Most textbooks, ignoring current narrative theory, fail to explain a large number of published essays containing narrative. To challenge textbook definitions of narratives, three points should be made: (1) a clear distinction should be recognized between narratives making points and narratives proving points, (2) the textbook equating of…

This student magazine, created by the English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) classes of a local unit of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU) is a collection of personal opinions, reports, and creative writing with illustrations. Compositions are by both individual students and groups. Selections include the account of a field trip,…

Creative writers have moved into the mainstream of English departments without understanding or reviewing their own history, and without reconceptualizing graduate and undergraduate creative writing programs. Such a history can be constructed from sources in three areas: institutional history, creative writing history, and rhetorical history. An…

Aimed at teachers interested in implementing student journals in their classrooms, this guide offers subjects students can write about and ideas for how to use journal writing as a classroom activity, and justifies writing across curriculum lines. The first section of the guide, entitled Mirrors, suggests that students can benefit from writing in…

Many theorists agree that attention to audience in the act of writing is a very crucial component whether product or process oriented. Audience to the classical rhetorician is an audience to be persuaded, a weak-minded audience that needs someone to direct its thinking to a point of decision. Some high school teachers use this approach as they ask…

Curriculum leaders, program specialists, and teachers can intentionally arouse the activation of one hemisphere of the brain over the other through the use of right brain strategies in language learning. While most functions of the left hemisphere are concerned with convergent production (getting the right answer), functions of the right…

The mythical community of Lake Wobegon, created by Garrison Keillor and presented each week through the public radio show "A Prairie Home Companion," is the place to which everyone wants to return. A town devoid of newfangled technology, where life goes on pretty much as it always has, Lake Wobegon offers respite to listeners who daily…

To make learning about various forms of poetry more interesting to high school students, this paper presents ideas based on an example and precept method of teaching instead of an analysis and explication method. In an introductory section, the paper explains how students will produce a poetry portfolio consisting of 10 or 12 types of poems such…

Using ethnographic techniques to observe seven fifth grade and seven third grade students, a study examined the function of children's oral language during creative writing sessions in typical classroom situations. Findings indicated that oral language plays an important role in the writing process; specifically, that it (1) accompanies writing as…

In a required class on literature and composition at Eastern Illinois University, students learn about the short story by writing one of their own. Their stories then become the context for an introduction to literary terminology such as point of view, setting, and use of dialogue versus narration. Having just written their own stories, students…

This publication focuses on the work of one bright but math avoidant student in a writing seminar in mathematics. The introductory portion of the document explains the philosophy, goals, and activities of the seminar. The course is intended to provide opportunities for students in the humanities to experience mathematics as a discipline at once…

Two documents are combined. The first describes the Arts for Learning program provided by Urban Gateways, a Chicago-based, nonprofit arts and education organization that serves as a resource for schools in six Illinois counties. Urban Gateways provides the resources to make the arts an integral part of the learning process in elementary and…

Michigan Technological University is designing a series of computer modules for supplementary, process-based writing instruction. The Wordsworth II program will lighten the workload of composition instructors by involving students in an individualized writing program outside the regular classroom. It is a sophisticated and interactive program…

Teachers participating in the Teacher Center-United Kingdom Exchange Program at New Mexico State University were required to keep a journal throughout the entire exchange year. The objective of the exercise was to improve writing and reduce writing anxiety among the teachers, and to influence them to implement journal writing in their public…

This profile of the English language teaching situation in Denmark examines the role of English in Danish society and in the educational system. The status of English as the principal foreign language since the Second World War is noted as well as the wide usage of English as the principal medium of communication between Danes and non-Danish…