Argues in favor of including instruction in speaking skills in technical writing courses. Shows how to go about incorporating dialog skills into what is first and foremost a composition course. (RL)

A unit on publishing processes and production methods provides technical writing students with valuable information and suggests numerous writing assignments for the instructor. (RL)

Examines research concerning the relationship between Black vernacular English and reading and writing. Makes recommendations for future research. (HTH)

Advocates teaching etymology in composition classes and offers suggestions for arousing students' interest in word history and for keeping it relevant to writing classes. (HTH)

Advocates combining the study of poetry and composition instruction on the premise the students can learn style for writing from poetry and can learn to interpret poetry more effectively by studying how the author uses language. (HTH)

Discusses Great Britain's largest degree-granting institution and describes it as the world's most successful distance learning operation and most important innovation in the history of higher education since the establishment of the land grant college. Explores the possibility of the program's application in the United States. (AEA)

Describes a rationale and activities for using journals in the preschool setting to bring the school and home environments together and to acquaint children with the writing process. (HTH)

Reviews research on sentence combining. Notes some of the specific problems of using sentence combining and points out the particular values that make it an instructional device both for the teacher and for the student. (RL)

Discusses ERIC materials that deal with the relationship between reading and writing and offer suggestions for ways to integrate the two activities. (FL)

A participant in the Oklahoma Writing Project shares ideas about writing instruction. (RL)

Considers the idiomatic nature of the writing process. Encourages teachers to let writing tasks arise naturally and realistically and to teach the writing process with students' personal needs and interests as the starting point. (RL)

The expansion of legal writing programs, justification for such action, and the elements of legal writing are outlined. The place of legal writing in a modern law school and special difficulties in program design are addressed. The USC program is described. Available from Union University, 80 Scotland Ave., Albany, NY 12208; $2.50, entire issue.…

Contract grading is seen as a way to enable instructors to assign written work and respond to it helpfully so that their students will learn from the experience. Experiences with contract grading in a sophomore literature class are described. (MLW)

Describes a "directed writing activity" that teachers can use in developing writing sessions that consistently produce good results. Outlines six steps in the writing activity: prewriting, framing the writing assignment, writing the assignment, revising the draft, editing, and writing the final draft. (AEA)

A satirical essay that purports to describe a meeting of an educational foundation deciding how to spend a grant to improve writing instruction. (TJ)