This document consists of the first three issues of a newsletter written by the members of the Making Thinking Visible Project. The first newsletter describes collaborative planning as it related to writing, discusses school projects using collaborative planning, presents a dialogue between two students using the process, and compares…

Several conditions, identified by Cambourne (1988) as contributing to children becoming successful language users, have been simulated in Australian schools in order for children to feel self-assured in mastering writing and reading just as these conditions have promoted the developmental process of talking in the home. The conditions are:…

As English departments face the 90s and beyond, the pressure will only rise to define and justify the role of the English professor in the academy. Three current debates suggest the indeterminate future of English departments, which now represent a multi-faceted discipline. First, the canon debate must be resolved; second, the teaching role of the…

A study compared the effectiveness of 2 approaches for teaching students exam-writing skills. One approach--the study tips/models approach typical of existing textbook materials and study guides--used written study tips, along with sample exam questions and responses, to give students knowledge about what to do, and provide a model they could…

Often when teaching creative writing to grade school and middle school students, teachers encounter two problems: students state that they do not have anything to write about, or students keep their poetic voices quiet and imitate the examples that they are given. If students are encouraged to mentally create images of poetic forms and to write…

This paper discusses an analysis of adult-child social interactions to discover which instructional stimuli are effective in producing a classroom milieu rich in storytelling events. Ten fifth-grade students with low reading scores, eight black and two white, were tape-recorded over 8 weeks as they created stories in their journals and in…

A University of New Hampshire English department faculty member has been both a student and a teacher in the writing program. As a student she learned, over time, to do more writing in class, rather than in solitude. Time, topic, and structure limits came to be seen as liberating. The writing course encompassed not only conferences and full-class…

The tendency to read for errors is an occupational hazard for writing teachers, but there is something profoundly wrong in measuring progress by measuring the reduction of errors. To begin breaking this habit, teachers must first recognize the fundamental hypocrisy in making correction markings that are at odds with the intended message (i.e.,…

Adult students of English as a second language (ESL) need to learn how to express in writing what they know how to say. An introductory lesson plan is presented which has helped students put their words into writing. A unit on communicating personal information is developed from the first class meeting's introductions of name, address, occupation,…

According to James Britton, too much emphasis is being placed currently on revision. In his essay, "Shaping at the Point of Utterance," Britton notes that (1) concentrating on the reader in teaching writing can disturb the writer's ability to formulate what he or she wants to say; (2) the essence of the writing process is not writing…

Intended for composition teachers who see "editor/writer" conferences as the ideal teaching strategy, this booklet offers a procedure for training tutors--staff or students--to respond skillfully to a writer's work in a one-to-one context. The first half of the booklet discusses theory and research regarding the tutorial process and some…

Text headings can be used to structural and expressive advantage in technical material, increasing textual coherence and encouraging reader/text correspondence. The five general types of headings are differentiated by their functions: (1) descriptive headings refer to the most prominent feature of a text section; (2) reflective headings provide…

The Language Experience Approach (LEA) to teaching reading in English as a second language is described. LEA uses the student's own experiences, vocabulary, and language patterns to create texts for reading instruction. Three stages are defined for assessing learners' levels of language use. The LEA instructional procedures are designed to be…

A course sequence for teaching the forms and formats of scientific and technical writing to English as a second language (ESL) learners is described. The first assignment, a letter of application, serves as a diagnostic indication of the student's ability. The second assignment, a narrative, is designed to define the importance of audience and…

The methods and materials for teaching the vocabulary and writing components of an intensive summer English as a second language (ESL) program for foreign university students are described. Program goals are to improve English language proficiency and orient students to the American academic system and American culture. The approach to building…