This self-instruction manual contains nine lessons on news writing. They are: (1) what is news?; (2) how do you report news?; (3) polish your style; (4) write a better sentence; (5) getting the facts; (6) you're on your own--writing a news story from a collection of facts; (7) practice makes perfect--more news writing from a collection of facts;…

Developed by the Oregon Elementary English Project, this curriculum unit, intended for grades three and four, introduces students to some of the mechanics of writing and provides some practice in using these mechanics. The unit contains an introduction to writing and seven sections, covering beginning and end punctuation, commas, the apostrophe,…

This curriculum guide provides suggested learning activities for a sequential program in composition skills for grades K-12. The composition skills discussed are listed in developmental levels, not necessarily in terms of grade levels. It is recommended that the student become familiar with basic skills before progressing to the more complex ones.…

Psycholinguistics has offered many new insights into the development of reading, e.g., only a small part of the information necessary for reading comprehension comes from the printed page, comprehension must precede the identification of individual words, and reading is not decoding to spoken language. These views are elaborated in this collection…

Students in grades 4, 5, or 6 can learn to write more concretely, accurately, and deliberately by employing three strategies: (1) elimination of those words or phrases that garble meaning or repeat unnecessarily; (2) substitution of more specific, concrete, and generally more appropriate expressions for ones that are vague and unimaginative; and…

Offering the student a way to develop a clear, concise style of writing, this nine-week journalism unit acquaints the student with various aspects of newspaper writing and publishing and with the correct methods for gathering and writing school news. The first part of the course introduces the students to the history and ethics of journalism and…

To test the effects of teaching inner-city black children to read in kindergarten and first grade through the initial teaching alphabet, i.t.a. and traditional orthography (TO) groups were compared on their comprehension of single words, short sentences, and related skills. At the first grade level, reading, writing, and oral language skills were…

A course presenting projects designed to foster invention and develop a sense of logical ordering is given. Performance objectives include: (1) The student will select ideas for development in an orderly manner; (2) The student will convey this message via an expository piece; (3) The student will select appropriate supportive elements to develop…

This guide to a quinmester workshop course in creative writing emphasizes both content and style. Short stories, poems, plays, and informal prose are the literary genres involved. Performance objectives, rationale, learning activities, field trips and resource personnel, and lists of student and teacher resources are provided. (DB)

A quinmester journalism writing course that explores serious techniques used in effective articles that mold opinion is presented in this course guide. The course focuses upon responsibility, good taste, the problem of censorship, crusading, and propaganda techniques. Reading of editorials and columns and practice in writing are included.…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether children learning to read in the initial teaching alphabet (i.t.a.) and traditional orthography (TO) differ in general attitudes toward reading, in fluency in written expression, and in reading vocabulary and comprehension at the end of their second-grade school experience. Further, this study…

The language experience approach to teaching beginning reading uses a child's own language and experiences as the basis for the first reading material or lessons. The approach integrates the language arts skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The steps suggested for a teacher to follow in utilizing this approach are: (1) oral…

This paper is an outline of a course unit for a writing laboratory, specifically designed for use in teaching English composition to Mexican-Americans. The unit utilizes a multi-media approach to elaborate the necessary organization of a paragraph contrasting two topics. Goals and objectives are included in the unit outline as is a slide/tape…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress uses a variety of test items and scoring techniques in measuring the writing achievement of three age groups--nine, thirteen, and seventeen year olds. This document discusses the holistic scoring of essays, including mechanical correctness and grammatical usage; the primary-trait method of scoring,…

This book is designed to help individuals prepare for the Writing Skills Test, which is the first of five tests that make up the General Educational Development (GED) Test battery. The introduction offers a detailed description of the content, format, and scoring of the GED test, focusing on the Writing Skills Test, and a descriptive outline of…