Reflects on the articles in this themed issue. Discusses three recurring ideas: the need for devoting time to read, time to talk, and time to write; the organic nature of talk about writing craft; and the importance of teachers writing with their students, reading with their students, and making plenty of time to talk together. (SR)

Explores what creative drama is, why it should be included in the teaching of both expository and creative writing, and how language arts teachers can implement creative drama activities to increase student success in writing and to improve learning. Describes how using creative drama to enhance creative writing restores authority to students for…

Offers seven brief descriptions of class projects and assignments used successfully in writing classes of all sorts, from first-year composition classes to business communication to computerized writing labs. (SR)

Offers an analysis of the ways in which the structure and practice of writing centers may be uncomfortable, difficult, even anathema to many boys and young men. Describes ways the author's writing center at a boys' school has changed some of its practices in an attempt to address this issue. (SR)

Offers four brief descriptions from composition/writing teachers of class activities that work well for them, addressing using a grocery list to help students understand why audience awareness is important; using group work to help students analyze literature; having students define and describe good writing; and helping students with specified…

Middle-school students with (n=6) and without (n=16) learning disabilities were taught a strategy for planning and writing expository essays using the Self-Regulated Strategy Development approach to instruction. Positive results were found for students with and without learning disabilities. Students' papers became longer, more complete, and…

Examines an exchange between the author's eighth-grade daughter and her teacher (regarding a writing assignment on the phrase "responsibility is freedom"). Discusses the political elements of reading found therein. Examines implications of these elements for the daughter, the teacher, the parent, and the school district. (SR)

Highlights how fables can be used in English-as-a-Foreign-Language classes. Fables offer the opportunity for learners to speak and teachers to reinforce the simple past versus the past continuous or the simple present versus the present continuous. Fables are also useful for teaching writing.(Author/VWL)

The National Writing Project and the National Geographic Society's Geography Education Program are two highly acclaimed staff development networks that are models for other organizations. Both programs feature intensive summer workshops and numerous followups during the subsequent school year. This paper describes the networks and presents six…

Analyzes cases published in the March 1998 special issue of this journal and contrasts them with results of a survey of 25 employees regarding the kinds of writing that are important to successful performance at work. Finds the cases involve exceptional rhetorical situations when in reality the rhetorical situations business writers usually face…

Describes as a prewriting strategy the use of seventh-grade language-arts student and teacher story telling about "guilt trips" played by parents and teens. Maintains that this is a useful prewriting strategy often neglected as teachers move to a process-oriented instructional model. Describes pitfalls to the verbal prewriting strategy. (KB)

Describes a fifth-grade teacher's year-long unit of study on memoir. Addresses getting started, mini-lessons, drafting, and embellishment and voice. Notes that even reluctant writers became involved in writing memoirs and that the teacher followed her own advice and began writing a memoir about her grandmother. Appends a rubric for evaluating…

Discusses ways to make writing enjoyable by making it significant. Journal writing became the means for encouraging students in one English-as-a-Second-Language class to write more. (Author/VWL)

Describes how and why the author has students in his composition classes collaboratively create scoring guides. Argues that this focuses students on the goals of the paper and provides a clear notion of how to improve their own performance. Offers scoring guides. Comments on the process that created them. Offers guidelines for using scoring guides…

Describes how the author developed an approach to teaching writing and to grading student writing that gets students themselves to understand their technical mistakes in using language, but also lets them know the strengths in their writing upon which they can build. Notes that this approach unexpectedly cut down on the time she spent reading and…