A study analyzed the revision practices of 25 children in a third grade classroom, half of whom received LOGO instruction, to determine if the revision practices inherent in LOGO programing sponsor revision practices in the composing of autonomous texts of young children. It was hypothesized that the revision strategies in LOGO, both engendered…

Discussions of audience, such as those by Russell Long, Carol Berkenkotter, David Park, Lisa Ede, and Andrea Lunsford, most often do not utilize the research by speech rhetoricians to whom the question of audience has always been central. Chaim Perelman's conception of the "universal audience" and traditional, speech-oriented rhetoric…

To investigate the relationship between the intellectual maturity of college students and evidence of rhetorical maturity in their writing, 70 student essays were evaluated on three independent measures: W. G. Perry's scale of intellectual development, P. G. Diederich's scale of writing competence, and a measure of audience awareness based on the…

Intended for administrators and policymakers as well as teachers, this digest reports on the relationship between class size and writing achievement. The digest first reviews the contradictory findings of class size research, then examines results of meta-analyses of these studies, and subsequent responses. The digest then explores the…

A study examined the effect of word processing on students' revision of compositions and attitudes toward writing. Sixty seventh-grade students enrolled in a required writing course were randomly assigned to either the experimental or the control group. The experimental group used a word processor for all stages and aspects of writing, while the…

A re-analysis of data from a previous study was undertaken to determine if student essays catagorized as dealing with group-phenomenon events differed in quality and syntactic complexity from essays categorized as dealing with individually experienced events. The essays of 44 college freshmen in basic writing classes were catagorized as dealing…

To determine the effect of computer assisted instruction (CAI) on the learning of Associated Press (AP) style rules, a study compared students using CAI with students using the traditional pencil and paper method of style rule practice. Subjects, 49 college students in introductory journalism classes, were given a pretest consisting of ten…

A study determined if there was a significant difference in the writing skills of eighth graders after they completed a writing class that based the method of instruction on the writing process. Subjects, 743 students in a midwestern school system, completed the class and were administered pretests and posttests. The results supported the…

To determine the impact of Composition Aides (CA's)--aides hired to assist teachers in giving students increased writing practice--on student opportunity to write in the District of Columbia Schools, a study investigated the characteristics of CA's, their usefulness, and the amount of time they spent performing various activities. During May and…

To compare the different images of writing that different assessment methods produce, a study examined two formal writing assessments--holistic and the specially developed intra-subject paired comparison method (IPC)--of pre/post university freshman composition-course writing. The samples of writing were unrehearsed, 50 minute, in-class essays.…

In order to describe the developmental patterns of writing and rereading from writing of kindergarten children across group and individual contexts, a study asked 123 kindergarten children in Palatine, Illinois, to write and reread stories of their own composition over a school year. Children were asked to write in group classroom conditions at…

Prompted by a concern for the appropriateness of the modes of discourse as a teaching device and in an attempt to elaborate on the registers of writing required of undergraduate students, case studies were made of six college instructors--two each from biology, English, and sociology. The six teachers were interviewed on two occasions, from 1.5 to…

To gain insight into the evaluation of college freshman compositions, a study explored the relationship between the personality type of the instructor and the grades assigned to essays written by freshman composition students. The sample comprised 23 college instructors who answered a short questionnaire, graded the same expository essay, and…

A successful program of computer-assisted instruction (CAI) in composition will require collaboration between writing teachers and computer experts. Although programs can be carefully evaluated prior to their purchase, the effectiveness of a composition CAI program can be judged only after conducting empirical research with specific student…

To gain insights into what makes student/teacher conversations about writing more and less successful, a sample of freshman composition teachers was asked to tape record all of their writing conferences. In addition, student writing samples were collected. In all, the tape recordings of 48 writing conferences were transcribed and prepared for…