Combining the journal writing process with the concepts of collaboration can produce more focused writing and learning. Through the channel of collaborative situations, such as group journal writing, teachers can capitalize on the benefits achieved from the collaborative process and cultivate thinking and writing skills. A group journal writing…

A collaborative, oral-history, writer's workshop was held in an undergraduate college reading class. Sixty-five students each taped an interview on literacy life-experiences with a self-described reluctant reader at the middle or high school level, and wrote a narrative based on the interview. Students worked together in groups on their…

The Program for Adult College Education (PACE) at the University of Missouri at Kansas City offers a Bachelor of Liberal Arts degree. PACE faculty believe in writing as a learning tool. One course in the program is "Culture of the Working Class," which uses a variety of sources to examine how working people have lived from the turn of…

Dialogue journals are recommended in this digest for teachers who want to involve every student in a literacy practice that unites reading and writing and encourages thinking and reflection. The digest first explains that dialogue journals are useful because they use writing as a genuine means of communication between student and teacher. Dialogue…

One researcher found that the most productive collaborative learning approach has at its core a communally evolved metalanguage to generate and maintain ongoing dialogue among students and between students and their teacher. A shared metadiscourse about writing was established in the classroom by working in small groups to determine qualities of…

A study was conducted to make students aware of the issue of self, society, and authority in their writing, and to discover which aspects of the writing workshop method are productive and which are not relative to student perceptions of their authority as writers. A university-required junior level composition course was designed in which students…

The teaching activities presented in this pamphlet focus on spelling. The pamphlet begins with a discussion of the relationship between spelling and writing. Following that, it describes a language experience approach and its implications, the benefits of daily writing, and the kind of writing that allows a successful spelling program to operate.…

A study examined the writing experiences of three college students during their freshman and sophomore years to determine how students in a classroom setting determine the writing requirements of that discipline and for that teacher, and how they go about producing their writing assignments. The study used ethnographic observation and interviews,…

A program evaluation was undertaken at Southern Illinois University (Carbondale) to assess the broad, measurable effects of using computers to teach introductory college composition. Twenty-four classes were studied--twelve control classes and twelve experimental--with the experimental computer classes meeting in the lab for half of their…

Written by teachers for teachers, this book, the first publication of the Oklahoma Writing Project, contains a collection of articles which describe successful strategies and activities for teaching composition. The articles, which deal with a variety of topics, listed with their authors, are as follows: (1) The Writing Process (Gail E. Tompkins…

There are several distinct reasons for writing as a participant-observer. In general, the choice lies among four broad kinds of writing that differ according to role, purpose, and audience. Diary writing can record and clarify for the student what went on, possibly with a privileged reader in mind who will have a sympathetic understanding. The log…

The progress of students enrolled in the writing center of a midwestern university was evaluted after one semester. Subjects were 35 students who had taken the first semester of a two-semester composition course and had failed to meet the guidelines for correctness established for the course. After writing a pretest essay, students were tutored…

A case study examined the student-teacher relationship in writing conferences to determine how both teachers and students can better negotiate teaching-learning situations. Students enrolled in a six-week tutorial writing course at the University of Michigan were used as subjects. Tape-recorded conversations in the weekly half-hour conferences…

Writing is an act of self construction. Considering how students process information can improve the quality of instruction in composing courses, but only if quantifiable, verified models of cognitive functions are taken to heart and applied to teaching methods in the classroom. C. G. Jung's model of the four functions (thinking, sensation,…

Intended for researchers in a variety of fields, this journal issue contains articles that provide guidance for technical writing for publication. Following an introduction, the first article explores some of the reasons papers are rejected by editors, including research design problems, lack of clarity and style, or unsuitability for the journal.…