To help students become more honest rhetoricians," teachers must recognize the issues involved in teaching controversial subjects." (Author/SW)

An experimental 16-item 5-point Expository Writing Evaluator was administered to 1,311 college students in 79 writing courses to evaluate college-level courses in expository writing. The 16 expository writing items exhibited a narrow band of factor loadings ranging from .87 to .77, and the factor was labeled "Expository Writing Impact."…

Explains four visual composition preparations providing both concrete experiences to stimulate student writing and a nonverbal means of teaching the internal structure of discourse. (MM)

Describes a method for teaching written English to foreign students, as applied in the course "Academic Writing" taught at the University of Manchester. Includes data on the English program student population, including their numbers, majors, and countries of origin, and discusses diagnostic and placement tests tailored to students'…

Describes an interdisciplinary unit in the history and literature of the United States that focuses on ethnic pluralism. Writing assignments combine research and critical analysis, using literary works and historical texts. Topics include the question of individual and moral responsibility, American Indians, slavery, Judaism, and the South. (DF)

One reliable way to measure student writing ability is to gather and evaluate a series of writing samples or essays over a period of time. The use of multiple-choice tests in combination with essay assignments can be the most educationally sound solution to the administrative problems involved in college course placements. (Editor/LBH)

This study tested the influence of writing self-efficacy, writing apprehension, perceived usefulness of writing, and writing aptitude on 218 fifth graders' essay-writing performance. Students' beliefs about their abilities directly influenced apprehension, perceived usefulness, and performance, and partially mediated the effects of gender and…

Describes a study of fifth graders that investigated whether students who compose on the computer write expository texts of longer length, and of better quality, than students composing by hand. Results indicate that the computer alone is not the key to facilitating highly proficient writing. (LRW)

Describes the efforts of San Antonio College's, in Texas, High School Journalism Workshop for Minorities, a two-week "boot camp" designed to prepare students of color for careers in print journalism. Discusses sources of funding, the development of the program, and several participants' experiences in the workshop. (MAB)

Argues that an understanding of professional and popular science writers' goals provides a basis for both explaining and evaluating their language use. Suggests that charges normally made against both types of writing deflect attention from the obstacles writers face and the ways in which they use language to overcome these obstacles. (KEH)

Examines the contexts for use of knowledge about expository text structure and the ways in which students use text structure knowledge. Finds that, following text structure instruction, students used their knowledge of text structure in a variety of contexts during reading, writing, and everyday life. (SR)

Argues that literature can be valuable in the technical writing class, focusing students' attention by: (1) providing useful models for students; and (2) allowing students to see how language operates in representations of particular organizations or cultures. (MG)

Explores the decision patterns of good and below-average college freshman writers regarding available information on audience and topic. Finds that both groups tended to defer audience considerations until the revision stage. (KEH)

Describes a third-year course in Spanish composition and conversation, in which students make use of community resources by doing on-site observation of local television, radio, or newspaper production. Students learn how to write in journalistic style and also read texts by well-known authors. (5 references) (Author/CK)

Reviews the literature of the "Writing across the Curriculum" (WAC) movement and suggests ways for libraries to become involved. It is argued that WAC programs transfer the responsibility for teaching writing from the English department to all academic programs; curriculum-related writing assignments potentially involve library research; and…