Writing represents the writer's dialog, first, with himself, and later, with the reader. Both processes take part in the communication and influence its shape and content. The successful writer persuades by making present those things which are not in the immediate environment and by balancing the conflicting demands of stability and flexibility.…

The content of 228 college student's writing samples appears to be a main determiner of how many and what types of preposition errors will appear. These results indicate that preposition errors point to cognitive lags and complex, abstract writing tasks may be the appropriate treatment. (Author/PN)

Explains four visual composition preparations providing both concrete experiences to stimulate student writing and a nonverbal means of teaching the internal structure of discourse. (MM)

An experiment in which students were required to keep journals during a civil engineering course is described. Student benefits (journals as problem-solving tools and forums for personal comments), faculty benefits (sources of background information and use as evaluation/recordkeeping tools), and five major conclusions are discussed. (JN)

Examines the early writing of a young child over the course of several months to illustrate the struggle with the writing process. Draws parallels between the child's writing progress and that of the author as she learned to be comfortable as a writer and suggests implications for the teaching of writing. (HTH)

Discusses successive drafts of a student's response to a short story, illustrating how an initial personal response to literature can be developed into a critical essay with a specific purpose and audience. (HTH)

Describes a pedagogical approach to teaching composition, based on research indicating that inexperienced writers have undeveloped composing processes. Presents a sample lesson for describing an item that gives technical writing students knowledge of how they write and introduces them to strategies for mastering the composing process. (HTH)

Discusses learning theories as they apply to a description of courses offered for teachers to improve their writing and consequently their writing instruction. Covers some of the important personal and professional outcomes of the writing courses, and resulting changes in teaching practices. (HTH)

Describes how student teachers can be made aware of the varying writing behaviors they may find in their classrooms. (AEA)

Suggests a possible unified theory of reading, interpretation, and composition based on recent research in composition combined with the theoretical contributions of reader response critics in literature. Describes a pedagogical program based on this theoretical model that uses students' responses to texts as the center of the course. (JL)

Describes a multidisciplinary literacy project that involves the collaboration of university and public and private high school teachers. (AEA)

Argues that the emphasis of writing instruction in ESL classes should be on writing as a creative process, not on syntax, vocabulary, and rhetorical form. (EKN)

Examines "trends" in English teaching in four categories: interests, trends, movements, and repertoire. (HOD)

Contains suggestions from five teachers on (1) the power of imagery and lessons on poetic form, (2) a writing assignment designed to arouse students' memories in writing, (3) the uses of free writing, and (4) the value of writers' conferences for writing teachers. (RL)

Acknowledges that individuals feel about and describe the world differently, and that composition teachers allow established authors more license with syntax than they extend to students. Suggests that teachers evaluate student writing with more sensitivity to those different perceptions, and recognize the diversity of the English language and…