The references in this bibliography tend toward practical or "how to" strategies for writing. The 718 references are listed alphabetically in the bibliography section, with each citation followed by a code denoting its topical categories: (1) general "how to write," (2) "how to write" business letters, (3) stylistics,…

To determine the role that writing plays in personality and attitude change, a study was devised using the Omnibus Personality Inventory (OPI) and teacher observations. High school students were asked to keep a journal and were given a time during the day to free write. Teachers were asked to identify those students who had developed great…

Resulting from a summer workshop concentrating on the writing of elementary school children, this booklet begins by reviewing a number of articles read and discussed by workshop participants. The second section, drawing upon the work of Sheila Schlawin, focuses on the composing process and answers a number of questions that teachers have about…

Examination of an average student's and an honors student's essay revisions showed that while both students rewrote toward meaning, the honors student was more aware of the reasons for her revisions. Gradually, through several versions of her paper, the average student discovered her focus and could then complete her introductory paragraph. This…

Because there is concern with undergraduate writing deficiencies, and because college of education faculties are sometimes unclear as to what specific problems students encounter, a study attempted to determine what specific problems in students' writing are encountered by education professors at the University of Saskatchewan. Another goal of the…

This study is the eighth in a series of reports from the Reading-to-Write Project, a collaborative study of students' cognitive processes at one critical point of entry into academic performance. This report examines the initial reading strategies that a group of participating students used to begin a reading-to-write task and the impact of those…

This study is the ninth in a series of reports from the Reading-to-Write Project, a collaborative study of students' cognitive processes at one critical point of entry into academic performance. This report focuses on ways in which broadly-based cultural and institutional factors silently influence students' reading and writing behaviors.…

This paper examines the conflict going on within the community of English instructors concerning the value of instruction in traditional grammer and the past and present effect of certain historical processes and of the forces which shaped those processes on the techniques and methodologies of English instruction. The paper discusses the open and…

A study explored whether children from lower class families would approach early writing with less confidence than children from other social classes. Subjects, 233 kindergarten children in all, represented four public elementary schools in very different settings: (1) an all-black low income neighborhood in the central city; (2) a white middle…

A study examined composition textbooks to determine any trends in composition instruction from 1900 to 1959. The study period was divided into three periods--1900 to 1917, 1918 to 1935, and 1936 to to 1959--and three textbooks from each period were content analyzed. A categorical framework was formulated, permitting allocation of tasks found…

To determine the effects of peer tutoring on tutors and tutees in middle school English classes, a study was conducted using pretest and posttest data of 120 students in a Mississippi middle school gathered from the following: (1) the California Achievement Test, 1977 Edition, Forms C and D; (2) teacher-assigned grades in English classes; (3)…

Noting that students read and write nonfiction without noticing how the language of nonfiction shapes the subject they are studying, the articles in this journal demonstrate ways in which teachers can link their concern for language with their students' interest in content subjects. Titles of the 24 essays are as follows: (1) "Spreading the…

Over the past several years, technical communicators have been struggling to change some of the stylistic traditions inherited from scientific discourse. Rhetoricians, writing teachers, and psychologists all agree that the use of analogy and first- or second-person sentence construction make for more effective communication than the absence of…

Intended to show teachers how their approaches to the teaching of writing reflect a particular area of research and to show researchers how the intuitions of teachers reflect research findings, the articles in this book are classified according to three approaches to writing: processing, distancing, and modeling. After an introductory essay that…

A study examined the analytic writing development of high school seniors and college students. Subjects, approximately 50 high school seniors and 100 college students, performed two writing tasks on the same topic, one for an audience in agreement and one for a hostile audience. About a third of the subjects made taped protocols of their writing…