Playwriting gives students focused experience with dialogue, which is useful in many kinds of writing, and provides an avenue for process-based writing instruction. The assignment of writing plays allows students to try out various personae without risking direct self-identification. Students write more for one another than for the teacher,…

Providing a way to organize and document third- through sixth-grade student writing through the use of writing folders and other organizing aids, this book is for educators who believe that writing and word processing strategies and skills are best taught as students do real writing for a variety of readers. The book includes mini-lessons to…

This final report from the Center for the Study of Writing, which, over the past 5 years, has engaged in a program of research aimed at understanding how written language is acquired and how it can best be taught, is in three main sections. The first section (Executive Summary) summarizes the Center's major findings related to each problem area…

A study examined the subtle impact of word processing (used alone) on the way students approach their writing tasks. Nine elementary school teachers were trained in techniques of naturalistic observation and received a kit containing important guidelines for their observational task, daily log sheets, and journal forms. The teachers then observed…

This paper presents background information about the development and functions of hypertext and predicts future changes in converting text into hypertext. The paper describes hypertext as a computer system that allows the interconnection of information in a way that is "transparent" (does not intrude on or interfere with the reader's…

Originally developed as part of a project for the Department of Defense Schools (DoDDS) system, this learning package on spelling and the writing process is designed for teachers who wish to upgrade or expand their teaching skills on their own. The package includes an overview of the project; a comprehensive search of the ERIC database; a lecture…

A study examined whether modeling desired teaching strategies would produce future teachers who could confidently go into a new classroom and set up a writing program. Four weeks of class time in a teacher education class at Northeastern University in Oklahoma were used to teach the writing process through the use of a writer's workshop. Results…

To examine the potential role of teacher-student interactions in the teaching and learning of written language, a study analyzed the writing conference interaction between a teacher and four separate college students: one high achieving Caucasian, one high achieving Asian American, one low achieving Caucasian, and one low achieving Asian American.…

To examine how the school environment shapes the composing process, a series of interviews were conducted over 16 months with a sample of students from an academically oriented high school. After an initial background interview, each student met biweekly with one member of the research staff and discussed the writing he or she had done since the…

Attempting to place in an American context many of the ideas about the teaching of writing that were first developed in England, this book contains contributions from internationally prominent teachers/scholars who attended the New York University-CBS Sunrise Semester course on learning to write and writing to learn. The text also reflects the…

Arguing that discourse coherence can provide a window on the writing processes that produce it, this paper describes developmental differences observed in children's writing and proposes a procedural model to account for those differences. The first section of the paper points out that a developmental model of the writing process should specify…

Intended to help secondary school composition instructors develop a useful, pragmatic unit on technical writing, this monograph explores the theory, research, and pedagogy of technical writing. The first section discusses the purpose and forms of technical writing, as well as elements of technical style including diction, paragraphing, and…

In this paper, the role of computers in writing process was investigated. Last 25 years of journals were searched to find related articles. Articles and books were classified under prewriting, composing, and revising and editing headings. The review results showed that computers can make writers' job easy in the writing process. In addition,…

Interdepartmental rivalries between literature instruction and composition instruction have contributed to viewing reading and writing as disconnected activities. One solution to this divisiveness is a course in "the journal as a literary tradition," which combines reading and writing in equal portions. Students first learn about the…

Three issues of a literacy magazine contain articles written by and for individuals learning English writing skills. Most of the articles are personal narratives or accounts of significant personal experiences. These pieces are divided into sections according to skill level. One section consists of student writings with brief commentaries on style…