Freshman composition students at a community college in Maryland participated in a study to determine whether the talk-write method of writing instruction would have a more positive effect on freshman writing than would more conventional methods of instruction. Four classes totaling 58 students were randomly divided into an experimental and a…

A pilot study was conducted on the student characteristics associated with changes in student writing apprehension. Data were collected from 300 students in freshman composition courses and 300 students in advanced (junior year) composition courses. These students completed the Writing Attitude Questionnaire at the beginning and at the end of…

Noting that the success of the Bay Area Writing Project and the National Writing Project derives largely from their involvement of classroom teachers and from collaboration between university professors and those teachers, this paper discusses recent California legislation that places significant power in the hands of teachers in determining staff…

Three types of journal writing used by a teacher in her community college English classrooms are (1) the reading journal, in which students respond to course materials that they have been assigned; (2) the "sensorium," a writing unit devoted to detailed, specific descriptions of what the student sees, hears, touches, tastes, and smells;…

The intent of this evaluation report is to provide information obtained from a study of the Success in Reading and Writing Program pilot project initiated in the Washington, D. C. public schools in 1978-79. The first chapter of the report describes the Success in Reading and Writing Program, its goals and objectives, and the pilot project; states…

Based on the premise that teachers usually blame the education system and the administration for discrepancies between how and what they want to teach, and how and what they actually do teach, a study was conducted to determine if teachers really are constrained by their administrators. Ninety-three teachers of tenth-year English from 22…

Providing a framework for the teaching of writing at the junior high school level, this manual contains instructional strategies for use by content area as well as language arts teachers. The manual is designed to correlate the principles of the Individualized Language Arts Projects (ILA) written by Edwin Ezor with specific instructional…

The theory behind curriculum branching (course options extending from the core curriculum) shows how such extensions can aid the writing curriculum by fruitfully integrating branching into the sequencing of writing courses. The theory first reminds educators of the complex mix of developmental factors and individual differences--of step-by-step…

In addition to enabling students to discover ideas and providing them with raw materials that they can shape into polished drafts, free writing can give students experience, thus making them more comfortable with writing. Beginning each class with free writing activities on topics of enough interest that they distract reluctant writers from…

A study investigated to what extent, if any, the modularization and individualization of composition instruction benefited students with severe skill deficiencies. Gain in writing skills--as measured by pretest/posttest differences--was compared with regard to two groups of students: those taught by a traditional lecture-discussion method of…

Based on the premise that fortune telling is a spontaneous narrative exercise, this paper proposes that the Tarot deck is a marvelously intricate and finely tooled mechanism for generating innumerable, remarkably coherent stories in the archetypal mode. It explains the organization of the Tarot deck, the 78 cards and their meanings, and the…

Seeking to evaluate the impact of three summer workshops to improve the teaching of writing at all school levels, the sponsors of the workshops (Georgia State University/Southeast Center for the Teaching of Writing) used both a telephone survey of half the people attending two of the workshops and four pretest-posttest instruments. The instruments…

The instructor of two twelfth grade English classes, one a composition class and the other a general English class, gave both classes some exercises in sentence combining. In the first exercise, the students were given two sentences and told to devise as many combinations as possible. While the composition class contributed more combinations than…

This guide is designed to provide a model for giving the individual student writer extended opportunities for writing and writing instruction through a learning-centered writing lab. The first section defines the learning center or writing lab concept and subsequent sections discuss the rationale, organization, and suggested activities for writing…

Draft specifications for an undergraduate course in professional writing, designed to teach practical writing skills, are presented in this paper. The paper notes the need for such a course to prepare professional personnel for the writing they do in their jobs, and it suggests that the course be aimed at juniors and seniors in liberal arts,…