A practicum was designed to improve 30 kindergarteners' understanding, enjoyment of, and ability to compose poetry integrated across the curriculum in order to enhance their cognition and reading skills. The practicum was also designed to impart the value of teaching poetry to young children. Parents were involved in the process. The practicum…

A review of over 1,000 student poems reveals the wide variety of forms taken by concrete poetry. Although not exhaustive, the list includes (1) figured verse, which uses poetry or poetic language to shape images; (2) letter/word images, created by the arrangement of letters of words in nonsentence form; (3) letter/word compounds, in which words…

Teachers who restrict their teaching of writing to elements of exposition are likely to fail because there is insufficient content, interest, or challenge in learning simple exposition, and the techniques that contribute to polished exposition are more easily accessible when approached through aesthetic writing. A teaching sequence for using…

A case study of a novice poet based on six interviews reveals significant differences in the writing processes of beginning and experienced poets. While the novice's unfamiliarity with other poets' work or methods of working and his own practice of writing only when he spontaneously finds himself in a certain mood distinguished him as a beginner,…

Techniques for encouraging personal writing in a non-threatening setting are discussed. (JH)

Written for tutors of upper elementary and secondary students, this booklet is a guide to 20 hours of formal lessons to improve reading skills through writing. The lessons, presented in step-by-step numbered outline form, are intended to help learners utilize language arts skills in educational activities for remediation. The booklet places major…

The creative writing process, like any writing process, begins with a prewriting activity. Story starters are one such activity which teachers can use to begin the creative writing process with their students. For example, large cartoon-like characters made on an opaque projector can be used to initiate discussion. The second step requires a…

This booklet, building on the premise that humans have a natural affinity with poetry and from an early age associate rhyme and rhythms with the joys of learning language, develops activities that enhance appreciation, engagement, response, and discrimination. The ideas presented in the booklet have been tried by practicing teachers in their…

What first graders chose to put in their journals when given no direct suggestions for topics was studied during the 1985-86 school year in a suburban Birmingham, Alabama, classroom. Journal writing was scheduled for 30 minutes daily throughout the school year, but not all children chose to write every day. At the end of the year, all of the…

This annotated bibliography of 23 articles from the ERIC database on publishing student writing is addressed to anyone interested in publishing student writing as part of an instructional approach to teaching writing skills. An overview section includes representative articles, and a section on strategies for publishing follows. The two remaining…

Sentence combining can act as a corrective for the large number of language arts lessons and activities that emphasize errors. Based on familiar sentence patterns, sentence combining provides models of effective language use and encourages students to examine and try more expressive and interesting styles of speaking and writing. Sentence…

The six chapters in the book comment upon writing and writing instruction. The first chapter describes the major research of the past 15 years and the ways it has altered how teachers regard the teaching of writing. The chapter compares the American research tradition, with its emphasis on system, sequence, and order, and the British tradition,…

The Creative Writing Forum of Essex Community College is a cooperative venture sponsored by three community colleges and the public school system in Baltimore County, Maryland, in which presentations and workshops are given by a featured creative writer and a scholarship to a community college is awarded. The forum was designed to remind high…