Recent trends in composition research indicate that attention has turned away from the parts of the writing product toward the steps involved in the writing process. There are two common threads to this research: (1) writing has a number of distinct stages including prewriting, writing, and editing, and (2) errors are a natural part of learning,…

Second language learning research suggests the existence of a theoretical device (a monitor) that can examine an utterance for grammaticality and appropriateness. The monitor theory gives insight into the process that native language speakers follow in learning to write their own language. The monitor can be developed consciously (learning) or…

Describes a writing assignment in which students collected oral histories from Vietnam veterans in their community, edited the transcripts of their interviews, prepared manuscripts for a booklet of ten interviews, and composed cover letters for the final product. Notes positive effects of both the revision work and the primary research. (JG)

Offers basic advice on using a word processor to teach writing, from how to choose the appropriate software before selecting a computer and a printer, to the benefits of using a word processor instead of a typewriter. (NKA)

Examines how students make and revise meaning when writing in purposeful, informal ways about their interpretation of literary texts. Also reveals five ways in which students develop their understanding of literature through writing. Suggests a mutually enriching reading-writing process of interpretation. (AEW)

Offers an author's thoughts on winning the Newbery Medal. Reveals the writer's background and his tentative beginnings as a children's author. (NKA)

Discusses revision as a growth-through-change process occurring continuously through all stages of drafting. Describes several ways in which word processing facilitates invention, substitution, reordering, adding, cutting and other aspects of this kind of composing. Offers guidelines for using computers in the writing classroom. (JG)

Noting that students in groups learn more effectively when working cooperatively than when working competitively or individualistically, presents guidelines, assignments, and class activities designed to foster cooperative learning. Describes such student-student interaction sessions as describing sense perception details, receiving peer feedback,…

Discusses the values of publishing student writing (among them increased audience awareness), describes one writing project's procedures for formulating topics by daily expressive writing on a literary topic, outlines procedures for evaluating, responding positively to, and publishing this daily writing, and enumerates benefits for teacher and…

Protocol analysis and a literature review were used to determine the ways novice and expert writers, from elementary to postsecondary levels, deal with the cognitive processes that constitute writing. They found that writing is goal-directed, writing goals are hierarchically organized, and writers accomplish their goals through planning, sentence…

Draws an analogy between reading and writing, and between reading and responding to the world. Concludes that reading, like writing and responding to the world around us, is revisionary. (MS)

Offers comments on an article appearing in a recent issue of this journal in which the writer argued that word processing enhances student writing performance. Includes a response by the article's author, Don Richard Cox. (FL)

Advocates an adaptation of Raymond Geuss's critical methodology to help students become critical theorists in the composition classroom. (MM)

Presents three broad areas--writing anxiety, motivation, and beliefs--that seem to be ripe for study in terms of affect, and suggests that the constructivist views refined by George Mandler could be helpful to drive such research. (NH)

Offers two lessons for instructors of business writing courses, the first of which asks students to analyze actual samples of business documents and correspondence, and the second of which asks students to interview eight business people about the type and amount of writing they do in the course of their work. (JC)