A case study of a senior in mechanical engineering was undertaken to test the hypothesis that rhetorical theory can help students make sense of specialized discourse. The essay the subject finally produced concerning the rhetorical features in a technical engineering paper extended the claim she made at the beginning of the study: the text of the…

A case study used a social constructivist theoretical framework to study two students who participated in a writing process classroom in New York City. The teacher used literature to connect reading and writing in her lessons and conducted individual writing conferences with students. Students kept notebooks of their personal experiences and…

Three installments of "Writing Assignment of the Month," a regular feature of the National Council of Teachers of English publication, "Notes Plus," are presented in this compilation. The articles describe writing exercises which have proven to be successful in the classroom. The first article gives suggestions for introducing…

As communication is a moral action involving personal choice, composition instructors must help promote their students' character development. Whether during audience analysis, invention, or disposition, composition always involves the development and testing of four virtues: honesty, courage, love, and a combination of hope and humility. Teachers…

English courses should help students recognize the interrelationships among creative and expository writing, literature, and language. By helping students understand literary elements such as point of view, for example, creative writing courses can produce better student narratives. Required composition courses should replace sterile exercises in…

Recent developments in personal computers will affect the teaching of reading and writing because they offer capabilities that simply were not possible before. For example, an information storage and retrieval system, developed as a "library" for elementary school children, allows them to store and retrieve information under different…

Prewriting programs using computers fall into two broad categories: interactive and noninteractive. An early example of a noninteractive program is that of Ellen Nold, called "Cinnamon." Its purpose was to present the student with a series of content questions. In answering such questions, the student would be accumulating a set of data…

A study examined peer group writing evaluation in the classroom. Freshmen in expository writing classes were trained at the beginning of the semester to respond first to the ideas in the essays, and only after giving the writer feedback on this level were they to help the writer with mechanics and syntax. After being divided into groups of four or…

Teachers' role as primary audience has important implications for writing instruction. Teachers represent a combination of two audiences: a literal audience--a specific person or group of people implied in a writing assignment--and an ideal audience shaped by the writers themselves. As these two general types of audiences imply, writers both…

In the "real" world of writing, people make writing decisions based in part on their analyses of audience expectations and their own purposes. Yet, composition teachers at all levels assign general or abstract topics for essays rather than create writing tasks that require students to reflect on target audiences. Even students are aware…

An examination of student papers from three universities on the same tasks revealed that expository writing tasks were less demanding cognitively than argumentative writing tasks and that argumentative writing tasks were less demanding than speculative tasks. Another finding was that when students were able to translate a generalized task into…

Fifty-five colleges that require graduating students to pass a writing proficiency examination were surveyed as to the form and nature of their examinations and the formal preparation and follow-up procedures offered to students taking the examinations. The examination formats fall into three broad categories: 62% are essay only, 31% are essay…

The process of getting a thought out of the mind and onto paper can be divided into five major categories: (1) discovering the word, (2) excavating the mythic word from the subconscious, (3) perceiving the word in the conscious, (4) verbalizing the expressed word, and (5) comprehending the unsaid word. When humans experience anything, their minds…

This packet of competency-based instructional materials was developed for use in all sections of North Shore Community College's developmental composition course. Introductory material traces the development of the competency-based system at the college, which stemmed from a need for a more consistent approach in the composition classes. Next, the…

The synthesis of four instructional models for argumentative writing--the Toulmin, Hiduke, Winder, and Crebbe-Debate approaches--with basic discourse theory produces a practical and positive method of teaching college students to write effective persuasive essays. A battery of questions based on a modified communication triangle--subject…