Investigates the use or nonuse of reading as a metacognitive monitor in first graders' composing, the patterns of contexts related to conscious monitoring by reading, and the writer's awareness of the various monitoring roles that reading plays in writing. Concludes that reading to monitor during composing emerges in different contexts for…

Discussion of the use of computers as research tools to analyze the writing process focuses on a microcomputer-based software program, Recording WordStar. Studies using the software are described, including comparisons of traditional writing methods with word processing methods and utilization of the software's ability to play back a composition…

Assesses the microcomputer's effects on the process and quality of business writing, focusing on writing anxiety, computer anxiety, time spent in writing, writing quality, and the relationship of gender to these variables. Concludes that the most significant predictor of quality is initial writing ability. (MM)

Evaluates a summer writing workshop and thanks the director and the state governor for initiating it. (NKA)

Describes newspapers as a good alternative to the traditional writing textbook and discusses how they can be used at all age levels to develop three stages of the writing process: prewriting, revision, and publishing. (JD)

Identifies context variables in written composition from theoretical perspectives in cognitive psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Considers how multiple views of context from across the disciplines can build toward a broader definition of writing. (JD)

Examines the structure of 100 pieces of nonnarrative writing composed by students in grades 1, 2, and 3. Analyzes the coherence in each of the pieces and the hierarchical ordering of information. Suggests the inadequacy of the term "expressive writing" to describe the initial writing done by students in the sample. (AEW)

Relates the story of the arrival of a new instructor at a community college and his introduction to contemporary composition methods, wittily parodying both writing process jargon and computer jargon. (NKA)

Finds the use of mapping strategies drawn from current research enhances students' ability to organize, analyze, evaluate, and reason critically when composing from academic sources. Presents five examples. (NH)

Notes that many teachers who base their teaching on writing process theory have never completed the last stage of the process--publishing one's writing. Relates the experiences of one college instructor who made a course requirement of writing for publication in an education course and recounts his students' reactions. (JC)

Reviews major themes in recent research on writing. Identifies problems that remain in the application of theory to practice, focusing specifically on writing in the content areas. (BSR)

Documents a seven-year-old child's early activities as a writer from the perspective of (1) intentionality, (2) conditions and production, (3) learning strategies, (4) composing patterns in other semiotic activities, (5) availability, and (6) literacy community, and attempts to analyze those activities through narrative, explication and argument.…

Recounts specific examples in the life of a three-year-old which illustrate how he began making connections between print and meaning and using what he learned from literature to expand his knowledge of the world. Notes literature is not only a powerful influence but also a very natural one. (NH)

The expository writing difficulties of exceptional students are examined in relationship to the writing process, expository text structures, and students' metacognitive knowledge. Approaches to the teaching of expository writing are discussed, and a dialogic approach, involving teacher modeling and a series of think sheets, is described.…

Describes a study designed to determine whether the use of computer word processing would improve both the amount and quality of revision done by high school student writers. The effects of word processing on composition length and revision, and students' attitudes toward writing and word processing are discussed. (47 references) (CLB)