Reflecting the theories and practices of effective teachers who use a cross-disciplinary approach to enhance writing instruction, this collection of essays is designed to make writing teachers aware of the various possibilities for using film in their classrooms. The ten essays focus on the following topics: (1) combining essay reading and writing…

Using children's books that reflect the cultural heritage of the American Southwest, this paper offers suggestions for integrating the language arts through reading, writing, and listening activities. Activities are arranged into two sections: (1) integrated language arts approaches to writing springing from Southwest picture books by Byrd Baylor,…

Recognizing that learning to spell is a complex, active process of discovery, this book presents some suggestions for the teaching of spelling that may be incorporated into different types of language programs and adapted to suit the needs of children with a range of spelling abilities. Following the introduction, a section on beginning spelling…

Intended to help teachers integrate the teaching of thinking, reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills, this booklet presents five thematic units of study for the language arts. The booklet begins with a rationale for a thematic approach to language arts. The remainder of the paper presents the thematic units, each of which includes a…

Some of the ways young children initially approach writing, including their understanding and involvement with the writing process, is the focus of this paper. It illustrates the variety of ways children deal with the concept of spaces between words, the differences between printed and cursive writing, and the left-to-right, top-to-bottom…

This paper describes an in-service workshop on writing, which begins by having teachers air negative feelings and false conceptions about the writing process, involves the teachers in writing and introduces the writing process concept. A sentence completion activity, integrated with the viewing of a videotape, helps teachers examine their…

A survey of 239 newspapers was conducted to explore the use of writing coach programs at these papers. The coaches' backgrounds, newsroom factors, specific writing problems, budgetary considerations, and implications for journalism education were all explored, as were the perceptions of editors supervising the writing coaches. Of the 239 papers…

As a result of research showing that students are more motivated when English teachers avoid grades and marks, this book focuses on ways to involve students in the assessment process. The book covers the following topics: learning and reflection, students controlling language, the purpose of assessment, assessing students' relationship to the…

Dictation in the language arts class most often involves lists of isolated spelling words. However, in France and in other European countries, the dictation of literary passages is a common activity in the language arts class and appears to be of great interest and benefit to students. Among the values of such dictation are the following: students…

The relationship between writing skills development and cognitive development is the focus of numerous research studies and deserves significant consideration in curriculum planning. Writing development studies indicate that as children work through the various modes of discourse (argumentation, exposition, narration, and description), they…

This paper describes a college summer-enrichment program that helps minority students improve their communication skills. The program concentrates as many different writing experiences as possible into a month-long workshop that provides intensive, individualized, daily writing practice with a variety of instructional materials. The major thrust…

When the English-placement examination essays of college freshmen who had passed the examination were compared with essays of students who had failed, it was found that the most-important differences between the two groups of essays occurred in the area of content development and organization rather than in spelling, grammar, or punctuation. A…

Writing laboratories in colleges across the United States have encountered problems when offering individualized instruction: too often the students work in isolation with materials that are inadequate or inappropriate. This paper suggests, as a remedy to this situation that tutors be made available to the students whenever the writing lab is open…

This text is one of a series of technical monographs on literacy in development whose purpose is to give technical help to literacy workers in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. It is divided into the following ten chapters: (1) What is programmed instruction?; (2) Who are you going to teach?; (3) What subject matter are you going to teach?; (4)…

This bibliography lists resources for the technical writing teacher, classified according to the following categories: professional organizations and periodicals concerned with technical writing and with such related areas as business communication and basic composition; conferences, meetings, and institutes on technical writing, held in 1975,…