Writing is at the heart of education. The business of English teachers is to make people more comfortable in using language, particularly written language. Language serves two broad functions: (1) representing elements of external reality; and (2) defining relationships among the people who use the language. The writer's first need is to use the…

A longitudinal study investigated the development of children's writing over a 5-year period by examining how children use physical and symbolic representation systems that they have constructed to express meaning, how the meaning they intend is related to the social context and function of written language, and how this constructive process of…

Editors of business and consumer magazines chosen by a random sample were asked in a mail survey what method they used in working with staff writers and free-lance writers. They were asked how they work with writers in the five stages of the writing process--idea, reporting, organizing, writing and rewriting. The first mailing to consumer…

To research the implications of portfolio assessment for student learning and teacher methodology, a teacher examined the interplay of reflection and evaluation in her expository writing class of 12. In a semester-long intermediate-level class, students wrote a draft of a paper each week, with each paper then going through multiple drafts.…

A review of the literature on writing in a non-native or second language looked at empirical research, responded to a series of questions on the state of the art, and identified an agenda for future research. The questions addressed these issues: how writing ability in a non-native language (NNL) develops: whether there are developmental stages;…

Departmental lines can interfere with collaboration among academic colleagues. Working together within the same department, a speech teacher and a writing teacher realized that both speech and writing have preparatory (planning and development), performance, and evaluation stages, and that within the various stages students use the same or similar…

Beginning with the premise that writing cannot be separated from the subject written about, composition teachers should address themselves to what their students are learning in the process of writing. Some writing courses introduce students to great books but those books are usually written only by white men. Others open students to multicultural…

This book of author-contributed chapters on academic writing grew out of workshops on scholarly writing taught at the University of South Florida. The chapters in part I review the working habits of successful academic authors. The chapters in part II analyze the genres of academic writing. Part III focuses on revision and editing of manuscripts.…

A study compared the effectiveness of two antithetical approaches to teaching writing (formal grammar instruction and the process approach) on students' knowledge of grammar and writing improvement. Subjects, 70 college students randomly assigned to four sections of a first-year writing course, were divided into treatment and control groups. The…

Arranged chronologically, the essays in this book trace the attempts of one writing teacher (Patricia Bizzell) to understand theoretically--and to respond pedagogically--to what happens when students from diverse backgrounds learn to use language in college. Over the 10-year period chronicled in the essays that make up the book, the teacher sees…

A graduate course that required those enrolled to read an array of texts on composition theory yet left it up to them to stimulate classroom discussion yielded mixed results, according to student evaluations. The texts for the course, including Gary Tate and Edward P. J. Corbett's "Writing Teacher's Sourcebook," Erika Lindemann's "A…

This book presents an overview of reading/writing research, discussing specific reading/writing processes, instructional issues, teacher research, and directions for future research. Chapter titles are: (1) Alternative Research Perspectives (Sarah J. McCarthey and Taffy E. Raphael); (2) Reading, Writing, and Genre Development (Judith A. Langer);…

A discussion of writing looks at research on the factors influencing written discourse and proposes a model of writing for academic purposes. First, studies of both cultural and individual aspects of the writing process are reviewed and the phenomenon of writing is viewed from both social and cognitive perspectives. The social perspective is that…

In continuing and building upon past efforts, the National Center for the Study of Writing and Literacy, in collaboration with researchers and practitioners around the world, is forging new theoretical and pedagogical directions in writing and literacy. The Center's research projects and activities aim to respond boldly and straightforwardly to…

As communication is a moral action involving personal choice, composition instructors must help promote their students' character development. Whether during audience analysis, invention, or disposition, composition always involves the development and testing of four virtues: honesty, courage, love, and a combination of hope and humility. Teachers…