Examines the attitudes of students to several aspects of the writing process. Concludes that the process approach to writing improved students' attitude toward composition. (SRT)

Compares the rhetorical strategies of 20 opening paragraphs from "Psychology Today" to those in 20 first paragraphs from student essays. Observes that professionals regularly begin exposition with narratives, indirection, and irony, while students begin with rhetorical questions, truisms, and muddled strategies. Concludes that students'…

Suggests using writing to enhance students' learning of content material because a positive environment that encourages writing allows students to explore, analyze, and synthesize what they are learning in a content classroom. Enumerates principles for facilitating comprehension and recommends using a guided writing procedure. (SKC)

Describes a summer technical writing course that incorporated the use of an "electronic textbook," a computer disk filled with examples of technical writing. Evaluates the class for the electronic textbook's viability, ratio of lecture to lab time, amount of information presented, student learning of the writing process, and student motivation.…

Discusses the gap between the perspectives and practices of (1) teachers in classrooms where writing and reading are being learned and put to good use and (2) those who test students' language competence. Considers ways to narrow this gap, including the notion of teachers acting as tester-researchers. (JD)

Presents an annotated bibliography of research materials of special interest to English teachers. Material is divided into four main sections: writing, language, literature, and teacher education. (AEW)

Investigates the quality of 800 business letters using 43 business communication and writing deficiency criteria placed within one of the following categories: form, grammar, content, sequencing, and style. (NKA)

The Developmental Writing Program process curriculum model was developed to teach writing to elementary students. It combines prewriting, drafting, editing/revising, and publishing/sharing. A staff development model has also been developed and includes three components: administrator and staff orientation, teacher training, and on-site program…

Presents a rationale for studying collaborative writing and evidence that coauthors can learn about the writing process from each other. Explores collaborative writing as an activity that can help students expand their repertoire of writing strategies and their mastery of written communication skills. Describes a case study of fourth and fifth…

Results of two experiments revealed a significant correlation between function-word predictability and reader enjoyment and a strong correlation between content-word unpredictability and reader enjoyment. (FL)

Observations of four students, from their second through fourth grades, as they evaluated compositions revealed, among other findings, that (1) affective responses tend to dominate quality judgments, (2) the number of criteria children used in arriving at quality judgments increased over time, and (3) evaluation criteria are used in both planning…

Provides a case study analysis of two high school teachers' responses to a particular set of writing tasks and suggests an analytical tool that may be used to explore teachers' responses to change. (HOD)

Responds to teachers who are still unconvinced of the value of word processors or computers in professional writing courses. Describes word processing units offered in a technical writing course and reports results from a questionnaire on the units given to students in the course. Contains a copy of the questionnaires. (EL)

Contrasts the revising patterns of junior high school students when they used a word processor and pens and paper. Concludes that those who used a word processing program added more words to the ends of their texts and corrected more errors, but did not make more global text revisions than when they used a pen. (HOD)

Provides an integrative review of experimental treatment studies on the teaching of composition in the past two decades. Assesses the effectiveness of different modes of instruction and different focuses of instruction. Outlines the implications of the results for policy at local, state, and national levels and for future research. (RDN)