Providing information to help develop students' sense of narrative and to show them specific test-taking strategies, this publication is helpful to teachers as they ready their students for the North Carolina Fourth Grade Writing Assessment. The publication provides materials on generating ideas for writing, selecting topics, revising, developing…

This guide, made up of transparencies and text, offers a basis for a 2-day interactive inservice presentation on how to teach writing, to help a school district ensure that its English language arts program addresses the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) test. In addition to sections on the use of the guide and the format of the TAAS…

A seven-step process helps students writing research papers distinguish between what they already know before they do any research and what they find out, and also avoids cut-and-paste, redeye, and plagiarized research papers. Students first narrate the story of the research process (which will be the structural spine of the paper) and then go…

Originally developed as part of a project for the Department of Defense Schools (DoDDS) system, this learning package on strategic thinking through writing 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…

With the advent of composition software, the microcomputer has become a valuable writing and teaching tool. In "Writing with a Word Processor" (Harper, 1983), William Zinsser details the trauma he experienced in the shift from being a pencil and paper writer to being a computer writer. However, those accustomed to composing at a typewriter will…

To determine the designs, procedures, and findings of studies related to an investigation of the developmental aspects of the writing processes of children, a literature search was made of documents indexed in "Current Index to Journals in Education" (CIJE) and "Resources in Education" (RIE). A search was also made of the literature in…

Teachers who restrict their teaching of writing to elements of exposition are likely to fail because there is insufficient content, interest, or challenge in learning simple exposition, and the techniques that contribute to polished exposition are more easily accessible when approached through aesthetic writing. A teaching sequence for using…

A case study of a novice poet based on six interviews reveals significant differences in the writing processes of beginning and experienced poets. While the novice's unfamiliarity with other poets' work or methods of working and his own practice of writing only when he spontaneously finds himself in a certain mood distinguished him as a beginner,…

Word processing programs offer five capabilities that can help students over the physical and psychological constraints associated with writing. First, producing text on a word processor is more tentative and more noncommital than producing text on paper. This reassures the writer that it is all right to experiment with words. Second, the blinking…

To teach students the skills of editing, teachers should provide them with an opportunity to become editors--to work cooperatively in the editing of each others's writings in order to be able to accept help and to learn to edit their own writings. Purpose and audience are the two guiding lights of the editing stage. Instruction begins with…

Imitation of organizational and sentence patterns is an ancient technique for teaching rhetoric, but to be effective, imitation must be informed, deliberate, and creative. Students must first learn to recognize the characteristics of a given style and then to appreciate the connection between specific stylistic qualities and their cumulative…

This teachers' guide responds to some of the more frequently asked questions about teaching and evaluating from Kindergarten through Grade 5. The document is a synthesis of the current research on writing and applies this information to the teaching of writing in the classroom. It is comprehensive in nature and addresses such subjects as…

This report examines the composing processes of expert writers to determine which cognitive processes in expository writing produce an opportunity for a creative response. The first section considers how the ill-defined nature of many writing problems and the cognitive processes experts use to solve these problems interact to provide an…

There are three serious impediments to the acceptance of voice as a practical focus in the college writing classroom: the attitudes and beliefs of educators; the theories guiding classroom practices; and the classroom practices themselves. A means of overcoming these impediments and of ensuring that students will discover and develop the power of…

Intended to help freshman composition teachers develop productive audience strategy in their students, this paper explores useful and functional techniques elicited from expert writers to facilitate the generation of internal audiences for the typical college student in a required writing class. The paper encourages small-group peer discussion to…