One of the greatest myths or fictions of nonfiction is that it contains no fiction. Ben Franklin's flight from Boston to Philadelphia illustrates how changes occur in the retelling of the "facts" of a life. In his "Autobiography," Franklin writes that his friend, Collins, arranged for a ship's passage for Franklin by telling…

Using instructional system design, a learning activity was developed to teach students how to use the writing process to write a persuasive essay. The 20 students involved in the development of the activity attended East Meadow High School in Nassau County, New York, scored low on a standardized test of writing, were enrolled in an…

A study investigated a holistic approach to the assessment of students' writing skills in a high school that is part of a residential treatment program for adolescents. High school students were asked to produce spontaneous writing samples in the fall and spring of the 1990-91 school year. The students were asked to write about someone they…

The research reported in this paper is a case study of one student's learning in a writers' workshop where two teacher-researchers were developing new curriculum and instructional practices. The case study was developed out of a larger qualitative study in which 47 fifth-grade students' growth as writers was studied over a 1-year period as they…

Of all the language skills, writing is the most difficult challenge for language teachers because students have less experience with written expression. Stimulated by audio-visual materials throughout their lives, students are novices in the discipline of writing. Making writing an ongoing part of foreign language acquisition from the first day in…

Designed for elementary and secondary English and language arts teachers, this book provides 74 lists for developing instructional materials and planning lessons. The book also includes 89 practical activities and reproducible line master worksheets that motivate students to simultaneously improve writing skills, word usage, and vocabulary. For…

The 85 spelling tests described in this bibliography include those that assess spelling only and test batteries in which spelling is one of several skills being evaluated. Both achievement and diagnostic tests are described, as well as tests for special populations such as visually impaired persons and Spanish speakers. Although all ages are…

Although Mina Shaughnessy remains influential in the basic writing field, her answers to the vital questions of who basic writers are and why they underachieve as writers are changing. Whether she intended to or not, Shaughnessy's book "Errors and Expectations" (published in 1977) was a major force in forming an image of basic writers as…

A practicum used an integrated writing approach to improve 28 third-graders' ability to write descriptive paragraphs. The program consisted of two strategies: a process approach and a step-by-step approach. Success was measured by comparing the statistics of a pretest and a posttest and through observation, computer generated worksheets, and…

THE FOLLOWING IS THE FULL TEXT OF THIS DOCUMENT: At my university, students are required to take a two course sequence in freshman composition, EH 101 and EH 102. EH 101 covers six basic essay forms utilizing description, narration, process description, classification, comparison/contrast, and argument. Because EH 101 is a basic, required course,…

To determine which factors were considered important in composing legal written documents, personal interviews were conducted with 111 Middle Tennessee Bar Association members, and questionnaires were mailed to 211 legal secretaries/paralegals. The self-administered questionnaires were completed and returned by 133 persons. Of those, 108 indicated…

To help provide writing instruction to elementary school children who are taught English as a second language, a writing project was designed for three ESL students: a third grader from Japan, a fourth grader from Costa Rica, and a fifth grader from Indonesia. The goals of the project were to help the students find writing to be enjoyable and…

Technical writing scholars have discussed, but not resolved, the ethical problems of ghost authorship (Should the technical editor have a place on the title page?) and multiple authorship (Can nine people really author an eight-page essay?). These ethical questions, however, are trivial when compared with the significantly more grave and…

Practical advice for creating effective resumes, cover letters, and thank-you letters is provided in this guide for college students. Ten general characteristics of a good resume are enumerated and followed by a lengthy list of strong, action verbs to use when writing the resume. Guidelines for developing the following eight specific parts of a…

During its two and one-half years of use, a computerized text editor has proven to be a helpful revision tool for a freshman composition course. Student feedback has helped to overcome initial problems with the system. A streamlined learner's guide, for example, that made formal training in using the computer unnecessary and increased student…