Explored young children's concepts of the functions of writing in community contexts. Twenty kindergarten children responded to three videotaped vignettes depicting people writing in community settings. The children were able to identify a range of writing functions. They also valued writing and described the negative consequences likely to occur…

Describes the teaching approach and materials in "Origins," a book about word origins and how to teach them to elementary students. Notes that this book includes step-by-step activities, a brief history of the English language, relevant poetry examples, and several writing ideas. (MM)

Asserts that a major challenge in the language arts curriculum is to continue including expressive oral language activities amid requirements for more written-language activities. Claims that there are three tasks for curriculum workers interested in oral language: develop rationales; plan curriculum sequences; and implement evaluation of…

Examines a passage describing an encounter between the missionary, Saint Constantine-Cyril, and a pagan in the land of the Khazars. The main focus of the saint's discourse emphasized that without inventing the Slavic alphabet, he would have had no hope of success as a missionary. (24 references) (CK)

Proposes a method for examining how disciplinary differences in knowledge making are created or reflected at the sentence level. Focuses on grammatical subjects of all sentences as key indicators of disciplinary knowledge making in sample journal articles in the subfields of psychology, history, and literature. (PRA)

Examines the relationship between stages of orthographic development and writing fluency. Finds that the graphemic output lexicon of beginning readers and writers is not sufficiently detailed to allow a fluent output. (PRA)

Misconceptions within Australian Technical and Further Education (TAFE) about Plain English (PE) are that PE involves sentence-by-sentence translation and simplification of the language and content of an existing text. Both misconceptions are refuted and PE is concluded to be basically about good communication. (Contains 12 references.) (LB)

The importance of integrating written with oral language in second-language instruction for children is emphasized, and ways to do so naturally in the first two years of French language teaching are outlined. Specific exercises are described, particularly for the second year. (MSE)

To provide some perspective on current issues and challenges concerning the role of grammar in language teaching, methodological trends of the past 25 years are reviewed. A proposal for a decision-making strategy is provided for resolving the controversy regarding how much grammar one should teach to language learners. (VWL)

A preliminary descriptive framework of the rhetorical structure of the argumentative essay is proposed. Research results are used to show that a "categories analysis" can clarify the structure of written texts and provide pedagogically useful materials. (15 references) (Author/LB)

Surveys English accounting, its origin, its development, and its first books (1553-1680) to provide insight into the shift from orality to textuality in English society. (SR)

Following general discussion of difficulty of full expression of cultural identity through writing in second language (English), "Asian Voices in English" (M. Chan and R. Harris, editors) is reviewed. These papers are from a symposium sponsored by University of Hong Kong's English Department in collaboration with the British Council. The papers…

A case study shows how three university students see their experience of learning to write in the academic community in relation to their previous uses of writing. A clear finding is that they all had a strong sense of the university as another "world of literacy" that was difficult to enter and that offered not enough support. (LB)

Describes the written language situation of China's minority groups, giving particular focus to script reforms and the creation of new scripts after the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949. (17 references) (Author/CB)

Evidence is presented that the analogy between oral and written language development is misleading and that literacy has few of the characteristics of naturally acquired behaviors. It is contended that researchers should concentrate on the differences between oral and written language development. (SLD)