The two studies reported explored the feasibility of computer assisted composition in helping school-age children handle high-level aspects of the composing process. The results are discussed, and lines for future investigation of computer assisted writing programs for the novice are suggested. Eleven references and two additional sources are…

Presents a set of writing assignments and class activities for helping students to define their own writing problems, set their own goals, and evaluate their own progress. (RL)

Stresses the virtues of one technique and the limitations of another technique for focusing on a writing topic. (RL)

Shows how the classroom environment provided by a second- grade teacher allowed one of her students to experience her own writing process and develop as a writer. (RL)

Presents a selection of literature on responding to and evaluating students' composing skills in courses and tests. (RL)

Suggests a six-step exercise that can be used in one 50-minute session to help students (or teachers at a workshop) experience the writing process of prewriting, writing, and rewriting with response from a peer. (TJ)

Reviews cognitive research on writing, focusing on differences between expert and novice writers. Discusses a study of verbal comments made during writing by four developmental and four college-level writers. Indicates that college-level writers expressed more context-based knowledge and more positive self-evaluations than developmental writers.…

Summarizes Hillock's findings regarding first-language composition instruction and compares them to research into second-language composition instruction. The article discusses implications for teaching writing to English-as-a-Second-Language students and recommends a process/product, task-based approach to writing instruction. (20 references)…

Reviews the effect of research into the writing process on British English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) pedagogy and considers what is meant by process writing. The article offers recommendations for improving writing tasks in coursebooks to practice and develop students' skills needed at each stage of the writing process. (12 references)…

Explains scientific writing processes and describes a trial at Victoria University (Australia) that introduced Computer Science students to the task of technical and scientific writing, including the process of peer review. Includes reports on student attitudes gathered through anonymous surveys. (Author/LRW)

Examines the composing process and writing strategies of three lower proficiency Japanese subjects in their first language (L1) and second language (L2). Found that while some L1 strategies may transfer to the L2 writing processes, lower proficiency writers struggle in utilizing all strategies that could help their writing process in the L2.…

Presents an interview with Mem Fox, a teacher educator and children's book author well known throughout the world. Discusses writing books for children, and the mistakes she made early in her career as a writer. Notes that Mem is a tireless advocate for meaningful literacy instruction, and her "Radical Reflections: Passionate Opinions on Teaching,…

Discusses research conducted in a middle school writing center that showed the necessity of a constructivist philosophy for the curriculum and the teaching process if information-seeking skills or writing is taught as a process. Problems with the teachers' use and understanding of the writing center are described. (Author/LRW)

Describes how simple curriculum-based assessments can be used to evaluate the writing process, the product factors (fluency, content, conventions, syntax and vocabulary), and the writing purpose of students who are deaf or hard of hearing. A process checklist is included that can be used to assess strategies students do or do not use when writing.…

Discusses how students of both sexes in a third-grade class used popular culture to scaffold their stories--they (1) aimed at audience reaction, often using argument and shock; (2) incorporated their favorite writers and curricular topics into their pieces; and (3) by year's end, merged the talents of both genders into a higher form of literacy.…