Although the number of English as a Second Language (ESL) students in United States colleges and universities has increased over the past decades, there has been no corresponding increase in the level of attention given to the special needs of these students in composition classrooms. ESL students are likely to be found in writing classrooms at…

This partial proceedings contains papers presented at the fifth annual conference of the Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on the topic of learning, teaching, and researching grammar. Papers in the proceedings are: "Using Grammatical Information to Make Rhetorical Points (Wanda Van Goor); "Grammar with a Purpose: Using Grammar…

Designed for teachers, this collection of essays describes successful, practical, classroom-tested ideas for use with students of all ages. The collection presents contributions from 18 teaching creative writers who describe their single best writing assignment that never fails to inspire their students to tell stories, write autobiographical…

Written in conjunction with the "Student Expressions" anthology but useful as a resource on its own, this handbook discusses the writing process and the way one teacher used it in a junior high school classroom. The narrative presented in the handbook is a distillation of the different approaches the teacher tried with different groups.…

Many educators are concerned with how writing should be taught, especially in the elementary grades. Many teachers are under the impression that when they have their students write simple sentences using vocabulary words and punctuation marks, they are teaching their students that this is writing. In traditionally taught classes, the elementary…

This paper contends that rhetoric is a force for social change. It also contends that the study of persuasive discourse--how it works, what gives it force--is rhetoric. Pointing out that in the past "persuasive discourse" has meant public discourse of various kinds but that nowadays scholars usually expand the category to include…

The passage of California's Proposition 187 has mandated political and cultural debate in composition curriculum thus exploding the de-politicized composition classroom myth. As this anti-immigration initiative of 1994 applied to education, it most directly affected K-12, but it also represented a huge financial impact to higher education. It made…

The need for greater diversity in the United States teaching workforce continues to increase as the numbers of teachers of color graduating from colleges of education remain low. This paper considers the current need for more minority teachers, as well as the theoretical framework and primary design of a learning community project between a…

Aimed at primary-age children, this book brings William Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" to them, recognizing that children, properly guided, will take to Shakespeare's characters and stories like "ducks to water"; in the process they find their inner voices, they collaborate, they improvise, and they communicate. Illustrated with…

Like most Americans, young people today yearn to play more active roles in community life. According to a recent study, there are two roadblocks to effective citizen empowerment: lack of knowledge and training that could help people connect with each other, and a dimmed belief that individuals can make a difference. In an effort to address these…

Classroom techniques for encouraging native Japanese-speaking learners of English to begin the writing process in English, rather than depending on translation from Japanese, are offered. They consist of short, structured exercises with parameters based on spelling, word length, syllable count, alphabetization, pronunciation, letter shape, and…

Collaboration is an important concept in education today. Writing teachers are encouraged to collaborate with instructors in different disciplines and at different levels, and to set up collaborative projects for their students. Three writing teachers at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh have, for the past several years, held a…

Implementation of a new program is a complex process of putting ideas into action. Program implementation can be characterized through the identification of interrelated factors which determine the success or failure of implementation of an innovation. Writing as a process has been perceived as a successful teaching methodology for many years, but…

This handbook is one of a set of six which provide a systematic means to help students in grades 4 through 8 learn the process of writing while building specific writing skills. The handbook focuses on sentence skills, and offers 30 reproducible lessons, in a variety of formats, to help students write simple, compound, and complex sentences. The…

This handbook is one of a set of six which provide a systematic means to help students in grades 4 through 8 learn the process of writing while building specific writing skills. The handbook focuses on notetaking and outlining skills, and offers 25 reproducible lessons, in a variety of formats, which give students practical experience in…