Presents detailed teaching procedures for an "in-basket" business communication assignment, describing the time frame, method, and practical details necessary for teaching the assignment. Argues that students must be taught how to determine priorities for items to be answered, discarded, or noted and filed. (MM)

Describes a writing activity in which students write and perform their own television shows. (MM)

Describes how students enjoy poetry by writing cinquain poems. Provides an example lesson leading to a completed cinquain poem about tulips. (MM)

Argues that encouraging a "dialogue of one" (in which students internalize their reading selves in the act of revision) contributes to reuniting students' academic and cultural selves. Contends that students can learn the language appropriate to the literate community by recognizing that their writing is subject to critical questioning…

Provides suggestions to teachers planning to implement a whole language program, based on interviews with three whole language teachers. Focuses on support for the whole language program; decisions about curriculum and evaluation; development of vocabulary and comprehension; strengths and weaknesses of the whole language approach; and preparation…

Describes various magazine columns or syndicated newspaper columns which engage secondary school students as thinkers and writers. (MM)

Describes the lack of disciplinary agreement regarding proposal writing. Proposes a generic structure for proposal writing that includes situation, objectives, methods, qualifications, costs, and benefits. Suggests that major advantages of such a structure include its "slots," which make it like a schema, and its "event…

Argues that a writing conference dialogue is as much about the psychosocial relations between the participants, and between them and the larger institution, as it is about the particular writing problem they are negotiating. Sketches four features of family systems theory that best illuminate writing conference dialogue. (RS)

Argues that the most important thing that teachers can teach their students about writing letters is to write in a way that reflects the writer's personality, ideas, and visions. Notes that student letter writers should also practice thoughtfulness and good manners. (RS)

Describes a one-day Exemplary Writers' Workshop designed to recognize the writing products of secondary students. Lists workshop goals: providing students with opportunities to interact with professional writers; letting students interact with higher education faculty; and providing students with information about becoming a published writer. (RS)

Discusses a course in which female students were instructed to compose argumentative compositions in the empathic style of Carl Rogers. Reports that students disliked the style, believing it pretended to accept minority opinions while making women feel as if they had to change their views to belong to the majority culture. (SG)

Presents several introductory rules for writing in the news style collected under the headings short (words, sentences, paragraphs); simple (words, sentence constructions); and specific (denotative rather than connotative, concrete rather than abstract). (DMM)

Outlines a strategy of confrontational pedagogy that uses the key concepts of resistance and opposition as they function in both psychoanalytic and politicized critical theories. Suggests a way of theorizing the classroom to acknowledge conflict and to open up the classroom for a productive contestation and interrogation of existing paradigms of…

Argues that writing parodies of poetry is a productive, nonthreatening introduction to the creative effort of poem making. Provides several suggestions that may help in the parody-writing process. (RS)

Makes observations about how professional poets compose. Argues for the use of primary trait scoring and an interactive teaching method to guide students through revision while treating each poem as a unique piece of writing. Demonstrates how primary trait scoring and individual conferences assisted a student in revising his poems. (RS)