Recommends the resourceful, well-planned utilization of carefully selected current news stories from sophisticated publications to enrich the content of remedial writing classes. Presents three sample cases in which news items become the basis for the exploration of major social and ethical concerns. (DMM)

Examines the perceptions of one experienced and four inexperienced college writers regarding the functions of writing in academic settings, citing social and personal factors influencing content and motivation. Presents 13 functions following a developmental sequence identified through inference by the researcher, including responsive, evaluative,…

Describes a teaching method in which high school sophomores (1) read A. Munro's "Connection," a short story connecting the author to her family origins; (2) interview relatives about their personal history; and (3) compose vignettes based on the notes collected during a three-week period. Provides numerous questions and prompts used to help the…

Describes a teaching technique designed to help students understand how and why technical writing works. Students study journal articles by answering lists of questions focusing on unity, coherency, definitions, illustrations, and documentation, then apply principles they learned through the exercise to preparing an informative report. (SKC)

Discusses over one hundred recent works on audience analysis and adaptation, subdivided into the following categories: the role of audience in the technical text, audience analysis and adaptation in the technical writing classroom, and contemporary issues and problems in audience analysis. (SKC)

Identifies the general principles underlying the Council of Writing Program Administrators' summer workshop, and the ways in which they are currently being applied. (HTH)

Discusses the heuristic role of yes-no questions in college composition and provides two such methods for brainstorming and focusing. Presents a binary graph device ("Matrix") that correlates subjects and concerns to generate yes-no questions. Also presents a flow-chart model structuring information in the question-evidence-resolution pattern. (JG)

Seniors in two basic English classes learn to write vivid prose by recording conversations before concentrating on the conventions of writing. After the writers express themselves, they begin to see the value of the rules of writing. (MLF)

Asserts that the conventions of academic writing are not obvious to faculty, and must be even more mysterious to students. It is therefore properly the business of the academy to teach the academy's forms of writing. (MS)

Describes the effects (both positive and negative) personal knowledge about students has on student writing conferences. (MM)

Examines various definitions and pedagogies of critical thinking. Discusses the writing center's role in teaching critical thinking. (MM)

Examines the structure and function of the medical model and its relationship to language. Explores possibilities of composition specialists teaching in the area of medical writing. (RAE)

Investigates the teacher's role in a whole language classroom. Asserts that explicit written guidelines concerning the teacher's role in directing and supporting student learning should be available for novice teachers in training and for experienced teachers who want to shift from a conventional approach to a whole language approach. (MM)

Explores the concept of emergent literacy, discussing what children know about reading and writing, how they come to know it, and what this information means for classroom practices and school policy. (MM)

Describes instructional and departmental forces creating the following problems for undergraduate creative writing teachers: (1) they hold an uneasy position in the English department hierarchy; (2) courses are radically different from creative writing courses in either high school or graduate school; and (3) instruction has lagged behind…