Rhetoric textbooks continue to proliferate while writing teachers continue to grow more skeptical of their usefulness. The key question educators need to answer is whether all available composition textbooks are ineffective in the sense of being based on false notions about the composing process, or whether they are "intrinsically" ineffective.…

A study examined the relationship between reading and writing and the abstract thinking ability of college freshmen. It was hypothesized that (1) reading ability, writing ability, and thinking ability would be highly correlated; (2) instruction that improves either reading or writing would also improve thinking; and (3) reading, writing, and…

This placement test is intended to help teachers conduct oral and literacy assessment when placing adults into English as a second language (ESL) programs. The 15-item oral assessment, which consists of three 5-item series, includes questions relating to students' backgrounds and goals that are designed to determine whether the students' English…

Dialogue journals serve as conversations between teacher and student and provide a student-centered, communicative activity in which literacy skills can develop naturally. Students write as much as they choose about any topic, and the teacher responds as a co-participant in an ongoing, written conversation. The journals can be adapted to a variety…

Reading, writing, and computing, which are interrelated and can thrive on each other for literacy and intellectual growth, are in the process of becoming linked in instructional practice. As reading and writing become more demanding, their task is eased with computer use. The computer seems to provide the connection between composing,…

A study is described which investigated the differences between English-as-a-second-language (ESL) writers and native-English-speaking writers and examined closely a range of ESL writers and their composing processes. The procedures used were those used by Sondra Perl in a study of the composing processes of unskilled college writers (1979).…

Focusing on writing as a way of learning subject matter, this paper describes two writing activities in an eighth grade social studies curriculum. First, the paper describes the use of the writing journal--its purposes, advantages, and format--and classroom activities in which students responded to such works as "Lord of the Flies" and…

A study investigated the feasibility of presenting to primary-grade children a holistic, functional language arts program instead of a subskill one. Over 1,000 children from 16 inner city elementary schools were divided into three groups: (1) Group A, taught by teachers trained in holistic and language oriented approaches to reading and writing,…

A recent study by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) directly links writing effectiveness to development of skills in critical thinking. This ERIC Digest discusses: (1) recent research on the linkage between writing and learning; (2) successful approaches to teaching writing; and (3) suggestions for including an effective…

To learn when children would be able to evaluate and revise texts that presented significant comprehension problems, and to investigate the relationship between general reading skill and comprehension monitoring and revision skills, a study administered revision tests to 65 fourth grade and 38 sixth grade students from a rural New England school…

A collection of essays on current issues in the field of second language proficiency assessment includes: "The Unassimilated History" (Pardee Lowe, Jr.), which chronicles the development of proficiency testing; "A Research Agenda" (John L. D. Clark and John Lett), a discussion of research considerations and needs in proficiency testing; "Issues…

A study of the writing of 12 sixth-grade students of English as a second language (ESL) compared the quantity and maturity of writing in three assigned tasks and unassigned entries in dialogue journals. The assigned tasks varied in topic control, audience, and purpose. Qualities of the writing were examined using measures of quantity, complexity,…

This guide is intended for use in developing informational materials intended to be read by adults with limited reading skills. Most of the examples used throughout the guidelines relate to food and nutrition; however, the concepts they illustrate are applicable to any topic. The following topics are covering: knowing a written message's intended…

This booklet presents descriptions of 31 successful basic skills language arts/writing programs for prekindergarten through grade 12, collected from school districts nationwide by the National Diffusion Network. Information provided for each program includes: (1) program name and brief description; (2) audience focus (noting grade and ability…

In conjunction with the New Mexico State Department of Education's Writing Appraisal Program for high school students, a project was designed whose central goal was to identify and clearly delineate writing competencies for students in the younger grades. A pilot project first collected student writing samples and descriptive data from third and…