Discusses five forms of traditional oral poetry from around the world which not only provide a window into the cultures that nourish them, but inspire students to perform poetry, both their own and that from literature. Offers examples of each form, and presents writing exercises and ideas for students. (SR)

Describes an assignment on writing instructions for the author's introductory sophomore-level business communication classes: a one-day instruction-writing activity that requires students to teach themselves. Describes the preparation and rationale for this activity, and includes the memo that directs students as they teach themselves during the…

Describes one teacher's three-step process for teaching introductory-level business writing students how to tap the Internet's job search resources. (SR)

Outlines a night adventure--a poetry hike for a junior high class. Discusses the group poem they worked on and gives examples of poems students produced after listening to readings of several poets' ideas and expressions of "night." (PA)

Describes an approach that can be used in a business communication course to help students identify some of the complex issues affecting in-house writing. Presents student responses to a writing assignment involving writing non-routine requests (bad news memos) to subordinates. (SG)

Describes a writing assignment based on a teacher-created scenario in which students discover a box (when visiting their grandmother's sister) containing a number of strange items including a written proposal for marriage. (TB)

Argues that, after students are familiar with the characteristics of the five paragraph essay and the expectations of that genre, they can learn to play with those expectations to create lively writing that reveals more individual voice by mixing in other genres. Argues that such a strategy can teach students to engage in academic writing more…

Suggests that the five-paragraph theme does in fact have value, and explains why assumptions about its ills are wrong-minded. (SR)

Provides English teachers with some suggestions on ways to counter growing problem of students cheating on writing assignments by copying or buying papers available over the Internet. (PKP)

The effectiveness of writing to learn programs and teaching practices on the students are discussed. It is found that writing to learn practices have an impact on achievement, perhaps more than conventional measures of achievement are able to determine.

This article evaluates a writing assignment in which social psychology students gathered examples from outside the classroom (e.g., cartoons, movies) and analyzed them with course material. Compared to a control group, students who completed the assignment learned that it was easier to apply social psychology to the real world. A follow-up survey…

Calibrated Peer Review™ (CPR), a web-based instructional tool developed as part of the National Science Foundation reform initiatives in undergraduate science education, allows instructors to incorporate multiple writing assignments in large courses without overwhelming the instructor. This study reports successful implementation of CPR in a…

I was interested in whether the inclusion of a service-learning experience would affect students' attitudes and values about the environment. To investigate this question, I incorporated a service-learning project into the laboratory portion of one of the two sections of my non-majors biology course, and kept the lecture portions of the course…

Teaching mathematics in real-word contexts is a strategy to make math relevant for undergraduate students. However, very little research exists on students' methods of integrating contextual and mathematical knowledge through writing. This study uses an interdisciplinary writing assignment to investigate the relationship between students' written…

The socioemotional factors, which influence students' trajectories on their pathways to reading success, are often overlooked in literacy screenings and reading instruction. This article outlines the connections between personality factors, in particular resilient personalities, and early literacy success. It also offers teachers a series of six…