Designed to demonstrate a variety of ways in which listening, speaking, reading, and writing activities can be built around the study of the novel, this collection of materials, lessons, and activities deals with one of the most frequently taught books in New York City ninth-grade classrooms. The document begins with a general introduction to…

Writing is a methodology for learning and for disseminating that learning. It is the primary methodology for learning in the humanities. However, for many people both inside and outside the discipline of English, writing is something less--a skill to be taught and kept separate from "English" or the humanities. To legitimize writing as a humanist…

The relationships between the understandings children develop while learning the written form of their own names and those developed while learning other words were examined in a study. Twelve children, aged three, four, and five, were selected. The study involved three tasks which examined the subjects' expertise with letters, numbers, and the…

A study was conducted to establish a process for evaluating the difficulty of different handwritten letter forms. A criterion for calculating difficulty scores was delineated and four sets of letter forms were evaluated: manuscript, cursive, italic, and D'Nealian. Using the criterion, small letters were given a score of difficulty, the sum of…

Extending an earlier Donald Graves study by including students over seven years of age, this study identified relationships among the nature of writing tasks assigned by teachers and the written responses of elementary school students to those tasks. One class each at the third, fifth, and seventh grade levels provided eighteen sets of writing…

The use of word processing as an instructional tool is the focus of this monograph. The introductory section provides an overview of word processing and its use in higher education, while the second section explores the use of word processing in writing courses, including word processing for basic writers and learning disabled students, word…

The reader response criticism that has arisen in direct response to the New Criticism can be adapted to the needs of the developing writer through its emphasis upon the experience of the reader engaged with the text. The reader response approach generates content--helps the developing writer find something to say--and facilitates the process…

Because only 10 percent of students admitted to the University of Washington through the Educational Opportunity Program were able to graduate from the university, a basic writing course using literature to develop students' academic thinking skills was developed. Literature to which students could relate more easily, such as "Farewell to…

Writers' comments on writing can help teachers incorporate within their classrooms the idea that writing is a process of discovery. They can remind students and teachers how important enthusiasm, motivation, and reinforcement are. Even though such comments are not saying anything new, saying the same thing in new terminology can lead to new…

A consideration of real world language use yields five questions that could prove helpful in assessing student writing achievements: (1) What is the writer's purpose or intention? (2) What audience does the writer have in mind? (3) What are the organizing principles of the piece? (4) What range of experience and knowledge might one reasonably…

A senior English course at Padua Academy (Delaware) is going to be taught through an interdisciplinary approach that involves as many faculty members as possible, stresses the teaching of the writing process, and reinforces the concept that writing is not just for the English class. Speaker presentations by members of other departments will be…

The first in-class assignment for the English section of a Biology/English cluster provides students with an opportunity to observe, record, and organize data that are immediately available. The students first describe the hand with which they are not writing and then reorganize their observations into a brief paragraph. Next they read aloud and…

Focusing on the teacher's role in helping students to be creative in writing while expressing themselves more clearly, concisely, and accurately, the first four chapters of this guide offer a simple three-step process with strategies for teachers to follow when teaching writing. First, the guide discusses how the teacher can more thoroughly…

A proposal is provided for Triton College's team-taught course combining freshman composition and engineering. After introductory material notes that the course has been taught for 6 years at Triton by a variety of English and engineering instructors, a rationale for the course stresses the need to promote understanding of the roles of engineer…

Style is teachable and learnable, but literary models should not be introduced for imitation until the basic writer has already developed some fluency in writing; then literature can provide students with examples of experiences that they can internalize, store away, and draw upon in their own writing. A brainstorming exercise, "the messy…