A writing teacher, troubled by the hierarchical, authoritarian design of his courses, restructured his writing classes to alter the dynamics of authority in the classroom. The idea was rooted both in Paulo Freire's writings and in the simple notion that students should be designing their own writing tasks. First, students brainstormed possible…

John Dewey employed the phrase "water-tight compartments" to mark deficiencies of integration within an individual's personality. For Dewey, the self is complex, but a strong personality integrates its various habits so that they reinforce rather than conflict with one another. Dewey's focus on this problem of personality has relevance…

Pupils need to experience a rich language arts curriculum. Each learner must have feelings of self-worth and acceptance of others in the classroom setting. Educational psychologists have long recommended that learners perceive that content acquired is integrated. English teachers have debated the merits of teaching isolated learnings in the…

Two studies compared the impact of black and white audiences on black students' writing style. In the first study, eight students in an all-black intermediate composition class completed one argumentative draft addressed to black opponents and one addressed to white opponents on two different topics. The essays were examined for stylistic features…

Linguistically inclined scholars such as Ragnar Rommetveit and Michael Halliday offer a sociocognitive understanding of writing that challenges current writing theories, which focus attention on processes to the virtual exclusion of the writing product. These linguistic scholars provide ways of understanding context, not as fixed or concrete, but…

In an episode of MASH in which Radar O'Reiley takes a correspondence course in writing, Col. Potter advises him, "The first rule if you want to be a writer is to be yourself." But what if O'Reiley wrote a series of stories about a corporal's negotiating his place in a system which urges, "don't ask, don't tell?" The colonel's…

Teaching "some" literature in a college composition course is important because it offers variety, enlivens classroom discussion, introduces different writing styles, and helps students to understand and study life. The debate over the appropriateness of literature in the composition classroom has been ongoing. Erika Lindemann believes…

Composition instructors and their women students stand to lose a great deal should they not continue to explore the "different voice" that women have despite influences of the dominant culture. Carol Gilligan has recently been taken to task by any number of feminist scholars for what they understand to be her tendency to essentialize the…

This collection of materials, a summary of a workshop, is divided into five sections, framed by introductory and concluding remarks. The sections are: (1) a panel on "What Is the Domain Beyond?"--panelists discussed their particular interests in areas that could not be traditionally classified as "cognitive" and related those…

Noting the popularity and wide use of John Warriner's series of English grammar and composition textbooks and workbooks for high school students (first published in 1948), this paper argues that rhetorical theory informs the series, despite Warriner's claims that his approach was based on axioms of writing instruction. The paper also speculates on…

A study investigated whether student non-comprehension strategy use would vary according to learning environment by looking at the tutoring session--a more intimate learning situation than the classroom. Through collection and analysis of five tape-recorded tutoring sessions, results indicated that the eight undergraduate students were more likely…

A study sought to determine whether the experience and quality of writing changes when novice writers who compose on computers are supported by a more interactive guided-writing program. Subjects, 143 seventh- and eighth-grade students in San Diego were assigned by intact classes to one of five versions of computer-guided writing software. The…

This document consists of the three issues of the ARTE newsletter published during 1993. This newsletter describes organizational objectives and activities of the Assembly of Rural Teachers of English (ARTE), and presents articles of interest to rural English teachers. Articles discuss: (1) promoting and capitalizing on positive feelings of family…

Documenting an educational experiment that began in Sydney, Australia, this book presents essays by theorists and practitioners in the genre literacy movement that describe this approach to literacy instruction in a clear, practical, and accessible way. The book notes that the genre approach to literacy teaching emphasizes content, structure, and…

Through accessible case studies, this book offers insights into the numerous ways in which "interactive writing" (participation of two or more friendly correspondents who exchange texts across an extended period of time) can facilitate children's writing skills. The book notes that interactive writing provides children with enjoyable…