The Exceptional Child Education (ECE) program of Jefferson County Public Schools in Louisville, Kentucky, presents this language arts curriculum for use with K-12 students who have learning problems. The ECE program uses the curriculum and materials of the general education program whenever appropriate, but has access to special instructional…

Writing is an important tool in teaching skills to adult basic education (ABE) students. To be a successful teacher of writing, teachers must be successful writers. They must be aware of the writing process and willing to use it daily in their own lives in order to convey its importance and its usefulness to their students. One method of teaching…

To learn correct grammar, developmental students must practice writing correctly. However, the traditional exercises offered in handbooks, workbooks, and textbooks not only fail to provide habituation in correctness, they actually provide practice in "wrongness." Instead of isolating individual problems, they promote confusion by linking them.…

A descriptive study examines the drawing, oral language, and composing behaviors of selected first grade limited English proficient (LEP) children following a natural language text reading experience. The units of analysis were LEP children's drawings, written texts in writing folders, oral language during a writing episode, and story retellings.…

A study was conducted to obtain information about the involvement of the private sector in creating literacy programs for employees. Specifically, it examined the extent to which selected Fortune 500 companies were involved in literacy training and the extent to which materials and methods used were relevant to specific job tasks. An analysis of…

The English teaching profession must accept the fact that the new paradigm for composition involves microcomputers and word processors, and as such calls for a somewhat different set of skills on the part of both students and teachers. The "text editor" can lessen the effects of some physical and psychological constraints on students,…

Intended to help secondary school English teachers integrate literature study and composition instruction, this booklet explores the relationship between literature and composition and suggests ways of designing instruction so that students may write effectively about the literature they read. The first portion of the booklet discusses such…

Members of the English and speech faculty at Michigan Technological University combined and coordinated their ideas to find a way to introduce the basics of oral communication into the composition course. The course itself is structured according to the quarter system, in which basic composition is taught in the first term, research methods and…

A research project investigated the development of narrative rhetoric in students in grades 3 through 8 in New York City public schools. Two types of tasks were used, the first requiring students to write a story about the events depicted in a drawing, the second asking them to correct rhetorical problems in prepared narratives. A series of…

Building on previous ethnographic research on middle school students' reading and writing activities, a study examined the continuity and change in students' use of, control of, and access to reading and writing resources from kindergarten through grade 8 in an elementary school, a middle school, and the community. Reading and writing resources…

Intended for high school composition instructors, this book resolves the seeming contradiction between creative, expressive writing and formal exposition and argumentation by presenting a teaching method that treats creative writing as a necessary--if not sufficient--cause for exposition. The first two chapters describe a sequence of short fiction…

Over 800 studies suggest that students who learn via cooperative learning groups--as compared to competitive or individualistic learning--(1) achieve more; (2) are more positive about school, subject areas, and teachers; (3) are more positive about each other, regardless of ability or ethnic background, handicapped or not; and (4) are more…

This collection of 26 brief essays by college and high school faculty represents a variety of practical approaches that can be used in composition classes. After a foreword by the editor, the essays and their authors are as follows: "Writing as a Moral Activity" (Judith Anderson); "Specific Details (Orangen't You Wise to Use…

This book is designed for use in preservice and inservice language arts methods courses and as a professional reference for the practicing teacher. The approach to teaching language arts advocated in the book is that of individualized, interactive, and integrated instruction. The book contains the following chapters: (1) "The Language Arts Teacher…

This book presents a description of language arts instruction that advocates language learning that is incorporated throughout the curriculum. The book contains the following chapters: (1) "Language Arts and the Beginnings of Language"; (2) "A Literature Foundation"; (3) "Composing and Comprehending via Literature";…