Organizational stratification and writers' attitudes played an important part in the rejection of a proposed editorial review program at a university computing center. A peer review board, which consisted of four composition instructors, was established by the center director, in cooperation with a composition teacher consultant, to ensure the…

The writing manual for a course in basic Pashto teaches the Pashto alphabet: the letters, their sounds, their names, and their shapes in various combinations with other letters. Each lesson, designed to take one class hour, consists of a presentation of the material to be learned, exercises using that material, exercises reviewing previously…

Teachers of composition have an obligation to students to know what assumptions underlie their teaching methodology. Every writing course, no matter what its format, represents a particular construct of reality, of seeing the world and the individual in the world, which, in addition to writing skills, is passed on to students. Several useful…

A consulting physician's report on the physiological, social, and psychiatric states of an alcoholic patient, written for the attending physician and other interested parties, is analyzed for coherence. The need for coherence in the presentation of the complex interrelationships in the patient's social context is the primary focus of the analysis.…

Focusing on ways to teach fourth-grade students the machine skills they need to make the computer a fluent writing tool, this study sought to identify the word processing skills that students need to learn and the ones that are most difficult, and the instructional approaches that work best in teaching word processing skills. The problems and…

A study at a small southwestern suburban school examined specific process variables which occurred as children were taught composition skills using word processing, word processing with voice synthesis, and no word processing. Subjects were 45 second grade students, who were divided into three groups on the basis of scores on a reading…

Examining high school language arts experiences, a study surveyed 2,687 randomly selected students from 18 colleges in 14 Midwestern states who had taken the American College Testing (ACT) tests in high school. Responses were received from 558 students (a 21% response rate), with a high ratio of generally academically superior and non-minority…

A teacher of writing in English as a second language shares techniques and exercises that have inspired students to revise the rhetoric, vocabulary, and grammar of their own writing. They include: having students write about an unfamiliar classmate and having the classmate check the description for accuracy; distributing a model essay (Bertrand…

Ten papers on women's studies are provided, based on three workshops at Rhode Island College on May 20, 1986, September 27, 1986, and May 19, 1987. They include: "Reconceiving the Curriculum To Integrate Women" (Joan Rollins); "Models for Institutional Change" (Marilyn R. Schuster and Susan R. Van Dyne); "Western Women's Studies: Feminist but…

As an extension of a two-year longitudinal study involving various aspects of children's writing, a study examined the function of children's oral language during creative writing sessions in typical classroom settings. Using ethnographic style techniques, researchers conducted 46 writing episode observations of seven fifth graders in the spring…

Scholars from varied disciplines--first language (L1) acquisition, second language (L2) acquisition, composition research, and cognitive psychology--have found a high level of permeability in their search for more effective classroom models of writing instruction. Among the most influential work in this area has been Stephen Krashen's theory of L2…

Although teachers are often told to use literature as models for students' writing, they are rarely provided with specific suggestions on how, when, and why to use literature, or trade books, in their curriculum. Yet there are many situations in which the use of literature can be helpful to the novice writer. With pre-kindergarten or kindergarten…

To examine the effects of word processing on basic writers, a pilot study compared two classes of basic writers (40 students)--one class using word processors and one class using handwriting--at Glenville State College in West Virginia. At the beginning of the semester, students from both sections wrote one explanatory essay and one persuasive…

Before undertaking a computer-assisted composition class, several factors should be considered. First, there will be demands on the instructor to replan the entire course to include the effective use of computers; to teach fundamental word-processing skills in addition to writing skills; to develop enough knowledge of hardware and software to…

Intended for elementary school teachers, this article deals with reading readiness, handwriting, listening skills, and linguistics in the elementary school. The reading readiness section discusses utilizing pictures in teaching, using real objects in teaching, making picture dictionaries, placing labels on objects, developing experience charts,…