Finds that the proportion of sentence fragments remained fairly consistent across grade levels, with older students making more errors with more complex syntactic structures as they began to elaborate on ideas and use more subordinate elements. (RL)

Reviews what recent research into speaking-writing relationships has to say about a particular problem of unskilled writers--those who tend to write as if they were talking. Examines the differences and interdependence of oral dialogue and written monologue. (RL)

Discusses observations of children's efforts to move from spoken language to written language and the acquisition of cohesion in first and second grade students. (HTH)

Future directions in the teaching of writing must focus on the classroom and on ways of making the classroom situation more effective. There is a need to consolidate the new insights into writing and the writing process into effective classroom practice. (HOD)

Reviews recent research concerning the relationship between reading and writing and presents some implications of this research for elementary school classrooms. (FL)

Uses a model of the writing process to analyze the writing of a 13-year-old boy and to shed further light on writing as process rather than product. (RL)

Presents a rationale for studying psycholinguistic aspects of the writing process and outlines a model of writing based on a psycholinguistic model of talking. Offers an analytical study of 450 syntax errors written by college students demonstrating the usefulness of studying writing as derivative of normal speaking processes. (HOD)

Process and collaboration were blended into a pedagogy called collaborative composing in this experimental inquiry that tested the hypothesis that an instructional method that divides the composing process into discrete stages in a collaborative environment will improve writing performance. (HOD)

Reports on an exploratory study seeking to define broadly some indices of growth in writing. Notes that the comparison of last year high school and third year college students revealed a seeming lack of growth in rhetorical control but significant growth in the capacity to abstract to higher levels. (RL)

Examines typical elementary school teachers' marks on student writing assignments, which place greater emphasis on mechanics at the expense of content. Suggests ways in which writing program effectiveness might be improved by shifting focus to the development of creative and effective content, during which mastery of mechanics will occur…

Describes a study in which 12 students' papers were critiqued by both WordPerfect's "Grammatik" grammar checking software and by real English/business communication professors. Finds significant limitations to the effectiveness of the software as a guide for student writers. (SR)

Notes that it is not unusual for writing teachers to place "religion" on lists of forbidden subject matter. Describes a two-year research project that developed and tested a pedagogy for responding to the unique problems that composition instructors face when intellectually and rhetorically unsophisticated religious texts do cross their desks. (RS)

Compares Spanish and English essays written by bilingual writers. Describes each writer's discourse-organizational and clausal-combining strategies. Suggests that organization on the discourse level is reflected in the type of clausal combinations chosen by the writers at the sentence level. (TB)

Describes aspects of Linda Flower's work used by the author in devising writing technical assistance for teams writing technical reports in the United States General Accounting Office. Discusses three brief case studies describing the relationship between the work program structure (a major barrier to audience-based writing) and the writing…

Reviews some of the theoretical and practical issues and questions that emerge when the focus turns to adults rather than traditional-age students in the writing classroom and in writing research. Looks at the writing process, textbooks, basic writing, technology, learning styles, attitudes, and voice. (TB)