One way to help students develop literary analytical skills is to combine literary transactional theory with focused free-writing activity. By adapting and using Louise Rosenblatt's transactional theory, literature teachers show students the stages by which the literary experience of a creative work is recreated by the student and incorporated…

The organic theory of writing as a process and as a coherent whole implies that writing evolves from a writer's involvement with the subject. Kenneth Burke's theory of logology, the study of words about words, is a theory of composing that has invention at the center and which a writer can apply from beginning to end as needed. Since a student…

Argues that discontinuities between sentences can often be explained in terms of syntactic relationships within individual sentences. (AA)

Describes the 27 events involved in the "Feedback Profile Project," a model evaluation system designed to provide journalism students with quick, systematic feedback about their news writing. (RL)

Uses a linguistic analysis of a sample freshman theme to argue that the motivating context must elicit a genuine speech act, that the students must conceive of their themes as semantic units or unified wholes, and that novice writers must learn to become readers of their own writing. (AA)

Discusses professional writers' use of "metaphorical stories" to describe their composing processes. Maintains that fiction writers' ascription of independence to their characters has profound psychological implications. Cites metaphorical stories as an important means by which authors understand and communicate their composing…

Discusses a teacher's experience writing poems with eight third and fifth graders pulled from their regular classrooms. Provides transcripts of the two poems written with the students. (SRT)

Examines definitions of written fluency, methods used to promote fluency, and some of the problems inherent in the approaches. Topics discussed include writing process, modeling, metacognition, and developmental studies. Concludes that written fluency is a multi-dimensional concept involving a range of strategies, their organization, and…

"Writing-by-process" and "writing-by-formula" are compared and evaluated. Teacher attitudes concerning both methods are examined. The author states that judicious blends of both approaches may merit continuing attention and experimentation by teachers and students. (CT)

Describes one teacher's attempts to move her students from rote learning to reasoning. Elaborates on the use of a standardized multiple-choice test as a basis for evoking students' arguments concerning defensible answers and reasons they are defensible. (JAD)

Suggests a set of sequenced writing assignments based on language use. Argues that language study involves learning how to observe as much as observing something particular. (MS)

Discusses the composing processes of speakers of English as a Second Language (ESL), and suggests teaching strategies to be used with ESL writers. (MM)

Asserts that tutoring in a college writing center is an effective way to train future composition teachers. Notes that this experience directly involves process teaching, provides a variety of pedagogical roles, and gives insight into the nature of writing assignments and teacher response. (MM)

Delineates various conceptions of and arguments about problem solving and proposes a means for dealing with these conflicts. Argues that composition studies should strive to find a common language with which proponents of opposing views can communicate with each other. (MS)

Suggests that expressive writing is important in the freshman writing course because of the motivation the writer's feelings and memories can offer. Outlines a unit on journal writing, including a cohesive series of both private and shared journal writing activities. (ARH)