The assumptions underpinning grammatical mistakes can often be detected by looking for patterns of errors in a student's work. Assumptions that negatively influence rhetorical effectiveness can similarly be detected through error analysis. On a smaller scale, error analysis can also reveal assumptions affecting rhetorical choice. Snags in the…

Objects assembled in nonrepresentational fashion from tinker toy pieces are the starting point for a technical description writing assignment designed to increase the students' awareness of audience while at the same time giving them practice in description, analysis, and active judgment. Having been separated into two groups, each facing a…

A study was undertaken to observe the prewriting processes of four high and four low writing apprehensive college students and to explore any composing patterns that seemed characteristic of the two groups. During the study, each of the eight participants attended at least four 90-minute sessions that were designed to document the complex…

In 1979, the Yonkers Public School district (New York) launched a project to design and implement secondary school language arts curriculum guides with an emphasis on written composition. A theoretical framework was developed, based on the work of James Britton and the philosophy of the Bay Area Writing Project (BAWP). Britton's work provided the…

The need for effective communication is reflected in the increased number of privately sponsored technical writing workshops and in the increased demand for business and technical communication courses on campuses. In these learning situations the traditional methods that have been used to teach adolescents how to write become inappropriate.…

Because of dramatic changes in the technology of written communication, college graduates are now producing letters, memos, and reports by dictating for word processing systems. Case studies from structured interviews with 28 people in business, industry, government, and the professions show that the composing process of writers who use the new…

To be effective, composition teachers should keep four things in mind. First, writing is as much a process as a product. To understand this, teachers must themselves write, so that they will experience the satisfaction of discovering ideas and viewpoints. Second, individual students' composing processes should be carefully identified before any…

An inservice course on the teaching of writing was designed to provide a content within which reflection and learning could occur. The course began with a week-long period of study and discussion of theories of language, with particular emphasis on the development of writing abilities, and a consideration of the implications of such theories for…

Composition can play an important role in helping our society move away from being a "mentally handicapped" left-brained culture because composition is one of the few "bispheral" activities; left and right brain functions seem to alternate during the writing process, supplementing the insights of each other. Currently, however, most teaching of…

An informal survey of graduate student teaching assistants who were about to teach their first undergraduate composition course was undertaken by asking them what they planned to do with regard to teaching a number of concepts. Those questions were followed one week later by similar questions rephrased to ask what the novice teachers do themsleves…

Based on the observation that freshman composition students associate writing with pain and unpleasantness and have been given little opportunity to engage in enjoyable writing, this paper advocates a method for making freewriting and the journal central and integral dimensions of the writing class. After discussing the techniques and the benefits…

The guiding principles by which the Albion (New York) school district developed its written composition curriculum guide include two basic assumptions about the learning/teaching of composition skills and eight other assumptions that reflect salient features of the composing process. The fundamental assumptions are that writing can be taught and…

Teachers should note that revision is an integral part of the writing process and that writers use revision in various ways. In some cases, revision means rewriting--beginning at the end to discover the real focus of the paper and how to organize it for the greatest effect. In other cases, revision may mean simply polishing by deleting, adding,…

A four-part heuristic model seeks to enhance teacher and student-writer awareness of the significance of the self as writer. The questions in the heuristic examine the relationships between the self and the self as writer, between the self and the subject matter, between the self and the audience, and between the self and the form of the…

Organizing writing students into three-member editorial groups is a teaching technique that focuses student attention on the stages of the writing process, their progression, and their interrelation. The technique also increases peer cooperation and evaluation, while enabling teachers to spend less time grading homework and more time working with…