Noting that few curriculum projects designed to teach effective writing skills have been evaluated through carefully planned, longitudinal research studies representing cooperative efforts between university and public school personnel, this report describes such a project. The report outlines (1) the purpose of the program, which was based on the…

This paper describes a unified effort at Central College (Pella, Iowa) to insure that graduates in all content areas achieve competency in the communication skills of reading, writing, and speaking. The discussion focuses on how the program was set up, what its components are, how all the faculty contribute, the positive impact of the…

This transcript of a hearing held by the Subcommittee on Elementary, Secondary, and Vocational Education of the United States House of Representatives focuses on the findings of two surveys conducted by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP): the third national reading assessment and the third writing assessment. The transcript…

In an examination of the implications and effects of the competency testing movement on the discipline of English, the six chapters of this book answer major questions concerning what competency in English is, what is known about the assessment of competence in English, and how minimal competency in English can be defined and assessed. The first…

Five teachers, whose experience and reputations recommended them as successful writing teachers, but who used different methods in their freshman composition course, were asked to test their classes at the beginning and end of the course on writing ability and writing anxiety. The pre- and post-testing was accomplished through a written essay,…

Produced in response to a school board's directive to develop a plan for implementing a standardized curriculum in the basic subjects on a district-wide basis, this instructional packet is intended for use by teachers of a course in functional basic English skills for eleventh grade students. The packet contains preparatory sheets, activity…

Produced in response to a school board's directive to develop a plan for implementing a standardized curriculum in the basic subjects on a district-wide basis, this instructional guide is intended for teachers of a course in language arts basic skills for middle school and junior high school students. The guide contains preparatory sheets,…

English as a Second Language (ESL) composition textbooks were compared with freshman composition textbooks through a national survey of U.S. universities. A detailed content analysis of nine ESL and eighteen English composition texts was conducted. A questionnaire was sent to selected universities asking the faculty to answer textbook-related…

A model designed to aid faculty in course development and revision is presented and discussed as it operates at the Community College of Philadelphia. Several guiding principles of instructional development are presented, stressing the importance of a positive approach and the view of instructional development as a mode of communication between…

Activities that promote perceptual motor development and that link language arts experiences to physical education are described in this guide. The 13 activities for students in kindergarten through grade three include playing games that relate movement and cognition, moving to music, describing sensory experiences, and defining words used to…

This paper describes an experiment that was undertaken to examine the usefulness of the cloze test as an objective measure of a native speaker's writing ability. A modified version of the cloze test used by Oller and others to measure integrative language skills in non-native speakers was given to 100 freshman English students. The test…

This occupational skills instructional guide on effective communication is one of twelve making up a curriculum guide on the human aspects of working in organizations. The modules are designed for utilization at various educational levels ranging from high school to adult and continuing education, in either academic or vocational programs. This…

This staff development module is part of one of three groups of career guidance modules developed, field-tested, and revised by a six-state consortium coordinated by the American Institutes for Research. This module is the twevlth in a series on developing a comprehensive career guidance program at the high school level, designed to aid guidance…

A total of 96 Canadian elementary school children (48 "natives" and 48 nonnatives) participated in a study to determine if there were differences in the reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills of native and nonnative children in the same grades in the same school. The subjects were tested for oral and silent reading skills,…

This study explores how children indicate that a new character or object is being introduced into a written text and how they tell their readers that a particular word refers to something which has appeared in the text before. In particular, the study focuses on information represented by noun phrases in written narrative texts. To investigate how…