A study was conducted to test the impact of three summer writing workshops at one National Writing Project site on the participants' attitudes toward and approaches to teaching composition. Seventy-nine elementary school through college writing teachers who had participated in one of the three workshops were administered a pretest approximately…

To help students organize and integrate new information with past knowledge, college reading teachers can offer students cognitive schemata that sort information into general and specific concepts. Without this ability, students will be unable to comprehend, analyze, synthesize, interpret, or transfer information. In addition, they will be unable…

Intended for teachers of elementary and secondary school writing, this paper describes the Regular Writing Practice (RWP) program, which combines the philosophical and pedagogical bases of Lyman Hunt's Uninterrupted Sustained Silent Reading program with the instructional methodology of creative writing and composition. The first portion of the…

For years, elementary school teachers taught writing by giving students a "story starter" and asking them to complete the composition. That blissful state of complacency in the teaching of writing was shaken in 1978, when Donald Graves advocated a radical departure from accepted pedagogy in his publication "Balance the Basics: Let…

The double-entry journal requires students to write affective response statements to literature readings and to compare such entries with those of classmates. Use of the double-entry journal is intended to activate students' prior learning and present feelings, foster collaborative learning, integrate major language skills, and encourage the…

Articles in these proceedings of a conference of the Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication represent the views of professional communicators and academicians who share a concern for providing breadth and quality of preparation for present and future technical communicators. The 10 papers discuss the following topics: (1)…

Drawing from basic assumptions about learning and critical thinking skills, this paper suggests a teaching method for helping community college students to use their critical thinking capacity in their college courses. First, a series of assumptions commonly held by teachers about the nature of learning are presented, and contrasted with…

Composition theory accounts of coherence have tended to look at relationships within the text rather than at those between the text and the real world. In fact, empirical evidence suggests that the relationships between the text and the real world may be just as important for coherence. Forty-eight short papers were selected at random from those…

Historical study of composition theory and teaching occupies a peculiar place in the discipline of composition instruction. It does not attempt new applications for theory, and pretends to no direct pedagogical applications at all. Unlike empirical research, it does not use experimental method or scientific rigor. However, the study of history,…

This document describes how computer assisted instruction and word processing can combine the systematic coverage of a writing class with the individualization of a writing workshop. Ways to revise computer programs for use in a writing course are reviewed and currently available relevant programs are detailed. The act of word processing itself is…

With support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, writing teachers at three central Illinois high schools, a community college, and Illinois State University (ISU) are addressing the problem of getting composition teachers to cooperate in developing long range curricula and sharing actual classroom practices through a collaborative…

An effective model for analyzing revision processes in writing needs to synthesize what research has shown about the process, the strategies involved, and what is known about students' revision strategies. Development of such a model also requires recognizing that (1) a relationship exists between reading and writing in the revision process, (2)…

Secondary school and college students can learn how to shape thought through shaping language by using tagmemic heuristics. To approach writing as a thinking process, students apply three heuristics: one for identifying and stating problems, one for exploring problems, and one for evaluating hypotheses or solutions. Guided by a series of…

Michigan Technological University is designing a series of computer modules for supplementary, process-based writing instruction. The Wordsworth II program will lighten the workload of composition instructors by involving students in an individualized writing program outside the regular classroom. It is a sophisticated and interactive program…

Making the process-oriented writing center an integral part of the community, as well as of the campus, can be crucial to ensuring its survival. Using students as tutors gives the center free tutoring and the students "hands on" experience. To reach students, the director can provide campus-wide publicity and attend meetings for…