Describes certain trends in the attitudes of the rhetoric and composition profession toward the teaching of writing as pure technique. Argues that these trends are much more deeply rooted in the changing economic structure of society and have much more serious implications than are presently realized. (RL)

The authors assert that school writing programs inhibit students through meaningless topic assignments and emphasis on the technical aspects of transcription rather than the really basic skill of composing. They describe a first-grade classroom ideal for writing instruction, where the teacher collaborates in children's writing, instead of teaching…

College students wrote summaries of short passages to assess their ability to identify important information. Naive summaries judged as "better" contained more major semantic roles, such as agent, than did summaries judged "not as good". Students wrote better summaries when instructed to use major semantic roles within the passage. (Author/RD)

Stepwise regression yielded a 13-variable model for predicting writing performance that included psychological, stylistic, and demographic variables. (FL)

Presents a theoretical model of the writing process and suggests having students create a picture collage as an introduction to the various roles and stages in the writing process. (HTH)

Many graduate students in geology lack an adequate knowledge of scientific methodology, research methods, and writing skills necessary for thesis work. Described is a course designed to address these deficiencies. (Author/WB)

Identifies changes in the composition curriculum in California secondary schools between 1975 and 1979. (HOD)

Reviews professional resources, curriculum guides, and instructional materials for a variety of elementary classroom subjects, including reading, writing, fine arts, and social studies. (HTH)

Six participants in the Third International Conference on the Teaching of English share their views on the contributions made during the conference. (HOD)

Future directions in the teaching of writing must focus on the classroom and on ways of making the classroom situation more effective. There is a need to consolidate the new insights into writing and the writing process into effective classroom practice. (HOD)

Guidelines for connecting the rhetorical principles taught by Francis Christensen with concepts from sentence-combining in a plan to help students learn to invent and develop sentences. (RL)

Reviews recent research concerning the relationship between reading and writing and presents some implications of this research for elementary school classrooms. (FL)

Contains contributions dealing with the following: (1) teaching short vowels, diagraphs, and consonant blends; (2) affective planning in reading instruction; (3) phonics; (4) integrating reading and science instruction; (5) vocabulary; (6) story structure in children's book choices; (7) preventing summer reading loss; and (8) writing assignments…

This article presents 16 language arts and writing activities based on secret codes and mystery stories designed to intrigue and motivate students. (SJL)

The author explains how she taught third- and fourth-graders the skills needed to produce a class newspaper: note-taking, layout, news writing, and proofreading. She found that learning research skills and disciplined newswriting improved students' writing in general. (SJL)