Since 1979, New York State has been working on an instrument to evaluate elementary school students' writing ability. Several thousand writing samples were obtained and were analyzed, by a test development committee consisting of elementary school teachers, qualitatively within each grade as high, average, and low, and in terms of organization and…

Using technical writing in the regular freshman composition course stimulates student interest by having the appeal of novelty and expands the horizons of students in the humanities and the pure and applied sciences. To begin the unit, one might stimulate interest in the content and style of technical writing of the past by using Robert M.…

Intended for writing teachers, this paper shows how "pithy prescriptions" for writing, such as "use definite, specific, concrete language," can be misleading or wrong. To support this thesis, the paper examines a technical writing book advocating short sentences and finds that it has sentences averaging 27.8 words in one section and 30.18 in…

To introduce students to the actual environment in which professional level communication takes place early in the term of a business writing course, students are asked what they believe to be the major communication difficulties faced by business people in their everyday routines. The responses are listed and then compared with actual instances…

This bulletin presents a description of the general education subtests of the Florida Teacher Certification Examination. Information is provided on: (1) competencies and skills tested in the reading subtest; (2) general subtest and item specifications of the writing tests--methods used in evaluating writing ability and rating rationales for…

Intended for teachers, this paper considers response to student writing, looking at the different angles from which it is commonly perceived and acknowledging the complications that evaluation and the demands of curriculum add to that response. Three major areas are examined. There is an historical look at response, so that some of the roots of…

A four-year study by the Bay Area Writing Project was conducted to determine the writing competency of inner-city secondary school students on proficiency tests. To determine whether patterns among secondary students reflected developmental trends, the study also examined samples of student writing from grades 4 through 12, for the years 1978,…

In a study of the relationship between the writing habits and productivity of technical writers, 127 science and engineering professors were surveyed concerning the number of technical articles, books, proposals, and reports they had produced over a three-year period and about their writing habits. Specifically, they were asked questions about the…

The third of three studies involving a comparative analysis of transactional and narrative writing of selected samples of students in two Ontario districts, this study addressed questions arising from the earlier studies and examined the writing skills of students in grades 5, 8, and 12. Writing samples were examined for conformity to the norms of…

The teaching activities presented in this document focus on motivating students in the classroom. The paper describes (1) using stick figures to teach the use of adjectives, (2) using pen names in a covert letter writing project to teach writing skills, (3) increasing creativity in composition topics by brainstorming about ways to use bricks, and…

Good writers, as compared to a randomly-chosen comparison group, spent more time in both prewriting and writing, revised more, re-read more often during writing, and were more concerned with the purpose of their writing. (JH)

Students made increased, but statistically non-significant, use of invention procedures taught them over the span of a one-semester composition course. (JH)

Intended for the adult who needs writing skills for career purposes, this three-part book presents principles rather than mechanical rules for achieving effective communication through writing. The first section of the book offers specific guidelines on communicative attitude, content, perspective, theme, organization, and revision. The middle…

This paper describes a classroom game designed to help students overcome their fear of writing. Two classes of top- and middle-ability adolescents were divided into pairs to work on a single composition. After the teacher proposed the initial sentence, the partners took turns writing sentences to complete the story. Although the collaborative…

This book explores the many visually oriented activities that can be used to teach the composition process. Chapter one outlines the format of the book and discusses the composition process in terms of visual perception and reaction to visual stimuli. Chapter two introduces the general aspects of composition that are pertinent to all types of…