To teach students the skills of editing, teachers should provide them with an opportunity to become editors--to work cooperatively in the editing of each others's writings in order to be able to accept help and to learn to edit their own writings. Purpose and audience are the two guiding lights of the editing stage. Instruction begins with…

A study examined sentence production errors and syntactic complexity in students' writing in two modes of discourse and at three grade levels. Subjects, average and high developmental students enrolled in seventh, ninth, and eleventh grade classes, each wrote two compositions, one in the descriptive the other in the persuasive mode. Data analysis…

This lesson plan contains poetry-related activities that aim to help students read and interpret English poetry, and write their own poems. The activities are introduced in each of the following parts: talking about poetry, understanding poetic devices, interpreting poems, using poetry for language acquisition, writing original poems, performing…

There are particular theories and concepts that teachers of writing use to inform pedagogical practice--outcomes and understandings that teachers hope students will carry with them into their academic and professional lives, as well as their civic involvements. The field of composition has theorized the term "community" in relation to…

Imitation of organizational and sentence patterns is an ancient technique for teaching rhetoric, but to be effective, imitation must be informed, deliberate, and creative. Students must first learn to recognize the characteristics of a given style and then to appreciate the connection between specific stylistic qualities and their cumulative…

A graduate student internship program in teaching composition at Brigham Young University (Utah) is described. Interns are trained for five advanced English courses: critical and interpretive writing, critical writing for elementary education majors, writing about literature, factual and scientific writing, and technical writing. The first interns…

This teachers' guide responds to some of the more frequently asked questions about teaching and evaluating from Kindergarten through Grade 5. The document is a synthesis of the current research on writing and applies this information to the teaching of writing in the classroom. It is comprehensive in nature and addresses such subjects as…

A lesson plan and supportive materials for an exercise in reading comprehension and cooperative writing are presented. The exercise is based on a story entitled "Testimony," in which a writer expresses feelings about a boxing match. The lesson plan outlines procedures for presentation of the exercise to the class, for the cooperative teams to…

This description of "Introduction to College Composition," a credit-bearing developmental writing course offered by the Community College of the Finger Lakes, provides an overview of the writing, grammar skills, and reading components of the course. Introductory information indicates that the course adopts a process-oriented approach to…

Basic media writing courses are integral to and will become an increasingly important part of communication programs as confusion over goals and lack of focus are clarified. Currently, media writing textbooks are designed for freshman composition, rhetoric, journalism, or mass communications courses. None do an adequate job surveying all types of…

This document traces the steps take by a rural school district to design and implement a research-based staff development program to train all teachers, K-12, to be teachers of writing and to produce students who would be writers. The three-step process involved: (1) needs assessment; (2) staff development planning; and (3) evaluation. Public…

This annotated bibliography contains 28 references on the ways writing can be used in the study of literature and ways in which literature can be utilized to foster invention in students' writing. The bibliography contains citations from the period between 1982 to 1989 and is divided into three sections. The first section includes strategies,…

The complex theory of knowledge and cognitive interests by the sociologist Jurgen Habermas, the dominant critical theorist in present day Germany, is applicable to current composition pedagogy. According to Habermas, all knowledge is shaped and used in three ways: in technical ways for instrumental reasons; in practical ways for socio-cultural…

This book, a series of essays developed at a working conference on the integration of reading and writing, surveys the historical, cultural, situational and social forces that keep the teaching of writing separate, skew the curriculum to favor reading over writing, and discourage development of pedagogies that integrate the language arts; examines…

Written for tutors of upper elementary and secondary students, this booklet is a guide to 20 hours of formal lessons to improve reading skills through writing. The lessons, presented in step-by-step numbered outline form, are intended to help learners utilize language arts skills in educational activities for remediation. The booklet places major…