Most people are taught writing as a product rather than as a process. Whether the process is prewriting, writing, and postwriting; or planning, writing, and revising, teachers must be concerned with helping students discover and develop the process that works best for them. Thus it is the writing teacher's responsibility to teach students how to…

Two competing paradigms seem to characterize all models of teaching behavior. The first may be labeled as behavior-analytic, detail specific, and structured in that the learner proceeds through prescribed steps toward each goal. The other may be described as inquiry-oriented and learner-centered in that the learner has greater choice of the means…

In a study of the revision strategies used by skilled and basic (unskilled) writers, 50 students assigned to an experimental group wrote an expository essay, then rewrote their compositions from memory. A control group of 20 students was given the same assignment, but the students were allowed access to their first drafts. As expected, the control…

This guide provides a rationale and suggests activities for teachers in all subject matter areas to use in helping their students to write. Some of the activities described are interdisciplinary in nature and lend themselves to team teaching arrangements; other activities are suggested that support the integration of writing into given content…

This paper specifies the content of composition instruction, some of which can be incorporated into material to be presented by and practiced on a computer. It describes instructional outcomes within the context of an instructional model of the composing situation and discusses them under the following headings: (1) the composing problem, (2)…

This is one in a series of eight discussion pamphlets produced by the Writing Across the Curriculum Project dealing with some of the issues connected with writing in the schools and their relation to learning. The seven papers in this pamphlet were drawn from a seminar involving a small number of science teachers and cover a variety of topics,…

Too often college composition students see language as an end in itself, rather than as a means to realization of self and world, and teachers need to establish a classroom environment that stimulates and demands that students use their language to find out about themselves. Techniques helpful in shaping composition classes toward this end…

This paper explores the process of writing from several perspectives, as a first step toward a more comprehensive theory. The first perspective sees writing as a communicative act. The observation that to write is to communicate, though commonplace, has major and sometimes surprising implications for a theory of writing. It forces a focus on the…

Presents a new model of the writing process, adding technic to the traditional elements of writer, subject, and audience. Offers 20 questions, based on the dynamics of the new model, to help students write and teachers respond. (RL)

Examines whether the cognitive strategies of outlining and draft writing enhance college students' writing performance. Reports that outlines improved the quality of writing, but did not enhance efficiency. Rough drafts did not affect quality or efficiency. A survey of faculty revealed that outlines correlated positively with productivity, whereas…

Illustrates the debate between (1) those holding the mechanic view that form must be imposed on writing, enabling the selection of relevant details, and (2) those holding the neo-Coleridgean organic view that as one writes one's thinking assumes shape, structure being indivisible from content. Contrasts textbooks by R. Decker and D. Murray. (JG)

Investigated relationships between individual differences in (1) levels of writing skills and (2) proficiencies at simultaneous and successive cognitive processing. Correlated students' writings with the following word and sentence level problems: spelling errors, missing or inappropriate punctuation of sentence parts, missing noun and verb…

Argues that in part through theory, but mostly through hands-on practice, teachers help students develop an awareness of form as simultaneously constraining and generative that will empower them to understand, use, and even invent new forms for new purposes. (FL)

Compares deaf writers to basic writers with normal hearing in terms of their apparent attention to grammatical correctness. Finds that deaf subjects devoted substantially less attention to grammatical decision making during composition. (MS)

Claims "Responsive Teaching" is a useful conferencing procedure which expects writers to evaluate and refine their own writing, and tries not to side-track the self-evaluation once it begins. (MS)