A teacher's guide to affordable field trips with tips on where to go, what to do once the class arrives, and how to cut costs with careful planning is provided. Suggestions include: local must-touch museums; miniexhibits in the class; in-school excursions; and invite-an-expert seminars. Related writing activities are also listed. (JMK)

Describes how two objectives--enhancing public relations thinking and producing an attractive showpiece of writing talent for the student--form the basis of a course in public relations at the University of Florida. (HOD)

Discusses a variation of sentence combining exercises that involves separating whole paragraphs into sentences and fragments and asking writing students to put the constituents back together. (AEA)

Presents exercises combining sentence generation from prescribed conjunctions with analysis of literary characters. (MM)

Points out the value of responding to students' first drafts of papers, outlines a three-step approach for doing so, and gives five examples of such an approach. (JL)

Explains the microthemes technique, which involves students responding to assignments chosen to emphasize various forms of writing and thinking with written products no larger than 5 x 8 inch note cards. Reviews four types of microthemes used at Montana State University, explaining the activity and the writing and thinking skills developed. (DMM)

Distance running tests evaluate a unique physical activity that is an important component of many other physical tasks. Factor analytic studies have clearly shown that distance running tests assess underlying abilities and physiological capacities that are different from those assessed by runs of shorter duration. (CJ)

Techniques for stirring students' interest in writing include: (1) exposing them to eloquent language use; (2) group poetry-writing (each student writes one line of a class poem); and (3) adapting why-and-because outlines intended for teaching college writing for use by younger students. Suggestions for obtaining writing quantity and quality are…

Surveys the history of composition instruction in America and concludes that imitation exercises may still be valuable to modern students. (JL)

Discusses an exercise that uses science fiction to generate the interest needed to help inexperienced writers overcome their fear of research and build their research skills. (JL)

Outlines an assignment in which students write grant proposals to learn how writing is used in the "real world." (FL)

Information about dance history, different types of dances, and dancing in other countries is presented. Ideas are offered for helping children experience all aspects of dance, from scoring to performing. In addition, Alexander Godunov of the American Ballet Theater answers questions of fifth and sixth graders. (PP)

Describes a unit in which gothic novels are first read and then used by students as models for the writing of an entire "gothic" novel of their own. (JL)

Discusses letter writing as a practical way to teach German composition. Describes the course content and gives samples of topics and exercises. (EKN)