A review of the literature on computers and writing reveals that a dichotomy exists. The great debate that has been taking place in the world of writing instruction mirrors the emerging debate concerning the implementation of computers in education. Applications and research fall into one of two categories: the computer as a teaching instrument of…

One way of giving students a sense of audience in their writing is to combine speech communication and written communication in the classroom. If students can be taught to write as they talk, they can perceive their audience to be real people rather than the amorphous "indefinite other" they typically write for in the traditional writing…

In a "College English" article, B. M. Kroll describes the educational and philosophical foundations of three perspectives on the teaching of writing: interventionism, maturationism, and interactionism. These three developmental perspectives offer a useful way of reviewing, evaluating, and classifying textbooks written for basic writers.…

The letter of application should make use of message strategies that show the writer's awareness of the explicit needs of specific readers. However, very few students are able to write them, partially as a result of the audience analysis procedures that are suggested for student use. Students need a reader analysis procedure to help them learn…

To persuade adult audiences in business and industry of the need for change in the writing, the consultant must first know precisely what changes are desirable. One source for this information is the Document Design Project funded by the National Institute of Education, conducted by scholars from a variety of disciplines, and supported by…

This issue of "The Community College Humanities Review" contains a series of articles, reviews, and reports addressing various issues related to values education and other areas of the humanities. The issue contains: "The Study of History and the Question of Human Values," by Abraham Ascher; "A Moral Imperative for Teaching Values in a Literature…

The set of goals and plans that a writer might select to accomplish a given piece of writing is guided by the writer's conception of knowledge. In terms of cognitive theory, conceptions of knowledge may be viewed as epistemological schemata--structured clusters of knowledge about the nature of knowledge itself. William Perry's scheme of the…

Noting that teachers stimulate student writing in three ways--by arousing, directing, and rewarding--this guide offers suggestions for activities in each of these areas for the elementary, intermediate, and secondary levels. Following an introduction, four activities are presented: (1) stimulating student writing through arousal, (2) stimulating…

Intended for high school students, this guide for writing the research paper consists of three parts. The first part deals with the research process and includes seven steps: choosing and limiting a topic, finding and examining materials, making bibliography cards, notetaking, writing the outline and paper, using footnotes and endnotes, and typing…

In a study designed as a pilot project to test a taxonomy of noun phrases (NPs) and indicate results to be expected from a larger subsequent survey, 13 essays from a basic writing class and 10 essays from an advanced composition class were analyzed for four NP types: (1) those requiring earlier text information for full interpretation, (2) those…

Designed for students who have grammatical problems, the syntactic approach presented in this paper helps explain the process of revision, and should be used only after a student has written a draft. The paper suggests that the students' hypothetical objective can be to understand how every word in any sentence is syntactically connected to the…

Assisting students with written work continues to be a challenging task for today's teachers. Outlining represents a relevant instructional technique to help students develop self-regulated writing skills and promote higher order thinking. The author shares writing advice that can be used by teachers working in traditional face-to-face…

This textbook aims to enable pupils to master writing good English rather than teach theory of style and criticism. The contents are divided into five parts. Part I covers construction and combination of sentence and provides a variety of practical exercises. Part II focuses on varying the structure and phraseology of sentences. Part III is an…

This special journal issue focuses on writing in the elementary school. Topics discussed in the various articles include (1) a technique for teaching persuasive composition, (2) writing in the second and third grades, (3) correlating writing assignments with the study of literature, (4) a problem solving approach to composition, (5) the Virginia…

If college freshmen know something about syntax, have practiced combining and breaking down sentences, and have learned to think in terms of deep structures and surface structures, they may be better able to understand and relieve the discomfort caused by a garbled key sentence structure. Grammar instruction in freshman composition provides a…