Although the acts of reading literature and writing are closely linked, literature study and composition instruction remain distinct pursuits within college English departments. Style seems to be an interest that unifies the two pursuits. The most common view of style equates it with acceptable rhetorical and grammatical conventions. A second view…

A study was conducted to test the proposition that the act of oral reading would be significantly different between competent and incompetent writers and the corollary proposition that the act of oral reading closely approximates the act of writing. A writing sample was devised that included three major features: all the common marks of…

In addition to helping students revise thoughtfully by placing them in situations where revision matters, advanced composition instructors can use the complementary method of discourse analysis scales. These scales provide advanced writers with ample data for making decisions about revisions, and for identifying relevant semantic, syntactic, and…

This booklet is one of a series of teacher-written curriculum publications launched by the Bay Area Writing Project, each focusing on a different aspect of the teaching of composition. The first part of the booklet describes a college writing center and the tutorial teaching that takes place in the center. The second part reports a case study of a…

Described are over 100 activities designed to improve students' reading and writing skills by using the environment as a stimulus. The school, local community, family, and inner self serve as lesson topics. Learning strategies include word games, poetry, art projects, peer-produced mini-texts, and gardening. Also used are a word builder booklet…

Newly-conceived Latin programs, designed to improve the English reading and vocabulary skills of pupils of all backgrounds and abilities, have been initiated in several urban school districts. The studies, undertaken in Philadelphia, Indianapolis, the District of Columbia, Los Angeles, Alexandria, Erie County (Pa.), Illinois, and Worcester…

Results of writing tests given to a large sample of 9, 13, and 17-year olds throughout Texas are reported in detail. Results are reported in terms of the percent of students writing at stated levels of competency or exhibiting particular writing skills. The results are reported for eight categories: (1) statewide; (2) 20 state geographic regions;…

A total of 113 seventh grade students participated in a study to test the effectiveness of sentence combining practice as a means to significantly improve syntactic and semantic fluency in student writing. Methods included pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest t-unit analyses of syntactic fluency, and four pretest and posttest analyses of…

Instruction in basic composition can be undertaken as a cooperative effort between student and teacher similar to the interrelationship of performer and audience. Cooperative instruction implies more than changing texts and using class time in new ways it implies that the instructor must show a greater sensitivity to attitude. Transactional…

A semester-long faculty seminar at Hunter College involved teachers from 14 disciplines in weekly meetings regarding writing in the subject areas. Although the teachers read literature on writing and heard from outside writing experts, they spent most of the time working together on designing and criticizing writing assignments for their classes…

One in a series of ten mini-manuals on office communication proofreading, this booklet for office education students provides instruction in spelling. Included are terminal and specific objectives, spelling rules and related information, and tasks for practice. A test over the information presented concludes the manual. (Test answers are included…

One in a series of ten mini-manuals on office communication proofreading, this booklet for business and office students provides instruction in the use of apostrophes, quotes, italics, hyphens, brackets, ellipsis dots, leader dots, bullets, superscripts, and subscripts. Included are terminal and specific objectives, punctuation rules and related…

This document consists of six separate items: (1) a description of graduate courses in English education at Youngstown State University; (2) an outline for a summer workshop on the teaching of writing; (3) the welcoming letter sent to workshop participants, which includes the list of required readings; (4) a summary of workshop participants'…

The relationship between writing and reading processes can be analyzed from several contextual perspectives. The contextual perspectives may be linguistic, social, schematic, or strategic. While the writer follows several steps in getting meaning into print, the reader may not be able to reverse perfectly these steps and get meaning from print.…

A study was conducted to evaluate the writing component of the Catonsville (Maryland) Community College Advancement Studies Program (ASP), a comprehensive plan of three core courses for developmental students. The study's nine hypotheses focused on general improvement of ASP student writing abilities, the specific areas of such improvement, and…