A critical rhetoric is needed for those interested in feminist discourse, a means of both persuasion and critique. It has been suggested that monologic, fundamentally one-sided argument is inappropriate for a feminist discourse that should instead teach methods of negotiation and mediation. Kenneth Burke proposed shattering views of ideological…

The Apple/Polaroid Language Experience Approach is an extension of the language experience approach which combines photography (a form of communication) and word processing skills. It is considered a holistic approach because it is based on the whole language model of teaching literacy which develops reading skills naturally through the…

Research on effective writing programs suggests that writing be taught in the context of a program that allows students to grow, learn, try, and try again, as they become proficient at the task of communicating. Three categories of behaviors facilitate this process: (1) teacher characteristics such as patience, understanding, interest, and high…

Teachers at both college and pre-college levels have long realized that collaborative writing is an effective learning tool for beginning writers. Many have pointed out that collaboration in writing groups properly shifts the focus from the teacher to the student, and allows writers to take more responsibility for their own composing processes.…

Computer technology such as telecommunications software and electronic mail allowed students in advanced writing courses at Incarnate Word College and St. Mary's University in Texas to exchange comments about their papers. The intention of the writing teachers was to emphasize the role that invention and planning play in writing, to highlight the…

Even at an early age, children are guided by their intuitions as they write. Intuitions are the culmination of perceptions that have been internalized and synthesized into patterns. Furthermore, they take time to develop. Consequently, if systematic instruction is to play a part in the formation of intuitions about written language then it must…

Unlike less skilled writers, who are intensely writer-oriented, skilled writers of personal essays and autobiographies are reader-oriented and demonstrate a conscious concern for their external audience. Student writers can develop a sense of an external audience by analyzing parallel autobiographical text selections of skilled and unskilled…

Effective informational writing assignments show students that creativity and imagination are essential to the generation of new ideas in all content areas. A collection of these assignments has been arranged into five categories of increasing complexity based on the following criteria: whether the point of view is assigned as self-selected;…

Designed to measure attitudes toward writing and changes in attitudes toward writing held by preservice and inservice teachers, this scale contains 50 statements representing three categories: preference for writing, perception of writing, and process of writing. Respondents circle one of five points ranging from "almost always" to…

The Primary Trait System (PTS) of scoring was devised by the National Assessment of Educational Progress to score large numbers of natural writing samples. Essentially, PTS permits evaluation of writing in an objective way, but one that does not rely on scoring surface features such as mechanics, grammar, or spelling. While the assessment value of…

Instructors' knowledge of linguistics can affect the way they teach writing. For example, in traditional linguistics, O. Jespersen's important contribution is his descriptive rather than prescriptive study of English in a historical context. Writing teachers influenced by Jespersen will place students in writing situations where they do not rely…

A principal cause of the seeming "foreignness" in the compositions of English as a second language (ESL) university students is discussed, and an approach to correcting the problem is suggested. It is asserted that the English language compositions of ESL students reflect native language rhetorical norms which are culturally based. Discourse bloc…

Inventive activities in the creative writing classroom can generate a great deal of excitement for the writing of poetry. Such activities might begin with improvising ways in which poetry can be written in alternative media, such as haiku on clay tablets that can be glazed and fired, then macramed together into wind chimes. Another activity,…

The writing program at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) is based on the idea that writing is taught best when it is emphasized in every discipline. There is an upper division writing requirement, and all departments design and teach advanced writing courses. In 1978, at the same time that the program was created, an outreach program to…

Good writing involves a series of mental processes which go far beyond what is included in traditional writing instruction. Students are often evaluated on single writing samples written in short periods of time whereas good writing involves many revisions and much more time. Traditional instruction has emphasized the analytic processes of the…