A study evaluated the effectiveness of the Success in Beginning Reading and Writing (SBRW) program which is based on the philosophy that children should be taught to read and write using materials they will rely on later in life. Subjects, 59 students involved in the SBRW program, were given the California Achievement Tests as pre- and posttests.…

To understand and describe a developmental learning progression of choices students make in forming chains of relationships in their narrative texts, a study used the Cohesive Harmony Index to measure cohesion in children's written narratives. Data were obtained from 36 grade school children at intervals of four months over the students' first…

Three universes of discourse are at work when writers create or use a metaphor: the analogical or metaphorical universe from which they borrow words, things, and relationships (sometimes called the "vehicle"); the contextual universe in which the analogy is being used (sometimes called the "topic"); and the metauniverse, or the comprehensive…

A discussion of the language problems encountered by professionals working overseas and of how to meet the English language needs of these individuals draws on analyses of native-speaker discourse and on excerpts from non-native-speakers' writing about professional subjects. The topics of the excerpts include management, technology, and forestry.…

This booklet provides samples of student writing that exemplify the standards that governed the scoring of student essays on the June 1988 Social Studies 30 Diploma Examination. Copies of the two essay assignments are provided, and five student essays are included for both topics, covering the full range of student writing. Commentaries…

Writing instruction programs have become particularly important at American colleges and universities in recent years, but it is noted that most college faculties and their administrators need advice about providing useful help to the writing programs. An examination of how to develop successful writing programs is presented. Three sections are as…

Standards and assessments used by Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) states to place students in either regular college-level courses or remedial/developmental courses were investigated. Questionnaires were sent to 489 two-year and four-year institutions, of which 404 responded. Information was collected on the specific assessments (tests)…

To investigate how writing might be affected by composing aloud and computer composing--two factors that are increasingly being used either to study composing processes or to alter the typical context in which students write--a study described the composing process of five junior high school students. The students wrote four compositons, one in…

The admissions process at Fayetteville Technical Institute (FTI) currently relies on high school class rank, prior academic performance, and an admissions interview for placement. Faculty concern about students' writing ability prompted a review of the placement test program, which resulted in a recommendation to include a measure of grammatical…

Based on the perspective on childhood literacy which assumes that listening, speaking, reading, and writing abilities develop concurrently and interrelatedly rather than sequentially, a kindergarten literacy program was implemented in classrooms in San Antonio, Texas, to influence young childrens' writing development. Writing was linked with other…

This is a final report of support received through the National Institute of Education (NIE) to assist in research on the writing ability of United States children. The study began under the auspices of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) in order to contribute to a cross national assessment of…

Intended for use in curriculum planning, course development, and program evaluation, this report contains data from a study of the writing abilities of entering freshman students at the University of Texas at El Paso. The first chapter of the report provides background information concerning the need for systematic assessment of the writing…

Intended for college-level basic writers, the program described in this report integrates selected oral communication training with writing instruction. The first section of the report presents a rationale for the program--which uses oral activities to enhance students' development in the underlying rhetorical abilities of invention, audience…

A discussion of what functional linguistic research can offer teachers of composition and English is presented in this paper, which provides examples of different levels of analysis (phonology, morphology, and syntax) for the language of a variety of populations (including traditional freshmen, basic writers, English as a second language (ESL)…

The English teacher encountering a student of English as a second language (ESL) with significant writing problems must find an appropriate way of responding, finding a balance between being overly sympathetic and being overly concerned with correctness. ESL students are learning English from many sources, not just the teacher, and the teacher's…