The teaching activities presented in this document focus on motivating students in the classroom. The paper describes (1) using stick figures to teach the use of adjectives, (2) using pen names in a covert letter writing project to teach writing skills, (3) increasing creativity in composition topics by brainstorming about ways to use bricks, and…

Students made increased, but statistically non-significant, use of invention procedures taught them over the span of a one-semester composition course. (JH)

This book examines historical development of reading and writing research and instruction. Chapters discuss the following topics: spelling instruction in the United States; developments in composition research and instruction; reading instruction and research in historical perspective; eye movement and children's reading interests as two trends in…

English as a second dialect (ESD) students are those who have developed linguistic patterns from their parents and other members of their cultural milieu. Since the ESD students seldom find themselves in a setting that demands the use of standard English, they come to higher education with a well developed linguistic pattern that is alien to…

Intended as a source of motivation and guidance for those who wish to examine and perhaps change a school's writing program, this handbook addresses both the content and the teaching methodology of a writing program. Sections of the handbook provide (1) background information on the teaching of writing, (2) a discussion of the writing process…

The development of a college writing program can offer many challenges to a program director drawn from the ranks of the English faculty. The discipline of writing, an act of production, is both scorned and clutched by faculty who have been trained to analyze literature, an act of perception. Literature specialists, to be qualified to teach…

This second volume of Compact Guides to Information on Urban and Minority Education includes three reports: a review of alternative schools, a report on teaching writing to dialectally different youths, and a bibliography on race and sex stereotyping in children's books. The first report discusses the characteristics, types and outcomes of…

Competency in the three skills areas of reading, writing, and mathematics is a requirement for high school graduation in the state of New York. The writing competency requirement consists of two tests: the Preliminary Competency Test in Writing, given to students in the eighth or ninth grade, and the Regents Competency Test in Writing, given to…

The result of a review of 160 documents, including research reports, theoretical essays, position papers, and journal articles, this report provides a synthesis of literature concerning composition in kindergarten through grade 12. The report presents theoretical, conceptual, organizational, and implemental materials concerning the concrete and…

Prepared by classroom teachers in a Phoenix elementary school district, this handbook provides information for use in initiating writing practice in both the language arts and the content areas at all elementary school grade levels. The major sections of the handbook provide (1) techniques for motivating students to write; (2) activities at the…

A theory of textual processing signals--cues to guide the response of any reader to a narrative text--can be evolved from Gerald Prince's theory of reading interludes and William Labov's work on narrative evaluation. An examination of these signals in two personal experience narratives written by students in remedial and freshman writing courses…

A teacher-written essay comparing writing to farming served as a process model for analogical student themes. This assignment, given to 39 students in 2 classes of a first course in freshman composition, produced complete analogical essays in all but 4 cases. The essays, questionnaire responses, and retrospective essays on the writing of the…

In response to the decline in thinking, reading, and writing skills, as indicated by the latest report of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, this paper offers elementary school teachers one framework for a classroom writing program to cultivate a reading-writing-thinking connection. Based on six categories of B. Bloom's taxonomy…

Teaching composition in a prison is different from teaching composition in a traditional freshman composition classroom. Since most prison inmates have a high school equivalency degree earned while in prison, a developmental writing course offered prior to the standard freshman composition sequence is probably necessary. Such a class may include a…

All writing-across-the-curriculum programs have one common feature: they require that composition faculty approach and enlist the cooperation of faculty in other disciplines. To help in this regard, the following recommendations have been made to writing faculty directing interdisciplinary programs: (1) survey the faculty, either through the…