Two educators tell how and why after-school assignments can be rewarding and fun for kids. (Editor)

Home assignments can provide opportunities to use human and physical resources not available at school, to individualize instruction, and to involve students in community activities. (Author)

A teacher describes a creative writing assignment in which students wrote their own obituaries. (SP)

Recommends teaching speech students how to plan for, recognize, evaluate, and utilize the listener's response to a persuasive discourse. (SW)

Article based on interviews with several elementary school teachers.

Examines two technical writing assignments involving analysis of particular audience adaptive techniques used in five published technical articles from diverse sources on the same limited subject. The first is a discussion exercise involving the entire class, and the second is an individual written exercise. (HTH)

The authors give advice to teachers on correctly presenting assignments by discussing these questions: What information should an instructional assignment convey? What criteria should be considered in phrasing an instructional assignment? And what means can be used to clarify an assignment? (Author/SJL)

Offers two assignments to develop students' problem solving skills: the first focuses on drawing issues, distinguishing key from subsidiary issues, and determining the relative importance of supportive details; the second helps students develop coping skills, relating the known to the unknown in a simulation of the work environment. (RL)

Offers 10 classroom-tested assignments that result in successful writing experiences and assist students in developing creative and critical thinking skills. (RL)

Notes that using magazine advertisements to teach sales letter writing can help students understand sales techniques they see daily, but do not think much about. Presents a four-point strategy to help them put together effective sales letters. (FL)

Describes "two-point system: which rewards students for having read assigned material before class, but does not penalize those who have not. At the beginning of class, students critique in writing the reading assignment. For each successful critique they receive two points on their next exam. (KC)

A poet relates her personal writing problems, which she resolved by completing some of the assignments she had used in her classes. (RL)

Shows that requiring students to evaluate the business communication course in a memo to the teacher gives students writing practice while ensuring total feedback about the course from all the students. (RL)