Describes a technical writing assignment in which students learn to consider the needs of an audience through writing query letters. Discusses researching the magazine, comparing competitors, editors' responses, and the advantages results of the assignment. (PRA)

A college English teacher discusses how her experience in learning to play a guitar has illuminated the teaching and learning processes, especially for first-year composition students who are motivated but not talented, or not highly motivated and expect failure. It is concluded that patience and kindness are important teaching tools. (MSE)

A teacher describes use of a three-phase freestyle writing activity to encourage students with disabilities to develop independent expressive written language. Students develop their skills by writing for brief periods, first whatever comes to mind, then a self-selected topic, and subsequently a teacher-selected topic. (DB)

Differences in girls' and boys' writing are felt to stem from cultural experiences relating to their reading and viewing. The aim of teachers should not be to produce degendered narrative but to encourage the complementary components of assertiveness, reflectiveness, and awareness of opposed values in both boys' and girls' writing. (JDD)

A study of 240 student teachers and teacher trainees found that students using word processing rather than typing or handwriting on essays received significantly higher grades on their writing assignments. Further analysis found that the extent of revision rather than method of presentation accounted for the difference. (Author/MSE)

Explores the sociohistoric notion of disciplinarity in a case study of how a sociology student's dissertation prospectus is negotiated in a graduate seminar. Foregrounds emergent, nonlinear, discursively heterogeneous practices of disciplinary sense-making. Details the disciplinary work of revision. (HB)

Presents a class activity in which student describe and classify music as an introduction to writing classification essays. (SR)

Offers a model lesson that uses television commercials to foster in students a more sophisticated awareness of audience. (SR)

Examines the use and various kinds of writing undertaken by people in different professions. Outlines an activity in which students write to famous people and inquire about the kind of writing they do in their everyday lives. Shows how this activity stimulates and inspires students. (HB)

Presents a transcript of an interview with the American literary theorist and cultural critic J. Hillis Miller. Covers aspects of his various writings. Relates his thought to the field of English studies. Analyzes recent trends in college English. (HB)

Describes political definitions and forms of power in the modern era. Discusses echoes lingering from the collision between early American linguistics and the late black rebellion against racism. Argues that, despite hopes of attaining democracy through language, there remains little democracy in language. (HB)

Describes the writing and drawing produced by a group of first-grade students during "writing workshop" time throughout the school year. Considers whether genres emerge in ways analogous to other aspects of writing development. Suggests that genre may indeed be emergent. (HB)

Discoursal construction is illustrated with 1 case (a 26-year old's academic essay) and then discussed in terms of Goffman's framework of self-representation through any form of social action. It is suggested that Critical Language Awareness, unlike other teaching/writing approaches, focuses explicitly on the discoursal construction of writer…

Describes teaching methods and techniques found to be useful by practicing teachers, including tips for spelling instruction, grading essays, and for fostering writing skills among student writers. (HB)

Offers two case studies which demonstrate gaps between teacher's and students' understandings and valuing of writing and revision. Argues that the more specific teacher's comments are, the more likely that students see immediately what revisions need to be made; and the narrower the conceptual boundaries of the comments, the more likely students…