Discusses achievement motivation among distance education students, and describes a study of Kenyan primary school teachers enrolled in an in-service training course taught primarily through correspondence. A modified Thematic Apperception Test will be used to determine the correlation between achievement motive and performance score in written…

For 83 low-achieving elementary students, predictions of future performance were computed on the basis of reading and written expression data and were subsequently compared to actual data. Analyses indicated that predictions were more accurate when the data had been graphed on equal interval graphs rather than semilogarithmic charts. (Author/JDD)

Ninety students in grades six to eight listened to or read written passages and then identified and corrected grammar and syntax errors. Students listening and receiving auditory feedback located more errors than those reading. Learning-disabled students and students matched on reading level identified fewer errors than did students matched on…

Presents a four-task typology (concept, relation, process, argumentation) of essay examination prompts, based on study of 284 prompts used in 15 academic departments at Western Illinois University, and shows how it can be used to help foreign students sharpen their English-language essay examination-taking skills. (CB)

Outlines the curriculum used in the nineteenth century in Canada for instructing elementary and secondary students in grammar and composition. Notes that modern teachers of English have continued to rely upon the aims of traditional pedagogy because other programs for writing instruction have not displaced older pedagogical beliefs and…

Illustrates an approach to the study of writing that integrates ethnographic analysis of classroom interaction with linguistic analysis of written texts and teacher/student conversational exchanges, using a case study of writing in a sixth grade classroom during a writing assignment. (MM)

Explores (l) the role of pre-text in translating ideas into linguistic forms, and (2) the relationship of translating and pre-text in the planning and reviewing process. Suggests four observations worthy of further study concerning the nature and function of pre-text. (NH)

Describes a study done to identify those syntactic structures that effectively communicate ideas in written German composition of fourth-semester students. Also identified were grammatical structures that writers can control on a syntactic level, but which they do not employ as a communicative strategy. (Author/SED)

Discussion of uses of microcomputers in teaching college level composition covers software and hardware currently available, future trends in development of both, suggestions for teachers on how to introduce students to this writing medium most constructively, and the role and ultimate usefulness of microcomputers in writing instruction.…

Urges publication about experiential education by explaining why experiential educators should write about their programs or ideas. Gives seven guidelines for writing: discover the subject, grab the reader's attention, know the audience, use specifics, find a logical sequence, write, and revise. (SB)

When a large group of nontenured part-time English department faculty were summarily dismissed, a significant segment of the English curriculum was left largely unattended, and other problems arose throughout the institution. (MSE)

Tells how to produce a literary magazine, including picking a staff, selling the magazine, getting entries, typing and proofing, laying out and illustrating, cutting and pasting, and distributing the magazine. (EL)

Describes a four-step instructional process that helps middle and secondary students become actively involved in their reading and provides a structure for main idea development in reading and writing. (HOD)

Stresses the need to keep students' interests in mind when teaching college level literature courses. (AEA)

Describes the Prueba de Lectura y Lenguaje Escrito (PPLE--roughly translatable as the "Test of Early Language Development") that may meet the need for standardized and diagnostic tests of reading and written composition in Spanish. (HOD)