Explores thoughts about what teachers owe young writers in helping them learn to spell. Considers the variety of ideas in the educational community on this topic, discussing briefly invented spelling, spelling in the writing process, word lists, and spelling patterns. (SR)

Presents and discusses a speller's bill of rights, consisting of nine items to guide a spelling curriculum and ensure that children leave elementary school able to express themselves strongly and effectively in writing, including the ability to ensure that words in their writing are spelled appropriately without spending hours on proofreading. (SR)

Relates an interview with Will Hillenbrand, a children's book illustrator, and provides an annotated list of books he has illustrated, written, and contributed to. Discusses his mentors, favorite childhood books, differences in style, getting ideas, and how being a father has influenced his work; and includes extension ideas for learning…

Presents an interview with Cherie Bennett and Jeff Gottesfeld. Discusses their books, their screen plays, and their television show, "Smallville" on the WB television network. Discusses their writing and their passion for telling a good story. Presents questions concerning their latest publication: "Anne Frank and Me." (SG)

Describes the development of a workshop that provides a rich writing program while meeting state-mandated test requirements. Based on a whole language approach, the writing workshop emphasizes five stages of the writing process (pre- writing, rough draft writing, peer editing, teacher editing, and publishing). The program merges writing processes…

Notes the villanelle is one of English poetry's most demanding forms. Discusses two distinct ways in which a villanelle unfolds - as a satellite or as a snowball. Describes how the meaning of the repeating lines in a snowball villanelle change and increase with each recurrence. Presents exercises for teaching the villanelle. (SG)

Expresses concern over students' weakness for hyperbole. Notes that in order to engage students in the process of exploring what they do not know, teachers need to convince them that clarity and understatement requires as much imagination as hyperbole and exaggeration. Presents a teaching exercise that encourages students to write about what they…

Proposes a unified theory of discourse form to explain (1) why writing textbooks consistently recognize just two polar types of abstract; (2) why students often produce adequate descriptive abstracts but not adequate summary abstracts; and (3) how a short paraphrase differs formally and conceptually from a summary abstract. (KEH)

Presents Martin Greenspan's four-stage (preparatory, incubation, illumination, and verification) model of the creation of new thought. Argues that this model provides a way of seeing, identifying, and understanding features of writing to learn and learning to write that other composition theories have not permitted. (RS)

Examines the relationship between handwriting speed and the syntactic complexity of the finished piece of writing. Reports that findings support previous research that describes differences in syntax of basic and traditional writers. Concludes that writing teachers should encourage college students to write rapidly as they draft their pieces. (MM)

Argues that the view of writing as a social activity fails to account for individual cognition. Suggests that subjectivity results from a dialectical interplay between consciousness and ideological forces. Calls for further investigation of how context guides cognition and what role cognition plays in the social negotiation of knowledge. (SG)

Describes the response of a writing group to the author's conventional and scholarly writing. Discusses how the tenured author purposively changed her writing style from traditional academic discourse to experimental critical writing. Concludes that, when writers want to be read, they have to take more chances than standard scholarly style allows.…

Recounts the author's involvement in a writing center, noting a dichotomy between composition theory and pedagogical practice. Asserts that writing center directors and teachers need to place their work in a theoretical context, building on theories of collaborative learning and theories of writing as a social process. (MM)

Follows the progress of three young boys as they learn to collaborate in school. Shows the importance of allowing students to talk through their writing and reading tasks and to recognize the social and listening skills that develop along with their writing. (MG)

Considers the complex processes involved in readers' and writers' construction of textual meaning: how people construct meaning from texts through reading and for texts through writing. Outlines the significant parameters and major issues in research on composing from sources. Proposes a way to think about tasks that invite writers to transform…