In writing, as with tools, form must always follow function. From this perspective there can be no "good" writing, only effective writing. Unfortunately, in most instructional situations the function of communicating to an audience is often neglected. Most so-called poor writing falls into the category of writer-based prose. Once student writing…

A teacher is likely to encounter three kinds of difficulty with technical writing instruction. The first is transitory difficulty, which a teacher may reasonably expect to overcome with practice. This is the difficulty a teacher may have in learning a new curriculum or the needs of a new group of students, in making up and grading assignments, and…

The writing center at a Maryland university prepares third-year students for nonacademic, preprofessional writing by using retired professionals as tutors. These tutors are trained by discussing readings centered around the Aristotelean schema of ethos, logos, and pathos and the more recent conception of writing as a problem-solving process. The…

Intended to help students improve their written work by their active involvement and by their interest in investing the time and energy necessary to create a finished product of quality, this booklet presents a structured process that teaches children to progress from a draft to a "published" stage, through individual editing, peer…

A study to determine the effect of audience on student writers' revision strategies involved 13 college students, seven reasonably competent upper-level writers and six basic writers, who were assigned to write for an hour on a uniform essay topic, composing aloud into a tape recorder as they did so. Six of the upper level students and five of the…

Evaluation of letters written by four mildly mentally handicapped eighth grade males either by hand or by word processor indicated: longer letters and more revisions when the word processor was used; higher mean number of words written per unit time when handwritten; and no difference in holistic evaluation of letter quality. (Author/DB)

Distinguishes between monitoring and evaluating student writing, discusses the rationale for monitoring, demonstrates monitoring procedures, and summarizes major considerations to remember when monitoring writing. (JAD)

Describes a strategy whereby teachers allow students to determine the standards by which their writing will be judged, and, in doing so, convince students to share their beliefs about good writing. (ARH)

Presents a systematic strategy for examining topic-related knowledge prior to writing. Discusses a theory-based rationale for the measure, a formalized method for analyzing topic knowledge, and a guide for using the instrument. (JD)

Explores the concept of peer writing groups by reviewing research and offering a plan for preparing, training, monitoring, and evaluating the peer writing group. (SD)

Offers suggestions for teaching writing as a process, running a workshop classroom, teaching sentence combining, and evaluating student papers. (SRT)

Suggests the teacher-written essay as a useful way for writing teachers to respond to student writing and at the same time become people who write. (EL)

This study examined the reliability of holistic scoring for a sample of essays written during the Spring 1985 MCAT administration. Analysis of variance techniques was used to estimate the reliability of scoring and to partition score variance into that due to level differences between papers and to context-specific factors. (Author/LMO)

Defining a web as a diagrammatic representation of any logical train of thought, this article describes how to use the web as a tool for teaching and evaluating essays. Provides several web diagrams. (JDH)

This article describes using a computer as a literary learning device and study aid to analyze prose. (JDH)