This guide to the Georgia Middle Grades Writing Assessment (MGWA) serves the purpose of improving writing and writing instruction. It includes a description of test administration conditions, a sample test booklet, and a structured overview of the writing assessment. Prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and proofreading are explained in the…

Describes a method of teaching basic writing to native and nonnative students that emphasizes a regression to the most basic elements of writing. Considers what writing content, rhetorical techniques, grammar exercises, and proofreading methods are most effective for the two groups. (TB)

Examines whether artificially manipulating specific typographical conditions in which text is proofread promotes better initial recognition of deviant spelling. Involved 60 Spanish native speakers enrolled in an undergraduate writing class, all of whom had been previously designated as underachieving. (Author/VWL)

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.…

Two fourth grade boys with learning disabilities learned to use the Bank Street Writer III word processing and spelling checker program to edit spelling errors. Both boys learned to manage the spell-checking process and increased the spelling accuracy of their edited texts. Differences in their learning processes and the tool's limitations are…

This document contains teacher's materials for a course designed for 11th- and 12th-grade students who are interested in pursuing a career in financial institutions. The course consists of six instructional units: orientation, personal money management, the wise use of credit, negotiable instruments, communications, and security. Depending on the…

Investigated the impact of integrated proofreading strategy training, which combined a computer-based spelling checker and student strategies, on the proofreading of three secondary students with learning disabilities. Students showed an increase in strategy use and percentage of spelling errors corrected on controlled proofreading materials and…

Middle school students with learning disabilities were successfully taught the COPS monitoring strategy to revise and correct writing mistakes. Steps in the strategy include capitalization of appropriate letters, overall appearance of paper, punctuation used correctly, and spelling accuracy. (JDD)

This book presents a collection of motivating, independent activities that involve animals and plants for use in developing the research skills of students in grades 2-6. Projects included in the book cover various levels of difficulty and are designed to promote higher-level thinking skills. Research components included in the activities in the…

A practicum was designed to improve students' manual keyboarding composition skill. A program was developed to integrate the other requisite skills of well-written composition, accurate punctuation and grammar, and fastidious proofreading in a structured, progressive plan. The 25 students in the Typing I Business Fundamentals class, a keyboarding…

A survey of 101 faculty in a variety of disciplines found that most do not give much attention to the composition of electronic mail messages and are not bothered much when receiving messages containing mechanical or composition errors. Results suggest faculty should be cautious about relaxing the rules of grammar, punctuation, and good writing in…

This article presents practical and specific strategies for helping students with writing difficulties become successful in each of the following stages of the writing process: prewriting, writing, revising, and publishing. Recommendations include using visual images, modeling prewriting procedures, providing word banks, providing a…

As the use of computers has become more common in society, human engineering and ergonomics have lagged behind the sciences which developed the equipment. Some research has been done in the past on the effects of screen colors on computer use efficiency, but results were inconclusive. This paper describes a study of the impact of screen color…

This document contains the information required to deliver a 1-semester beginning keyboarding course designed to give high school students a basic understanding of the following: parts of a computer; keyboard functions; Windows 95; keypads; techniques for proofreading and formatting various documents; basic word processing features; capitalization…

A study used structured interviews to explore the nature of written language difficulties of 31 university students with learning disabilities. Discussion of results addressed perceived demands for written expression; specific areas of difficulty (proofreading/detecting errors, spelling, grammar, writing speed, legibility); strategies used to…