Describes the interest, commitment, and good writing that developed from students' production of a book of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry about their local area. (MM)

Concludes that expressive writing tasks generated essays at both fourth- and sixth-grade levels that were judged to be higher in quality than those produced for either explanatory or persuasive writing tasks. (FL)

Several pedagogical approaches are described that aid at in-depth understanding of the journalistic text by examining the way the journalist's discourse functions. By demystifying the discourse, the instructor makes the learner aware of the mechanisms of manipulation and orientation at the journalist's disposal. (Author/MSE)

Reveals that fourth-grade children were able to tell the differences between expository and narrative text but still needed guidance in how to read the two types of materials best. (FL)

Suggests that nonfictive writing typically employs a vocabulary different from that used in works of fiction. Characterizes the vocabulary of essays, asserts that students are usually not given enough assistance in acquiring such vocabulary, and offers steps for giving students help in acquiring the vocabulary of essays. (RL)

The author believes the essay is a good instrument for giving students practice in reading, thinking, and writing, and describes a model for scoring student essays. When using the model, judges ranked essays in similar order, thus allowing essay writing to become a reliable tool for developing basic skills. (KC)

Describes the components of the writing course at York College of the City University of New York, focusing particularly on the writing laboratory with its self-instructional methods and its 13 modules on grammatical features. (RL)

Investigates whether systematic links exist between young school-aged children's awareness of others' communicative intentions and early descriptive-expository and narrative writing proficiency. Young children were shown a directive speech act in a puppet-played scenario, and an interview determined the types of communicative intention attributed…

Results of a study which tested the effect of four instructional strategies on students' (N=138) writing indicate that the most effective instructional strategy for informational writing was presentation of model pieces of writing, followed by free writing. (IAH)

Questions the belief that expository prose is the basic skill that underlies the ideal of academic discourse. Suggests that expository prose and traditional academic discourse are constrained and distorted by ideological values and false conceptions of gender. Argues that writing will seem a much different and richer subject once those values and…

Maintains that the five-paragraph essay formula confuses and alienates students and undermines the basic goals of writing instruction. Advocates developing a repertoire of alternatives for teaching form. Suggests that using the metaphor of the essay as journey is one such teaching alternative. (SR)

Outlines a series of summary-writing assignments which focus on differences between expository and literary texts, and provide unusual opportunities for students to develop their response to literature. Maintains that such summaries increase students' facility as perceptive readers and insightful writers. (SR)

Examines the verbal and visual content of two widely used United States history textbooks from the 1950s and the 1980s. Finds that the 1980s textbooks do not contain significantly more visuals nor any less narrative and expository content than did those of the 1950s. (RS)

This paper examines typical problems that students of English as a Second Language (ESL) have in expository writing, namely those involving classification criteria and hierarchical categories. It also provides a set of guidelines for the practice of classification skills as well as specific classification exercises. (18 references) (MDM)

Critics of student writing in British lecture courses as "mere rehash of lecture notes" are reminded that (1) by its nature, the lecture course focuses on and is limited to information conveyed in lectures, and (2) professors refuse to use materials such as U.S. textbooks that could supplement the information conveyed in class. (MSE)