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 word skills, and offers 30 reproducible lessons, in a variety of formats, to help students improve their use of vocabulary, different parts of…

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 letter and report writing skills, and offers 25 reproducible lessons, in a variety of formats, which give students practical experience in writing…

Activities related to women's issues are many and varied at Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania, but it is doubtful how much of this sensitivity trickles down into actual literature courses. Efforts at moving students away from passive reading and into a more critical stance that would promote active engagement with texts must be encouraged…

In a letter to her mother, herself a former English teacher, a teaching assistant details impressions of her first year in the Writing Program at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst). During a semester an instructor gets to know writing students individually in a way that pierces deeply through the veneer of stereotype. The class published…

Cognitively oriented research on writing has altered the manner in which writing is understood and taught. In the 1970s, writing teachers were challenged to improve students' skills. Finding traditional, product-oriented methods inadequate, they were left to discover how they might guide students to develop their skills. L. Flower and J. R. Hayes'…

Intended for teachers of all subjects, grades 3 through 12, this book explains how teachers can build a community of writers in which the students use portfolios to demonstrate progress and accomplishment across the curriculum. The book outlines practical strategies for ensuring that every student explores a variety of meaningful challenges. The…

Intended for teachers of kindergarten through grade 8 who want to improve their students' writing skills, this book is based on existing research findings to serve as a practical guide to procedures, methods, and skills essential for the development of proficiency in written expression of all kinds. The book includes practical, research-based…

Information on current trends and issues informally discussed and then delineated by the directors of six National Council of Teachers of English commissions, is presented in this 12th annual report. The commissions and their directors are: (1) Commission on Curriculum (Dorothy King); (2) Commission on Composition (Christine Kline); (3) Commission…

As part of a qualitative study of education reform in four rural Kentucky school districts, this report examines instructional changes that have occurred in the upper primary grades as a result of the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA). Researchers interviewed 13 principals, 37 teachers, and 14 eighth-grade students; observed 73 teachers working…

Try as she would, one instructor of preservice teachers could not convince her students that such skills as reading and vocabulary are not good indicators of how well a secondary student will write, especially in the case of minorities. One of the hardest sells to new teachers is that students--at all levels--should write extensively, regardless…

An advanced composition curriculum was designed for a class of 20 juniors and seniors, and because of the constraints of a university grant with which it was associated, the majority of assignments had to be collaborative. The subject of investigation was composition. That is, the students were challenged to do what composition researchers and…

Ways to develop "creative automaticity" for writing in a foreign language are examined. The paper focuses on transactional writing (i.e., writing with the purpose of transferring precise information by such means as telex messages, business letters, memoranda, and short reports), and its main features of clarity and conventionality. It is noted…

Responding to the expressed need of classroom teachers and teacher educators for a listing of available video resources which can be used for preservice and inservice education for literacy providers, this annotated bibliography identifies video resources which most fully capitalize on the potential of the medium by portraying literacy teachers…

The Dow Jones Newspaper Fund Intensive Journalistic Writing Institute, a 2-week summer workshop for Ohio high school teachers of journalism conducted in June 1991, demonstrated that the team of journalistic writing techniques and current composition pedagogy is unbeatable in fostering critical reading and writing skills. The institute focused on…

Literature instructors become frustrated as they read poorly written student essays. The problem is partly the students' lack of experience: they have not read a lot or written a lot. Literature classes can be more interesting and effective if teachers coordinate two kinds of emphases: allowing for discovery and moving toward productivity. In…