This experimental lesson gives students practice at writing a one sentence thesis statement. Each student chooses a song or short poem for which he must provide a thesis statement. The exercise not only teaches development of the thesis statement, but also stimulates student interest and discussion. Examples are presented. (AH)

Summary of an unpublished report available from EDRS as ED 018 443, MF-

This paper describes and outlines a college level, energy geography course which uses a group review process approach. The goal of the course is to bring together students from across the university with a strong interest in energy problems to pursue areas of individual concern subject to peer review. The group review process fosters communication…

A questionnaire was sent to English instructors in 134 Texas colleges and universities to ascertain their perceptions of entering freshmen's skills in written composition. The variables were type of institution, admission policy, enrollment, and teaching experience. Respondents were asked to indicate their perceptions of the number of entering…

A technique sometimes known as patterned prose or case book exposition is an effective way to improve student writing while also holding their interest. It may also help solve a problem pointed to by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP): students' inability to think about what they read. The technique is simple. The teacher…

Two methods of evaluating student writing were compared. Holistic evaluation attempts to assess the overall quality of a composition. It is a guided procedure for sorting or ranking written composition. A rater scores the composition by placing it within the range of papers produced in response to a given assignment. Scoring may also be done using…

These three booklets include the writing assessment tests of the Wisconsin Pupil Assessment Program for grades 5, 8, and 11. The first exercise in each booklet is the writing of a story using a photograph as the stimulus. The second exercise is the revision of a story written previously. The eleventh grade test also includes a third exercise:…

Although not all the problems of writing are solved by practice in letter writing, a review of the classical texts on "ars dictaminis"--letter writing--creates a strong argument for its increased use as an exercise in college composition classrooms. By incorporating the lessons of dictamen as a device for achieving rhetorical…

Some composition teachers believe that students may write more competently in subject matter courses than in writing courses. That is, the constraints of writing for a class or assignment in which the composition skills will be evaluated may prevent students from writing their best. With this in mind, a study was conducted to determine whether…

A study examined the relationship between writing ability and grades received in freshman English courses. Other variables examined in the study were year in college, major teaching area, remedial English courses taken, advanced placement in English courses, sex of the student, and cumulative grade point average. The subjects were 92 education…

Visual compositions can be used in the content areas to address comprehension problems posed by implicit factors in any content theme. The importance of a visual presentation for writing is that it can instantly portray the theme to be learned and act as a catalyst to elicit words and sentences to help explain that content theme. Stages of…

Many teachers of basic writing are preoccupied with error. Before marking any errors in a student's composition, the teacher should read it carefully, try to understand the student's intention in writing it, and respond in those terms. Priorities for analysis should be consistent with the teacher's priorities for teaching and be set in terms of…