The study investigated the effects of intrinsic motivation training and/or written language training on the written language achievement and motivation of 55 learning disabled adolescents (grades 10-12). Interventions included Alley and Deshler's "Learning Strategies" approach (writing strand) and "TARGETS," a systematic instructional strategy…

Discussions of audience, such as those by Russell Long, Carol Berkenkotter, David Park, Lisa Ede, and Andrea Lunsford, most often do not utilize the research by speech rhetoricians to whom the question of audience has always been central. Chaim Perelman's conception of the "universal audience" and traditional, speech-oriented rhetoric…

The computer represents an instrument of change for students and teachers alike. For most students learning to use the computer to write, the writing process is temporarily more difficult and stressful and capable of creating a highly charged, emotional trauma for the writer. The constraints of learning what keys to push and how to get out of…

Process writing and Suzuki's Mother Tongue Method of music instruction are similar in many ways. Like Suzuki teachers, teachers of writing who use the process method are humanizing children in a technological age. Both Suzuki and leaders of the writing renaissance believe that every child can be a musician or a writer. Both methods tell learners…

A study examined the effect of word processing on students' revision of compositions and attitudes toward writing. Sixty seventh-grade students enrolled in a required writing course were randomly assigned to either the experimental or the control group. The experimental group used a word processor for all stages and aspects of writing, while the…

Three different ways of integrating writing and thinking into the classroom are using double-entry notebooks, literature logs, and process journals. In a double-entry notebook, the writer takes notes on the reading, collects direct quotations, makes observational notes, and writes fragments, lists, and images on the left side of the notebook. On…

A study determined if there was a significant difference in the writing skills of eighth graders after they completed a writing class that based the method of instruction on the writing process. Subjects, 743 students in a midwestern school system, completed the class and were administered pretests and posttests. The results supported the…

This guide for Merrimack High School in Merrimack, New Hampshire was written to help ease demands on teachers' time and to improve the quality of papers through standardization of format. The authority used for the guide is the 2nd edition of the "MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers" published in 1984, which teaches the methods…

Applied linguistics has made major contributions to literacy teaching in recent years, in four general areas. First, second language acquisition is becoming the model for first language literacy teaching in schools through the "whole language approach" to literacy. Second, the field of sociolinguistics has convinced educators that literacy is a…

The intricate quilt pattern of child language development can be pieced together from the numerous swatches of each child's language fabric which have been gathered by watching, looking, and listening when young children write. The necessity of watching, looking, and listening is demonstrated by the example of a preschooler's verbal protocol which…

This guide outlines the writing procedures for English Composition Pupil Performance Objective assessments and tests in grades 4, 8, and 10 of the Ottawa County (Ohio) school system. Procedures for both students and teachers are included for the prewriting, first draft writing, and revising/rewriting sessions. (MM)

Students in a remedial composition course at St. Olaf College were required to write all their papers on a microcomputer. It was assumed that text editing would be useful not only in the writing and revision processes, but also in building both confidence and morale as students mastered its techniques. The assignments were explained on Monday, and…

Meaningful use of language involves intending to have an effect and intending the audience to recognize that aim. In a Freudian modification of this premise, allowing for different levels of intentional awareness, writing can be discussed in terms of how writers intend to affect readers, as well as how aware they are themselves of their intentions…

This study is the sixth in a series of reports from the Reading-to-Write Project, a collaborative study of students' cognitive processes at one critical point of entry into academic performance. This report provides an in-depth look at how students use elaboration (bringing prior knowledge to a task), how much value elaborative material adds, and…

Composition researchers are poised to offer new answers to the three questions which are at the heart of ideological definition: what exists; what is good; and what is possible? Researchers must consider the impact of computer-assisted composition programs (often called "style checkers") as well as the basic word processor. Style…