At the high school and college levels, teachers tend to teach to their own learning styles because they find comfort and ease using methods they know. Students, however, exhibit a variety of learning styles. A questioning process led some teachers to analyze their students' problems further and to consider various categories for which they…

Building from scholarly works on persuasion and compliance-gaining, a study investigated magazine query letters that attempt to persuade an editor to buy the article offered, examining what message elements make them successful. Forty magazine editors provided copies of 100 recently accepted magazine query letters, which were compared with 50…

Since students enter college with a basic knowledge of the mechanics of writing, including grammar, spelling, and punctuation, most student writing mistakes amount to a failure to see what they have actually written. Thus, instructors must help students to apply knowledge they already have and to see their own errors through careful proofreading.…

Arguing that becoming a successful author requires the ability to write simply, clearly, and forcefully, this book provides practical suggestion for clear and forceful professional writing. Chapters include: (1) "Why Write"; (2) "Finding Topics"; (3) "Getting Started"; (4) "About Style"; (5) "Organizing…

Based on the premise that planning in writing is a strategic response to both the writing situation and the writer's own knowledge, this paper describes the process adult writers bring to ill-defined, expository tasks, such as writing essays, articles, reports and proposals. The paper also states that in planning, writers draw on (nest and…

Writer-teachers in the classroom offer two characteristics central to teaching students to write. The first is the writer's concern and respect for the students' own language and experience, and the second is the writer's broadly conceived sense of audience in the classroom. Writers try to maintain the connection between their students' own…

Addressing parents, this pamphlet describes ways to help children learn to write well and thereby excel in school, enjoy self-expression, and become more self-reliant. Writing is discussed as a practical, job-related, stimulating, social, and therapeutic activity that receives inadequate attention in many schools. It is emphasized that writing is…

Based on recent findings in writing research, this document offers the following recommendations on how teachers can improve the writing skills of their students: (1) spend time on activities that require real writing rather than short answers and fill-in-the-blank exercises; (2) have students spend more time putting their thoughts on paper in a…

Summarizing the wealth of recent research on sentence combining as an effective method of teaching students to tighten and vary their written sentences, this booklet explains how and why sentence combining works. The first half of the booklet provides background information on sentence combining, exploring the basis for the claim that sentence…

Dramatic texts are an ideal pedagogical tool for clarifying certain aspects of communication such as authorial stance, point of view, role, persona, impersonation, ethos, shared communal values, cultural assumptions, genre expectations, audience, performance, dialogue, and enactment. Using dramatic texts in a composition class can broaden student…

To improve the quality of instruction in composition classes at the University of Wisconsin-Superior, a project incorporating the use of word processors was instituted. The project began in the summer session of 1984 with a regular section of beginning English. Although some students experienced difficulty in learning to use the word processors,…

The language journal can be an effective aid for teaching students to be aware of and sensitive to language. Students write down any observations that interest them about the language they hear or read in everyday life, together with their speculations on the causes of such language. The journal is devoted specifically to language because an…

Theory and research indicated that sentence-combining exercises (SCE's) might be effective for improving the writing of learning disabled (LD) pupils. Seven college seniors in special education were trained to implement SCE's naturalistically in tutoring 13 LD pupils in grades 1-6 over a 10 week period, with a control group of 8 seniors tutoring…

Teachers who conference well with writers often assume a role different from that of the traditional dispenser of information. A number of components have been identified that underlie good communication practices in helping relationships. Teachers can use the following listening or attending skills in virtually any conferencing format: basic…

Intended for teachers, students, and for anyone who is dissatisfied with his or her understanding of writing, this book is focused on practical exercises and experiments. The first section of the book, "What Writing Is," consists of two chapters of primary interest to teachers, and provides a general orientation to the document's approach. The…