A list of points to aid essay writers is suggested as the basis of a marking system for the teacher of English as a foreign language. The checklist, obtained from a book on higher education by Ruth Beard, can be adapted to the English as a foreign language situation. (SW)

Compares the standard forms of technical writing to the classical forms of literature. (MKM)

Reports on the composition program at a New Jersey high school and on faculty members' viewpoints about goals and problems in the teaching of writing skills. (GW)

Favorable results from a competency-based freshman writing course. (AA)

Relates research done with three strategies to create "text-based interest" (how interesting a text is) in order to improve children's recall of expository texts used in schools. While some of the strategies increased subjective interest, none significantly improved recall. (SR)

Learning-disabled (LD) intermediate grade students (N=10), as well as low and high achieving students, were interviewed about their metacognitive knowledge of the writing process and also composed two expository texts. LD students were less aware than high achieving students of modeled writing strategies and steps in the writing process.…

Offers a selected bibliography which provides, in the author's opinion, a solid foundation for teaching composition. (ARH)

Examines expository text processing abilities of fourth- and sixth-grade students and college students. Reports these major findings: topic sentence reading times were shorter if a transition question informed the reader of the next topic; topic sentence reading times were shorter if the new topic was directly related to the immediately preceding…

The study examines the writing of college freshmen on expository, argumentative, and speculative tasks by means of the Crediton cognitive model in order to describe how and why they evoke the range of responses they do, and why particular cognitive strategies are drawn on. Conclusions are presented and discussed. (Author/CT)

Outlines two hypotheses about the reasons for obscurity in expository writing and notes that neither accounts for the general results of an exploratory study of the writing of postgraduates nor for the individual cases presented. Argues that a crucial factor is a person's implicit model of expository writing. (FL)

Discusses a favorite assignment, which is to require students to write a "real-world" business letter and then mail it with the anticipation of a response. (EL)

Proposes a way of looking at the process of expository prose--in the nonfiction texts used in composition courses--which students can then adapt, first to become aware of their own composing processes, and then to experiment with them. (EL)

Examines how fourth and fifth grade students write summaries of both expository and narrative prose and lists eight qualities possessed by successful summarizers. (HOD)

Describes a series of writing exercises specifically designed to improve students' comprehension of physics. Students are given a RAFT which defines their role, audience, format, and task. Format for writing essays focuses on key ideas, general ideas, specific cases, and additional insights. (JM)

Analyzes changes in content and shifts in emphasis in rhetoric texts from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the present. Suggests that the current-traditional approach to the teaching of rhetoric used in most college classrooms has a strong similarity to that advocated by early rhetoricians. (RBW)