arise for their validity at and beyond the college level and center on the terms "maturity,""complexity," and "growth.""Maturity" has not been satisfactorily defined, nor has the level of competence been…

"MORE THAN THE COMMON ELEMENT IN COMPOSITION AND LITERATURE," LANGUAGE IS A SUBJECT APPROPRIATE FOR STUDY IN THE ENGLISH CURRICULUM. HERETOFORE, THE TEACHING OF LITERATURE AND COMPOSITION HAVE SUFFERED FROM TEACHERS' AND STUDENTS' INADEQUATE KNOWLEDGE OF RECENT LANGUAGE DISCOVERIES, AND LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION HAS BEEN INCOMPLETE AND DISORDERLY.…

SLUM CHILDREN, WHO ARE OFTEN CONSIDERED ILLITERATE AND UNABLE TO COMMUNICATE, MAY SIMPLY BE AFRAID TO EXPRESS THEMSELVES BECAUSE THEY FEEL THAT THE TEACHER CANNOT BE TRUSTED. THESE CHILDREN NEED TO BE ALLOWED TO DISCUSS AND WRITE ABOUT THEIR OWN EXPERIENCES, AND NOT ABOUT, FOR EXAMPLE, THE PROGRESS OF AMERICA. STORIES CONCERNING THE SUFFERING OF…

FOR A REPORT ON COLLEGE PROGRAMS IN FRESHMAN COMPOSITION, THE ASSOCIATION OF DEPARTMENTS OF ENGLISH OBTAINED SYLLABI AND COURSE DESCRIPTIONS FROM DIRECTORS OF FRESHMAN COMPOSITION AT 66 COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES. AMONG THE DATA ASSEMBLED FOR THE FULL REPORT (AVAILABLE AS TE 500 190) ARE THE DESCRIPTIONS OF FRESHMAN ENGLISH PROGRAMS AT EIGHT…

The materials presented in this intermediate-advanced refresher course in Korean are intended for those who have already had considerable intensive training in spoken and written Korean. Lessons 1-70 (the first seven weeks of the course) aim to "maintain and develop habitual responses in the use of words and sentences dealing with high…

These five volumes, comprising 65 lesson units, follow the Defense Language Institute audiolingual approach and general format. New materials, introduced in "basic dialogs," are followed by colloquial and literal translations, word lists, and in later lessons, by a variety of drills and reading exercises. A consonant chart and a…

The eight course projects listed in this paper are designed specifically for a freshman-level open admissions course in children's literature, but they can be adapted to fit the needs of any beginning "topics" literature course that has students with widely varied preparation, ability, and goals. The projects include telling and reading stories;…

Designed to stimulate reluctant writers in grades five through eight, these 40 uncompleted stories were written by a teacher who has used them with success in the classroom. The stories are arranged by length and complexity, and topics range from tales of childhood experiences to accounts of history, nature, and science fiction. A section…

In order to determine if homogeneous grouping in basic expository writing classes makes teaching more effective, 2,212 incoming college freshmen were given a two-hour essay placement examination and divided into four groups according to the kinds of writing problems they had. They then enrolled in sections designated by placement group, except for…

Following a discussion of problems involved in using composition research, this paper describes six categories of research from which a taxonomy of compositional competencies may be abstracted: studies of rhetoric and discourse structure, developmental research, research on the composing process, research on various practice activities other than…

The interview process provides students with a contextual framework for writing essays (reports, profiles, and arguments), because it helps them to identify and develop their own conceptual and investigative skills through dialogue with another person. Before the actual interview, it is important to choose a subject to interview, form a sense of…

The purpose of this paper is to show teachers that composing is the conveying of "knowing" and that students' growth in writing is frequently stunted by teachers' stress on correct spelling, word choice, and syntax in student writing. Topics discussed in the paper include the following: the presence of "memories and experiences, cinemas, radio…

Lev Vygotsky, in his book "Thought and Language," explores the relationship between thought and language. In school, children discover that there is a code (writing) that represents words. Writing is often difficult for students because it is an abstraction in which words are replaced by images of words, it is speech without an…