Describes a statistics project that allowed middle school students to integrate their math, scientific inquiry, and writing skills. Students worked in groups of two to six, picked topics of personal interest, collected data, drew conclusions, and entered a national statistics competition. The course format is outlined. (CR)

Superintendent in West Chester County, New York, describes her experiences teaching fifth-grade students research and writing skills while continuing to serve as superintendent of schools. (PKP)

Curriculum-based measures of written expression have traditionally used total words written or correct word sequences as indices of students' skill levels. This investigation attempted to determine whether additional hand-scored and computer-scored measures might share more variance with the criterion measures. The new measure, correct punctuation…

Argues that student journals provide the basis for helping students learn to teach themselves and explore their attitudes and beliefs about writing, and strategies for writing. Reviews the historical uses of journals, the different educational uses of journals, and the use of the journal in the writing classroom. (DMM)

Argues for a contingency view of communication clarity and effectiveness based on the impact that an organization's language customs have on perceived effectiveness. Examines the psychological-social function of organizational language and discusses the role that language has in creating new knowledge in organizations. (KEH)

Argues that writing teachers need to encourage profuseness as well as concision, to teach not just brevity but also loquacity, to help students repeat inventively. Notes that the stylistic values implicit in writing theories, pedagogy, and culture so overwhelmingly favor conciseness that elaboration gets lost in the learning process. Presents…

Describes the use of a clustering technique developed to improve writing skills and facilitate thinking in classroom settings. Involves presenting a relevant work at the beginning of each discussion section of an introductory psychology class. Defines clustering as writing down a word or phrase and engaging in free association. (Author/NL)

Discusses using a vase of dead roses in a writing class to teach students to deal with emotionally charged subject matter, see beyond the obvious, use language concisely to convey a message, and strike a universal chord in an audience--that is, to communicate intimately with an audience. (SR)

Composite math and writing scores for 353 General Educational Development (GED) graduates who had successfully completed the GED test were analyzed. For those who had attended classes and received coaching, significant differences were found on the writing skills test but not on the math test or overall test scores. (SK)

Reports on a three-year study of the effects of a newly implemented italic handwriting instruction program on students' handwriting legibility. Finds that while italic papers received significantly higher ratings than nonitalic ones, legibility ratings declined over time. Reports that teachers' impressions of the program are generally favorable.…

Describes how creating "mythical machines" can develop students' technical writing skills. Describes how students work in groups to produce documents for various purposes related to their machine. (MM)

Describes a vocabulary lesson for middle school students designed to use mnemonics to reduce homophone misuse. Reports that students, working in small groups, developed mnemonics for over 300 homophones and compiled the results into a classroom reference book. (RS)

Investigates the types of processes used by journalistic writers when producing texts of varying constraints. Finds that news story writers paused more often and carried out more activities per writing session than did editorial writers, suggesting greater monitoring activity by news story writers. (MS)

Examines how amplification (rhetorical techniques by which discourse is extended to enhance its appeal and information value) tends to increase and improve the coverage, rationale, warnings, behavioral alternatives, examples, previews, and general emphasis of technical manuals. Shows how classical and modern rhetorical theories can be applied to…

A computer analysis of the compositions written by university students with (N=30) and without (N-60) learning disabilities (LD) found LD students were not as fluent in word production and in the number of different words used but did produce longer sentences and T-units than nondisabled peers. (DB)