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…

In this article a method to improve sentence writing ability called sentence combining is explained. The potential effects of sentence combining are related and relevant research summarized. In addition, how to introduce sentence combining practice to a class, key instructional components including oral practice and peer assistance, sources of…

With support and guidance, graduate students can successfully pursue academic writing for publication. In graduate circles, academic writing is presumed to be a solitary activity for which students already are prepared. Yet, the reality is that students tend to find academic writing difficult and stressful, and they often look to university…

This journal issue presents teaching ideas based on the city of Chicago and the literary works of its citizens. The first article describes a combined social studies/English course based on the study of Chicago's influence on literature and history. Included is a course outline with required readings, class activities and assignments, an…

Genesee Community College in Batavia, New York, adopted James Kinneavy's aims of discourse theory as the basis of its composition program. The program is a two-semester course for students who intend to transfer to four-year colleges. In a comparable nontransfer sequence, the first semester doubles as a remedial course for ill-prepared transfer…

"Grammar Graphics" is a technique for teaching English grammar to children in grades three through five using symbols to represent each part of speech. In this way children can graphically perceive and understand the function of words in a sentence. Basically the students learn symbols for all parts of speech except the preposition and conjunction…

This study reports on ways student under-achievement is being dealt with in the Bilingual Program of Jackson, New Jersey in grades 1-5. The study is limited to students in one school and was carried out during one 12-month period. It focuses on the following issues: (1) teaching methods which are best suited to solve the problems of student…

Basic writing teachers can make use of the Learning Cycle teaching technique to design exploration and invention activities with which their students can practice analytical writing. The Learning Cycle approach is based on Piagetian theory and involves a three-phase process of exploration, invention, and discovery. In the exploration phase…

The case method seems particularly useful in helping college students to overcome anxiety about writing and even in persuading them that writing is a "real-world" skill that they can master just as they would any other skill. It has the further advantages of integrating reading and writing and of allowing students to develop and use…

Four recently developed computer programs can help students with the composition process. The first, a prewriting program, helps students prepare to write by asking them a series of questions, similar to those an instructor would ask, intended to help them think more deeply about their subject. The second writing program also contains prewriting…

Many college students, unaware of how their writing strikes others and unaccustomed to an audience of college teachers, try to write with sophistication or profundity with little success. These students need the experience of writing for an audience that talks back; one that is diverse, has a strong reason to be frank in its criticism and praise,…

A cognitive approach to the interrelation of writing and reading assumes that production and comprehension of written text depend upon cognitive and affective schemata used in concert by a writer or reader to produce or encode, store, and retrieve text information. Both comprehending and composing are basic, complex, interactive processes with…

Addressing the wave of public criticism of the English curriculum, the six articles in this book cite "basics" that are far different from those of the current "back to basics" movement. The first article surveys the nature of the curriculum attacks and suggests why English teachers may be more vulnerable to public criticism…

Bilingual literacy methods and materials used in Mexico for its linguistic minorities can also be used effectively in the United States. A system based on the techniques of Paulo Freire is being used in that country to create beginning reading materials in all the native languages of Mexico. In this method, generative words concerning foods,…

Reflecting the thought and work of many classroom English teachers, the activities presented in this booklet are a sample of ideas exchanged at the 1980 convention of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) held in Cincinnati, Ohio. The suggested activities are grouped into four categories: (1) a miscellany of writing assignments that…