This self-reflexive personal narrative charts the autoethnographic journey of an adult educator, exploring her own practices, values and beliefs about teaching. Drawing upon postmodern scholarship in reflexive literary methodologies, the author uses personal memoirs as a research text for engaging in a process of interpretation and…

This paper contends that if the teaching of theory is to be liberatory rather than alienating, the process of theorizing and theory writing needs to be demystifed. To do this, the paper first describes a personal experience that set the course of an educator's life--her learning of English (taught to her by her father) in China. The paper then…

If forensic activity is to contribute to student growth and development, careful attention must be given to training and experience in developing ideas. Borrowing from the time-honored premise of invention, forensics educators should highlight argument construction as a foundation in speechwriting practices. Some of the essential premises or…

This study investigated the writing habits of seven professionals who regularly use word processing to compose texts at work. The aim of the investigation was to get some idea of the variation to be found in how these writers use word processing to compose longer texts (four pages or more). Subjects noted advantages of word processing, such as the…

This book records the author's creative processes as she wrote the book, presenting a personal journey where all artists will recognize aspects of themselves. The first (and most extensive) part of the book (entitled "Elements of Creativity") reveals universal elements of creativity that mirror the ancient elements in nature:…

This guide to the development of effective documentation for users of computer software begins by identifying five types of documentation, i.e., training manuals, user guides, tutorials, on-screen help comments, and troubleshooting manuals. Six steps in the development process are then outlined and briefly described: (1) planning and preparation;…

This guide outlines the writing procedures for English Composition Pupil Performance Objective (PPO) assessments and tests. Procedures for both students and teachers are included for the prewriting, first draft writing, and revising/rewriting sessions. A brief guide to evaluation procedures and intervention strategies is also provided. (MM)

A study examined the effect of word processing on the amount and kind of planning writers do. Subjects, 10 experienced writers and 10 student writers, wrote essays with pen and paper, word processing alone, and a combination of word processing and pen and paper. All students were experienced with computers. The subjects' think-aloud protocols and…

Reading and writing are complementary activities--if not two sides of the same activity--and together they provide a model for instruction in writing and thinking. The classical rhetorical concept of imitation as analysis followed by genesis provides the connection between classical imitation and the recent reading/writing connections proposed for…

According to Stephen M. North, most of the people in composition belong to a category he calls "Practitioners," so the description is not only applied to the University of New Hampshire (UNH). But if the instructors at UNH are most influenced by one person, it would be Donald Murray, and he is specifically listed as a Practitioner. It's…

A qualitative study focused on incubation and illumination within the act of writing to determine if life-span development affects image production during these creative, cognitive acts. Sixteen subjects of both sexes from four age groups represented major developmental stages in the life cycle. The research design provided two 90-minute sessions…

The process, content, and effect of revision in the writing process is analyzed in light of recent writing process research. Taylor calls for an approach to English as second language composition in which students are taught how to write with an emphasis on revision. Most authorities agree that revision entails a complex set of behaviors that…

The three papers in this report set forth the research methodology and the theory used in one research project to identify the processes involved in writing. The first paper proposes a method, termed protocol analysis, for use in identifying the organization of writing processes. It defines protocol analysis as a means for examining the detailed…

An application of reader response criticism, with its abundance of ways of construing readers, permits writing teachers to identify sets of readers for students more effectively than simply exhorting them to remember their audience while writing. Composition teachers can employ the concept of "narratee" (the author's alter ego) as a…

One segment of a year-long descriptive field study of school writing is described in this paper. In particular, the paper examines some of the uses to which writing is put in the first weeks of school in one second/third grade classroom. In doing this, the paper speculates on the writing curriculum in elementary schools and on the realization of…