A 16-week study to investigate the effects that two methods of teaching writing had on writing apprehension and on overall quality and length of student writing involved over 100 college freshmen enrolled in English Composition classes. Except for the methods of writing instruction, both control and experimental group conditions were held…

The material in this handbook was developed with the idea of stimulating (presumably adult) students to ask questions in a spontaneous manner. Through these questions, the students elicit the newspaper story from the teacher, who arouses their interest by divulging one leading fact. Fifteen exemplary newspaper stories are summarized to initiate…

As an aid to Miami-Dade Community College's writing instructors, this report describes the use of the Response System with Variable Prescription (RSVP) Program for Immediate Analysis of Writing, a software package designed to produce feedback statements in the form of personalized letters that reinforce student learning and help correct writing…

A university associates program is designed to bring secondary school English teachers in the United States to the freshman composition classrooms of a large university. Upon recommendation by their superintendents and with one-year sabbatical leaves funded at half-salary by their school districts, those selected teach three sections of freshman…

Grace and style are elements of composition rarely demanded by teachers or developed by students. Since both terms are elusive to define and because asking students to make attempts at grace and style can have unappealing results, perhaps vigor is a better element to encourage students to pursue. Vigor does not outlaw graceful flourishes and…

The 17 articles in this journal issue focus on writing and writing instruction. The articles discuss the following: (1) the NorthEast Texas, Texas Hill Country, and University of Arizona writing projects; (2) the necessity of dealing with truth in the writing class, not as a concept to be defined, but as an act that creates and recreates…

The University of Tennessee trains its graduate students to become composition teachers by requiring them to assist composition instructors with the teaching of their classes, to grade papers, to confer with students, to compute final averages, and to plan daily classes. The graduate assistant is also allowed in the course of a year to work…

Ten current books covering a variety of topics relating to composition are reviewed in this paper. The first three reviews are of books describing actual writing abilities of students: "Language Development: Kindergarten through Grade 12" by Walter Loban; "The Development of Writing Abilities (11-18)" by James Britton and his…

West Texas State University made provisions for students in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) who already had an academic knowledge of English, some facility in conversational English, and basic knowledge of some disciplines. What these students needed was the ability to develop logically a research paper and practice in using the vocabulary of…

A study was conducted to test whether quantitative feedback would help students write with the stylistic simplicity appropriate to their audience and purpose without sacrificing other elements of good writing. Two business and technical writing classes received identical reading assignments, classroom activities, and writing assignments; but one…

Input from a course syllabus in advanced university level English as a second language composition was compared with student intake as manifested in the linguistic product (i.e., compositions). The frequencies and types of classroom, teacher, and textbook explanation of sentence control, paragraph organization, and rhetorical control were…

This booklet is one of a series of teacher-written curriculum publications launched by the Bay Area Writing Project, each focusing on a different aspect of the teaching of composition. It describes four sequences for teaching writing developed by four teachers at four different levels--kindergarten through grade three, intermediate grades, grades…

Prepared as part of the evaluation of the Bay Area Writing Project (BAWP), this report offers descriptions of promising practices in composition instruction. It explains the selection criteria and classification scheme used and describes practices in the following four categories: (1) structuring of writing programs, (2) teaching the elements of…

This paper illustrates the usefulness of five principles of interpersonal communication in identifying ineffective teacher responses to student writing and in improving those responses. The principles described are that successful communicators (1) convey positive regard for the other person, (2) show empathic understanding for the ideas and…

A study was conducted to test the following four hypotheses: (1) more subject-area writing will produce better writing, (2) more subject-area writing will reduce writing apprehension, (3) the frequency and amount of learner-centered writing about a subject will increase learning of that subject, and (4) concepts students write about will be…