As an orientation to the actual composition process, learning-disabled students should be taught methods for the development and organization of ideas. Strategies are presented for helping learning-disabled students improve composition skills by improving flexibility in vocabulary and sentence structure and by planning and sequencing ideas and/or…

Demonstrates how auditors use negative politeness strategies to meet the complex demands of potentially threatening interactional situations. Substantiates the claim that politeness is a linguistic universal by showing that the same politeness strategies found in speech also occur in written communication. (MS)

An Iowa school district's inservice program introduced nearly 150 teachers to the writing process to help the teachers be more effective as writers and as teachers of writing. Direct measures evaluate both the writing curriculum and students' improvement in writing: writing samples, each student's cumulative writing folder, and a formal…

Offers guidelines for helping children appreciate and create poetry. Discusses use of outdoor field trips in creating outdoor poetry. Suggests that outdoor poetry experiences expand students' awareness of environment, while improving their reading and writing skills. Offers examples of students' poetry. (TES)

Describes a set of strategies for integrating journal writing into the English classroom, and suggests ways to evaluate students' journals. Asserts that these strategies have helped lead many students to lifelong writing. Provides a sample journal evaluation form for students. (MM)

Describes "Plausible Stories," an activity which uses creative writing and story predictions to help teachers exploit the interactive nature of the processes of reading and writing. (MS)

Retrograde writing, the technique of telling events in a narrative passage in reverse order while maintaining a coherent progression of thought, is a stylistic exercise that can make foreign language writing instruction more interesting and effective. (MSE)

Examines materials designed to improve children's writing or composition abilities. Focuses on whether the materials have students use the task/strategy/skill in such a way that they can transfer the task to other materials in reading or writing situations that serve a real function. (MG)

Presents a seven-step activity for researching and presenting information in the form of nonfiction big books, allowing children to read for information and write to inform. (MG)

The advantages of using themes as the foundation of a language arts program for hearing-impaired students are outlined. Methods for developing new themes, recycling old themes, having children choose their study materials, and structuring classroom activities are presented. Examples from an insect theme illustrate the approach. (JDD)

Describes the development of the Electronic Networks for Interaction (ENFI) (originally, English Natural Form Instruction) computer method for teaching written English to deaf students, and discusses the programs' effectiveness in working with deaf students, implications for improving English usage, and the ENFI movement. (CB) (Adjunct ERIC…

Views writing instruction as the techniques and approaches used by the teacher, as well as the learner's whole experience in the writing classroom. Drawing on research on writing in both first- and second-languages, an analysis focuses on the different aspects of writing instruction. (61 references) (Author/VWL)

Compares the French school system's emphasis on writing with the American school system's lack of priority for writing instruction. Argues that teachers in France are effective because they are free to concentrate on teaching, without having to perform duties unrelated to teaching. (JAD)

Discusses the Young Authors Program, a program sponsored by the Greater Boston Reading Council, which encourages teachers to help students create original illustrated bound books. (MM)

Encourages teachers to regain the Sophistic awareness that no teaching is done in a social and political vacuum, that teachers must make judgments about which issues are more important than others, which issues deserve to be studied, and which issues should be ignored. (RAE)