This booklet is one of a series developed by the Northern Colorado Educational Board of Cooperative Services to make available to teachers ideas designed and tested by other teachers. Many of the ideas are from educational journals as well as from the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC). The booklet contains sixteen activities…

Teachers can encourage youngsters to express their ideas creatively by providing help in three areas--content, language, and process. In terms of content, children often have few resources for tapping their thoughts, and may need 'pump primers' such as being told the beginning and end of a story and speculating about a variety of middles. Once…

This study investigated two major hypotheses: (1) If capable high school seniors are oriented to the reading of a short story by a pre-assigned, creative writing task, their attitudes toward the story will be more positive than if they are oriented to it by a pre-assigned, noncreative writing task and (2) if those students respond to the creative…

Sentence analysis by the Reed and Kellogg technique of diagraming can present the exact function of every clause in the sentence, of every phrase in the clause, and of every word in the phrase. Furthermore, it can teach the pupil to look through the literary order and discover the logical order, and it is from the teacher that the student learns…

Based on the assumption that, when learning to write, the child must learn to build significant idea-content to communicate and to translate ideas into written material, this book examines the content phase of writing, the craft phase of writing, and the means of effecting a merger of content with craft. The first chapter affirms the central…

A project currently being conducted in Sweden on free written composition at the middle level of comprehensive school is described. The principal aims of the project are listed under three headings: linguistic quality and linguistic development, stimulus measures preparatory to writing, and social differences in writing ability. Included in the…

The purpose of this study was to devise and test an approach to teaching composition that emphasized discovery, structure, writer's voice, and revision. The assumptions were that to write effectively the student must have a significant idea, that the idea must exist in some specific form, and that the human voice of the writer must come through…

This curriculum guide describes a quinmester course which provides a workshop for students interested in writing poetry and which emphasizes the encouragement of individual writing styles. Student performance objectives which are listed include: expressing ideas about words, phrases, pictures, sounds, and/or emotional experiences in a poetic…

This collection of 40 articles and essays on English-language children's literature encompasses literary history and criticism, standards, changing tastes, the child's response to books, writers and their writing, illustration, and recent books. Most of the articles and essays were written in the 1960's, but a few important earlier contributions…

The effects on written composition of two reading approaches--traditional orthography (TO) and the initial teaching alphabet (i.t.a.)--are compared. Two hundred and ninety-three first graders and 391 second graders, half of whom had learned reading with TO and half with i.t.a., were each asked to write two compositions. These essays were rated on…

This study contains writing samples from 9, 13, and 17 year olds and from adults (aged 26-35). The study is one of a series undertaken by the National Assessment of Educational Progress to gather information about how Americans write. The respondents, chosen by random sampling, wrote a letter or an essay in response to an exercise. Separate…

This curriculum guide for the teaching of composition at the fifth grade level includes lessons in six categories: Observing, Recalling Experiences, Character Identity, Feelings, Time/Space Relationships, and Using Imagination. Additional lessons are included for fifth grade students. The lessons include a statement of purpose, a description of…

This anthology presents a selection of children's writing collected and discussed by ten teachers from Great Britain. Part one presents a variety of different types of children's writing. Part two includes examples of creative writing. Part three includes examples of informative writing. Part four presents the writing of four pupils, ages seven,…

This book describes methods by which a teacher may introduce children to the appreciation and creation of poetry. The writer is a children's poet, an elementary school teacher, and an anthologist. The book begins with a chapter discussing what poetry is and what kinds of poetry appeal to children. Subsequent chapters discuss (1) poets likely to…

This is a study of black writers in America, and it calls attention to the recent trend away from the traditional attitudes of black writers, which involved writing about their experiences in terms of a white audience. This regenesis is the rebirth of black literature and the concurrent rebirth of the attitude and actions of the black people with…