For use by teachers with access to writing centers, this guide provides criteria for choosing appropriate computer software for writing centers and lists current choices of good software. The first section explains why teachers, who have direct experience with the needs of students and the objectives of writing instruction, are the most qualified…

"Aerobic writing" is a writing center strategy designed to keep students in writing "shape." Like aerobic exercise, aerobic writing is sustained for a certain length of time and done on a regular basis at prescribed time intervals. The program requires students to write at least two times a week for approximately an hour each time. Students write,…

A response to the educator's confusion over how to teach critical thinking skills through writing, the writing process model described in this paper underlines the close ties among cognitive, language, and writing skills. Guiding writing assignments in all content areas, the model involves students in reflection and discussion as they move from…

Rhetoric and mathematics have much in common that can help explain the composing process. Common elements of rhetoric and mathematics important to the teaching of writing are (1) relationships between syntax and semantics, (2) practices of representation, and (3) focus on problem solving. Recent emphasis on "repair processes" in mathematics is…

Intended to help teachers understand the complexities of the writing process, this pamphlet offers a model for writing conceptualized in three phases: stimulus, process, and product. The process phase is then examined from the perspectives of: consciousness, speed and elaboration, and mental/physical interaction. The following implications for…

Noting that technically competent graduates of professional schools need additional skills to function effectively in an increasingly complex and global society, this paper describes an innovative program in technical writing developed for undergraduate engineering students at the Colorado School of Mines. The paper first provides background…

Noting that the University of Illinois' Special Options Rhetoric program is designed for special admit students who score 15 or below on ACT tests, this paper investigates the efficacy of the program to help marginal students, and also includes information on writing programs at the University of Michigan and Ohio University. An introduction…

A field of study sequence designed at the University of Iowa to introduce the research paper to freshman rhetoric students encourages them to view themselves as interpretive anthropologists entering a strange culture and exploring their declared majors or areas of special interest. Each student is responsible for (1) writing an essay in response…

To determine whether teacher intervention in the form of experimentally manipulated variables would significantly change the level of students' dispositional writing apprehension, a study evaluated the effects of two classroom interventions--one apprehension-producing (AP) and one apprehension-reducing (AR). Four situational variables were…

Prewriting, writing, and revision represent vital elements in both the total writing experience and the evaluation of writing programs. An effective writing program should include (1) a written plan to guide composition instructors and ensure that students receive balanced instruction; (2) clearly stated purposes reflecting concern for composition…

Thirteen classroom teachers took a graduate course, "Writing with Computers: Teaching the Academically Able," during an intensive 3-week session. The teachers were all seeking certification and/or masters degrees in gifted education. Only seven of them had used computers in their classrooms and most of the seven stressed that they did…

Academic discourse, which takes its definitive characteristics from the papers written by professors to those in a particular discipline for the purpose of solving problems or furthering knowledge, is sustained by disciplinary rhetorical exigencies that prompt, shape, and convene an audience for such writing. The phrase "rhetorical…

Recent criticism of rhetorical invention faults the discipline for not promoting "advanced literacy," defined as the use of critical reading and writing abilities to serve social ends. Aristotle's vision of rhetoric has contributed significantly to a cognitive view of invention, but Aristotle also acknowledged the importance of social…

Use of the casebook--selected magazine articles on a given subject, copied, stapled and given to each student--generates enthusiasm and improves the quality of high school sophomore research papers. The casebook approach ensures that no student is left behind in the topic selection or information gathering stages, and the teacher's familiarity…

On the basis of a National Humanities project proposed by the English department of a St. Louis, Missouri high school, many different approaches to drawing students into writing about and understanding literature were developed. One of three such techniques is a sequence of writing-reading-writing that offers the possibility of both enhancing the…