To describe a cross-curriculum writing model designed for a middle school, this paper provides a condensed script of what the designer of the program said and did during its first year to steer the program in a productive direction. The paper is written in the form of exerpts from relevant conversations. The first conversation relates how the idea…

Three areas of the classical rhetoric of Aristotle, adapted for the modern discourse of inquiry and demonstration, provide a systematic framework for students to understand thought, investigation, and writing in other disciplines: aitia, kairos, and the enthymeme and the example. Aitia, or cause, has four aspects--the material cause, the formal…

A study examined how teachers help students to write with greater precision. Subjects, 160 freshman students, wrote a single sentence describing a wordless Peanuts cartoon. They were asked to express specific semantic relationships (sequence/cotemporality, intention/instrument, and intention/enablement) between the actions in two contrasting…

The two current approaches to teaching academic discourse are conventional and collaborative; in practice, they overlap because both are based on a "conversational model" of learning to write in college. Taxonomists and collaborationists disagree on the relative emphasis that should be placed on the various pedagogical methods:…

In order to study two aspects of the composing process, goal-setting and risk-taking, English and reading graduate students were given a set of readings on the topic of introspection and asked to write weekly papers in response. The papers were summaries, reaction statements, synthesis essays, and position papers, and students kept ongoing…

A number of questions have been raised about James Kinneavy's theory of expressive discourse, among them the problem of how so many different genres, from the personal essay to the declaration of independence, can be lumped under one aim, self-expression. Another is why self-expression is the only one of the aims to be divided into two general…

The process of writing a research paper must be broken into manageable units while at the same time retaining the recursive characteristic of the writing process. One approach does this by means of a series of assignments that also allow students to accumulate and practice the skills needed to write the final paper. These assignments are (1)…

An examination of the transformations that the concept of genius undergoes when viewed through the apparently incommensurable expressivistic and social views of composing helps to reconcile phenomenologically objective descriptions of composing with value-laden descriptions of the self in the act of writing. When the description of composition is…

To develop a descriptive model of the newswriting process, a study used protocol analysis methodology (focusing on specific thinking and behavior related to task completion) to examine the writing processes of professional and student reporters writing in their natural work environment. The study employed verbal protocols--tape recording the…

Intended for those who want to teach composition primarily and centrally and not just as an adjunct to the study of literature, this book about the composing process provides continuing opportunities to put theory into practice. It consists of the following chapters: (1) "The Composing Process Is a Continuum"; (2) "Observing; Observing Your…

A publication of the Primary English Teaching Association of Australia, this book argues that children should be taught how to write in the various genres or kinds of writing that are needed for different purposes. The contributors draw on their own experiences to show how teachers can develop their teaching of writing to realize the full…

Suitable for grades K-6, the paper presents guidelines for evaluating various levels of writing ability. Also presented are a description of a four-phase writing process model and a list of components necessary for a good writing program. Characteristics of superior, typical, and weak writing are presented on a continuum according to the student's…

Designed to involve students directly and immediately in the process of intellectual inquiry by showing them that writing is a discovery process and by helping them in developing writing as a form of social dialogue, this book is organized to accentuate the dynamic, interactive character of the writing process. Chapter titles are: (1)…

This paper integrates several contemporary issues, all of which focus on the teaching of human developmental theories. These issues include postmodern thought, higher level thinking processes, introducting conceptual conflict and arousal, motivation, and integrating the writing process into the psychology curriculum. Each issue is briefly…

A study examined the role of talk in the writing act. The study utilized participant observational techniques in an attempt to discover how talk was implicated in all stages of writing. Subjects were three fourth, fifth, and/or sixth grade informants, with one student emerging as the key informant in the study. Results indicated that talk appeared…