Reporting on the work of a task force formed for the purpose of improving writing skills in the Memphis (Tennessee) City Schools, grades K-12, this paper identifies the efforts of the task force and its recommendations and traces the development and implementation of the Writing Across the Curriculum Project. An introduction notes the importance…

In 1985-1987, seven faculty members at Sacramento City College (SCC), California, conducted classroom-based research studies as part of an effort by the college to involve faculty directly in research as a means to improve teaching and learning. In 1987-88, three follow-up studies were conducted to validate and/or expand upon the original…

This handbook grew out of the experiences of the teachers and students at the Read/Write/Now Adult Learning Center, a community-based literacy program in Springfield, Massachusetts. It is both a documentation of the experiences of the program and a guide for teachers. The four sections of the handbook contain a number of modules, each of which…

Hong Kong education is based on an imperialist rhetoric which serves to "domesticate" rather than "liberate" the school population. The importance of memorization is clearly evident in education in Hong Kong. The community's educational system reflects a classical Chinese emphasis on familiarity with a set body of texts and on…

Maintaining that the arts are composing activities and--like talking and writing--powerful ways of making meaning, this book discusses teaching English through the arts. The book provides a brief theoretical and historical basis for its fundamental approach and presents 29 instructional strategies that classroom teachers who do not have special…

This paper describes a comprehensive first grade language curriculum which views the acquisition of literacy as a whole language process. The paper explains how to configure program elements to provide direct instruction, time-on-task, and self-directed learning. The manner, timing, method of instruction, and specifics of the contribution of each…

A course of study was researched, designed, and implemented to improve the writing of fifth-grade students. Objectives of the program were to develop more positive feelings about writing while increasing the quantity, quality, and variety of writing. Cooperative learning and process writing was discussed with the participants, their parents, and…

A study was conducted to determine whether manipulating the classroom environment to be either apprehension producing (AP) or apprehension reducing (AR) could significantly change the level of students' dispositional writing apprehension. Five student teachers and one secondary education supervisor volunteered to participate in the experiment and…

The best way to teach writing is to make it the way to learn something else. Instructors need to look at written communication as it is used in real life. When students take pains with their writing, it is because what they have to say is important to them. The students' need to communicate a particular meaning for a particular purpose guides them…

Because of its ability to record and represent process, the computer can provide a powerful, motivating, and as yet untapped tool for focusing the students' attention directly on their own thought processes and learning through reflection. Properly abstracted and structured, the computational medium can capture the processes by which a novice or…

Technical writing instructors generally agree about the absolute need for communication skills throughout the technological work place, but a survey of technical writing journal articles shows a lack of focus on ways to address business's needs for on-the-job literacy. One major advance within the profession in recent years has been the…

Given that the task of freshman composition is to initiate students into the multidisciplinary academic discourse community, English teachers can speed up the novice's introduction more effectively than can specialists in those disciplines by having students observe, analyze, and produce the salient features of a discourse community's…

A summary is provided of the activities and outcomes of Irvine Valley College's (IVC's) CompuEnglish Project, a program designed to introduce word processing skills in Freshman Composition classes and assess improvements in student writing. First, introductory material describes efforts in computer-based composition undertaken at other schools,…

Focusing on talk as the vehicle through which the reading and writing processes can become more interactive and can more closely approach the processes of learning, the lessons presented in this booklet provide examples of how teachers can construct learning strategies to help children "talk their way into meaning" against a framework of…

Focusing on purpose in the writing of college freshmen, a study examined the writing processes and how they related to the conceptions of purpose of four freshmen enrolled in a composition course at Indiana University. Discourse-based interviews were conducted before and after the students completed three tasks designed to vary their choice of…