BECAUSE THERE HAVE NOT BEEN ANY SWEEPING SHIFTS IN EMPHASES IN THE PAST DECADE IN THE PREPARATION OF SECONDARY ENGLISH TEACHERS BY COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES, GENERALIZATIONS ABOUT IMPROVEMENTS ARE DIFFICULT TO CONSTRUCT. ALTHOUGH TRENDS ARE EVIDENT AND ARE BEGINNING TO BE MANIFESTED IN THE KINDS OF TRAINING GIVEN PROSPECTIVE TEACHERS, PROBLEMS…

RECENT RESEARCH WOULD SEEM TO IMPLY THAT THE RESULT OF INTENSIVE TEACHER-CORRECTION OF STUDENT COMPOSITION DOES NOT JUSTIFY THE EFFORT. IF TEACHER-CORRECTION DOES NOT PRODUCE THE IMPROVEMENT OF STUDENT COMPOSITION, PERHAPS PEER-CORRECTION WOULD BE MORE EFFECTIVE. A REVIEW OF THE FEW PERTINENT STUDIES INDICATES THAT PEER-CORRECTION IS AT LEAST AS…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The ten titles deal with the following topics: (1) rhetorical theories for college writing teachers, (2) contemporary rhetorical criticism of literary art, (3) the rhetoric of the new religious cults, (4) Victorian argument, (5)…

Strayer College in Washington, D.C., offers freshman composition as an individualized, self-paced course that uses instructors as tutors. To determine if there is any relationship between the students' preference of instructors and the teaching procedures those instructors use, a questionnaire was developed focusing on teacher fulfillment of…

Papers presented at the 1980 National Conference on Reasoning, Piaget, and Higher Education are presented which address the implications of Piaget's research on the teaching of reasoning skills in higher education. Contents include the following: "Piaget: An Agenda, Not an Answer for the 80s," by Catherine M. Warrick; "Project…

Compositions in the narrative and argumentative modes of discourse were collected from 240 students (40 boys and 40 girls each from grades 6, 10, and 12) and analyzed for mean T-unit length to determine any differences in syntactic complexity across modes of discourse or grade levels. At each grade level, T-unit length was significantly greater in…

THE ENGLISH TEACHER CAN ROUSE STUDENTS OUT OF UNTHINKING ACCEPTANCE AND PASSIVITY BY PROVIDING THEM WITH CREATIVE LANGUAGE EXPERIENCES DESIGNED TO SHAPE THEM INTO CURIOUS AND RESPONSIVE INDIVIDUALS. TO FIND A PERSPECTIVE ON TEACHING CREATIVELY THE MANY FACETS OF LANGUAGE, LITERATURE, AND COMPOSITION, TEACHERS SHOULD LOOK TO STATEMENTS MADE BY…

THIS EXPERIMENT WITH 100 STUDENT VOLUNTEERS WAS CONDUCTED WITHIN THE REGULAR FRESHMAN ENGLISH PROGRAM AT STANFORD UNIVERSITY BY A GROUP OF TEACHERS WHO WERE THEMSELVES WRITERS, AND BY AN EQUAL NUMBER OF GRADUATE STUDENTS. THE AIMS OF THE EXPERIMENT WERE (1) TO TEACH WRITING, NOT THROUGH RHETORICAL TECHNIQUES, BUT THROUGH HELPING THE STUDENT…

AS ENGLISH SUPERVISORS SEEK TO IMPROVE THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH, THEY SHOULD CONSIDER THAT DEVELOPMENTS IN OTHER SCHOOLS DO NOT ALWAYS SUIT LOCAL CONDITIONS AND THAT PRESENT CHANGE IN THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH ALLOWS TEACHERS TO EXPERIMENT FREELY IN THEIR CLASSROOMS. IN LIGHT OF THIS FREEDOM TO INNOVATE, SUPERVISORS MAY FIND THE FOLLOWING SIX IDEAS…

EVEN MORE THAN A RATIONAL ANIMAL, MAN IS A SYMBOLIZING ANIMAL, CREATING HIS OWN CHANGING REPRESENTATIONS OF REALITY. INSTRUMENTAL TO THIS PROCESS IS LANGUAGE, FOR IT PROVIDES THE BEST MEANS FOR STRUCTURING BOTH PAST AND FUTURE EXPERIENCE. THE VERBALIZATION OF BOTH PERSONAL AND VICARIOUS EXPERIENCE MAKES US REEVALUATE AND RESTRUCTURE OUR…

Chief officers of the Association of Departments of English, the Modern Language Association, and the National Council of Teachers of English met in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, May 17-18, 1968, to determine what recommendations might be made for doctoral programs in English Education. The conclusions reached were based on surveys of existing…

Thirty-seven secondary and four college English teachers in Maine participated in research on a two-fold problem: late adolescents' indifference to writing and their typically superficial themes. The secondary teachers planned 12th-grade writing sequences integrating the study of composition and literature and relating it to problems of immediate…

This language unit for grade 10 builds on a definition of the expository use of language developed in the two previous 10th-grade units. In a brief overview of report language, the referential language of Thomas Huxley is compared with the expressive language of Edgar Allan Poe. The writings of S. I. Hayakawa, Hans Guth, and others are examined…

The purpose of this 11th-grade unit on language is to acquaint students with persuasion because it is one of the basic functions of discourse and a principal method of achieving change in a complex and democratic society. In this unit, students are provided with opportunities for recognizing, evaluating, and using persuasive discourse. The unit…

BECAUSE CHILDREN OFTEN CONCENTRATE ONLY ON RHYME AND RHYTHM WHEN WRITING POETRY, AN EIGHTH-GRADE CLASS WAS INTRODUCED TO THE USE OF SPECIFIC WORDS, SOUNDS, IMAGERY, AND CONTENT. THE STUDENTS READ VARIOUS MODERN POETS AND TOOK A "FIELD TRIP OF THE SENSES," VISITING ZOOS AND MUSEUMS TO FIND SUBJECTS FOR POEMS. WRITING POEMS MODELED AFTER…