This language arts unit for second-graders emphasizes active participation to stimulate the pupils' interest in and ability to communicate imaginatively and effectively in both oral and written forms. Activities in creative drama, choric interpretation, film viewing, storytelling, pantomime, poetry reading, and music listening are recommended to…

Seven objective measures of language production--number of words, T-units, subordinate clauses, clauses of all types, words per clause, words per T-unit, and clauses per T-unit--were applied to 269 compositions written by seventh, ninth, and 11th graders to test assumptions about the relationships between quality of writing and students' age and…

The paper discusses the ideological cultural, economic, linguistic, and motivational background of the functional literacy concept. Brief indications of the professional issues and problems in putting theory into practice included: requirements in planning a functional literacy project, administrative and organizational problems, resources…

A distinction should be made between linguistics as a science and applied linguistics as a technology, the latter being of great potential for language classroom problem solving, the former to be saved for later, more mature study. The English teacher's main concern in language study is to impart to students the effective use of language (i.e.,…

To compare the results of three different methods of grammar instruction in remedial freshman English, three groups of 16 students each--matched on SCAT total raw score, age, and sex--were used as subjects. The approaches used were (1) formal instruction based on a traditional grammar textbook--control group; (2) discussion of the class' writing…

To motivate slow learners and discipline-problem pupils to improve their writing skills, a reinforcement program was developed in Baltimore, Maryland, modeled on an earlier program which created a school environment operated like the business world. Upon successful completion of assigned tasks, the experimental group, 24 eighth graders, were given…

The five studies reported in this journal were undertaken by classroom English teachers to encourage teachers to conduct and read educational research, and to generate curiosity about recent research in the teaching of English. Articles are (1) "Can Teachers Ignore Mechanical Errors in Composition?"; (2) "What Do Freshmen and Sophomores Like to…

A delineation of the differences between speaking and writing should clarify the functions and possible future of prose. Speech has a speaker to provide language with inflectional stress and a visible audience to respond immediately to that language. On the other hand, prose ("an art of written language")--which is separated in time from an…

A study examined the use of literary models in teaching written composition to children, and, as secondary goals, examined the relationships between written composition and such factors as age, sex, and intelligence. Four fifth-grade classes in Clarke County, Georgia, completed Sequential Tests of Educational Progress (STEP) Writing Tests and…

In this study, an evaluation was made of a second grade experimental written composition program based on the social and psychological nature of children, on principles of written composition, and on effective classroom procedures. The distinguishing feature of the experiment, which involved 82 children, was the use of chalkboard compositions to…

This study analyzed the effect of various stimuli on the number and kinds of words produced, the number and length of grammatical structures formed, and the quality of writing produced under four stimulus conditions. Third-grade students from Clarke County, Georgia, wrote compositions after (1) being asked to write a story (minimal stimulus); (2)…

This study was undertaken to determine whether an oral-aural approach to remedial composition instruction for college students would be superior to the traditional grammar and rhetoric approach. For one semester, four classes of remedial writing at Jefferson College in Missouri served as experimental groups in which ideas and sound were stressed…

This study partially replicated Moss's "A Study of the Effect of Selected Methods of Instruction Designed to Increase Originality in Written Expression," except for the fact that this investigator taught a 5th grade and an 11th grade class for most of a school year. Some of the conclusions of the study were: no particular teaching technique was…

The purpose of this study was to determine if syntactic maturity, as measured by T-unit length, clause length, and clauses per T-unit, and if the level of reading comprehension, as measured by cloze tests and a standardized reading test, of one group each of selected fifth, seventh, and ninth graders could be influenced by the students completing…

The purpose of this pilot study was to collect information on the feasibility of designing a controlled experimental project to test the effectiveness of a new grammar called "sector analysis" on improving student writing. The fourth, seventh, and ninth grade materials used in this study were based on this new approach to teaching…