Discusses the 10 elements of the author's personal writing curriculum: solitude, experience, faith, need, tension, pattern, voice, ease, productivity, and readers. (RS)

Discusses a writing assignment in which students write biographies comprised of literary genres such as dialogues, poems, newspaper articles, obituaries, songs, and letters. (RS)

Offers a pedagogy that invites students to know firsthand how traditional poetic forms are both historic artifacts and living practices. (RS)

Explains a reconceptualization of writing by discussing the relationship between discourse communities and conceptual schemes and by exploring Donald Davidson's externalism. Concludes with some speculation concerning the ramifications for a theory of discourse production. (MG)

Describes an "improvement gauge": a cumulative chart providing a numerical analytic comparison of student and teacher evaluations for every graded writing assignment. Maintains that its use improves teacher effectiveness, grading efficiency, student/teacher conference productivity, and student reflection on writing strengths and weaknesses. (SR)

Discusses plagiarism and offers guidelines for its prevention. Discusses writing program administrator policies on plagiarism and how to confront confirmed cheaters. Relates actual cases, and describes situations where plagiarism was not intended by the students. (PRA)

Describes a model for staff development that encourages teachers to make decisions about their learning and professional growth. Explains how the model was developed and implemented. Shares results of the model's effectiveness along with recommendations for improvement. (PRA)

Describes a writing assignment that uses metaphors to encourage students to rethink their assumptions about writing and about themselves as writers. Discusses metaphors of process and speed, fear and courage, control, silence, and metaphors as invitations. (PRA)

Offers a brief sampling of four essays describing a variety of approaches to argument and persuasion. Reiterates some useful definitions and distinctions, discusses classical rhetoric, connects the teaching of argument to eleventh grade U.S. literature, and shows how to teach students to respond to literature by asking "why" questions…

Examines some emblematic job advertisements published in the MLA Job Information List during the past two years and argues that the majority of these advertisements militate against writing program administrators' professional advancement. (MG)

Asserts that using popular music to introduce such concepts as irony, artistic influence, or the appropriation of cultural materials is a logical way to interest students and help them make connections and understand new material quickly, efficiently, and pleasantly. Outlines an approach to teaching English that uses music as a chief source of…

Provides tips for comic book writing that have been gathered from actual comic book authors and can be used in minilessons for writing workshops in the classroom. Focuses on five specific components of comic book writing: plot development, layout, drawing, narration, and the cover page. (MG)

Examines whether collaborative writing projects force students to reflect critically on their own ideas. Finds that collaboration does not guarantee reflection. Suggests that how students represent collaboration and the writing assignment itself determines whether and how they reflect on their own ideas. (PRA)

Discusses the need for reading anthologies that not only contain the works of female writers but also works that do not specifically deal with women's issues. Outlines the problem as it exists in magazines, newspapers, and other media. Discusses modal versus thematic organization in writing and areas of traditional female concern. (PRA)

Proposes a set of strategies for connecting reading and writing, placing the discussion in the context of other pedagogical approaches designed to exploit the relationship between reading and writing. Explores ways in which students employ the strategies involved in "mining" a text--reconstructing context, inferring or imposing structure, and…