Offers an approach to using film as an object of analysis for writing classes having no previous knowledge of film terms and techniques. Provides 19 study questions to stimulate identification and a description of a director's techniques to facilitate an interpretation of what the film means. (JG)

Experienced English teachers recommend worthwhile books for beginning English teachers. (MS)

Described is a program at Childrens Hospital National Medical Center in which the focus is on improving medical students' writing and communication skills as part of a pediatric clerkship. Based on the quality of students' performance and their evaluation of the exercise, this has been a successful innovation. (Author/RH)

Discusses the importance of maintaining a dialog between teachers and students about each writing assignment. Explores ways of keeping the dialog going, even after an assignment has been graded. (JAD)

Changing narrators in a literary passage is a pedagogical technique that can enliven composition, yet still present a challenge to students. The challenge lies in giving a new narrator total awareness of events. For an added novelty, the passage can be narrated from the perspective of an inanimate object. (Author/MLW)

Argues that since technical and prose writing are both rhetorical discourse, technical writers should use the same devices as prose writers (such as metaphor and humor) and should be as aware of the political, ethical, and moral context of their writing as writers of prose. (ARH)

Describes a word processor-based exercise developed to teach resume writing to technical writing students. (ARH)

Describes a "character" assignment--creating imaginary characters from magazine pictures--which prepares students to develop well-rounded characters for their short stories. (MM)

Examines research on using word processors for writing and writing instruction. Argues that research can mislead and discourage teachers from using computers in their classrooms. Asserts that word processing encourages students to have fun while guiding them through the revision process. (MM)

Describes how having students evaluate their teacher's writing can develop the teacher's sensitivity when responding to student compositions. Suggests ways which help clarify teacher responses to student writing. (MM)

Claims self-generated cases overcome the disadvantages of standardized cases by including students' individual needs, interests, and areas of expertise, and by cultivating students' intellectual initiative as they invent original material. (MS)

Suggests having students write a series of business magazine article summaries as part of a journal assignment. (MS)

Suggests that excellent writing results when writers achieve oneness with their subject, and that students can achieve this oneness only when allowed freedom to discover their own subjects. (ARH)

Describes how one teacher learned to eliminate ethical and pedagogical problems inherent in student journal writing by placing restrictions on assignments. (ARH)

Describes how a group of teachers of grades three through eight initiated and carried out a project that reformed their school's writing curriculum. (ARH)