Arranged in chronological order, this collection of papers explores the process involved in teaching expository writing in order to stimulate discussion, provoke comment and criticism, and provide the insights and information needed to develop a writing skills program. Much of the collection was written by persons with no direct experience in…

In teaching the principles of rational discourse in advanced expository writing, it is necessary to clarify the similarities and differences between the logic and rhetoric of Aristotle and to identify a common ground between the two. The study of logic within rhetoric focuses on the inductive standards used to support two kinds of argument: the…

This paper offers a model to be followed by students completing a writing assignment. The model, designed originally for writing students at two-year colleges, prescribes the number of paragraphs and the content of each paragraph. Suggested topic assignments are offered, and an example of the use of the model is provided. Four steps are proposed…

Although certain features have been identified as most indicative of "syntactic maturity," these only partially answer the question, "What is mature writing?" Mature thought on the part of the author is reflected in writing in the following ways: recognizing that the audience is different from himself or herself; providing an appropriate context…

An examination of the written products and writing situations of a university reveals that virtually all of these writing tasks call for exposition, which further breaks down into the five components of seriation, classification, synthesis, compare/contrast, and analysis. These five components of expositional discourse form a set of…

Faculty at Wichita State University have developed a research assignment that involves freshman composition students in researching the events that occurred on the day they were born. This paper presents the research outline--an overview of the tasks involved in writing the research papers--that was developed for the assignment. It then discusses…

The writing adjunct course, an individualized composition course offered in conjunction with subject-area courses at six campuses of California State University, is offered as an alternative to the traditional instruction of advanced composition. The purposes of the course are to help students express their ideas, rather than locate their errors,…

This study compared three instructional approaches used in freshman composition courses: a writing-practice approach, a rhetorical technique approach, and a traditional grammar approach. An interview, classroom observations, and a questionnaire were used to analyze the instructional approaches of ten instructors. Two paragraphs on assigned topics…

This is the fourth and final report in a series dealing with the impact of the modes of discourse (description, narration, exposition, and argumentation) on written syntactic complexity at the elementary school level. The first three reports dealt in turn with the three grade levels involved in the study (third, fourth, and fifth grades). This…

An advanced writing course that does not repeat freshman English materials and techniques can encourage a variety of students to become enthusiastic about writing. One such course focuses on three writing modes: the poetic, the informative, and the persuasive. For the poetic mode, students write informal essays; for the informative mode, they…

An objective model for evaluating expository compositions is proposed in this article. The model requires that English composition instructors be cognizant of their instructional objectives and that they convey the criteria for a good essay to their students. The evaluation of compositions then is based on the manifestation of the stipulated…

The methods and specific job requirements for producing a high school newspaper are delineated in this handbook. Chapters are devoted to (1) the newspaper staff and audience, (2) planning the paper, (3) getting and writing news stories, interviews, feature stories, and sports stories, together with copyreading and proofreading, and (4) processing…

Journal writing can motivate students to write frequently, thereby creating content which can later be properly structured. Students who keep journals tend to write better than those who do not. To help students explore certain ideas in journals further, teachers should ask questions or make statements that relate to the students' ideas. Sometimes…

Designed to provide a scale for assessing the quality of short expository essays, this material includes a group of six expository essays about 250-300 words in length arranged in order of quality. Each essay is followed by critical comments and a general discussion of the characteristics of essays at that level of quality. No validity or…

The tradition of self-publishing is represented in this book, which describes the publishing adventures of 26 writers who have sold up to hundreds of thousands of copies of their works. Included are a winner of the National Book Award for Nonfiction, a cookbook author, a literary agent, a playwright, authors of instructional books, minority-group…