Perhaps because of their familiarity with joke telling, students often do their best writing when using humor. In both telling jokes and creating humorous works, students need to develop a strong sense of audience, an awareness of the importance of vivid description, a strong sense of purpose, and the ability to use punctuation for effect. The…

The use of peer group critiquing in the writing classroom is based on the position that when the teacher is no longer viewed as the sole authority, learning becomes a collaborative endeavor. Yet peer groups are often marked more by inhibition and constraint than by collaboration, with students resisting both giving and receiving critiques. The…

In popular culture, the word "research" is a term of reverence--in academe it is virtually a mantra. Research in any field may wish to seem detached and objective, but it is always political, whether it involves launching rockets or teaching writing, and it depends on a crisis mentality to support it. In the late 1950s and the early 1960s, that…

Teachers who conference well with writers often assume a role different from that of the traditional dispenser of information. A number of components have been identified that underlie good communication practices in helping relationships. Teachers can use the following listening or attending skills in virtually any conferencing format: basic…

The best way to understand and appreciate the forms and structures of autobiography is through the creation of lifewriting stories--memoirs, portraits, reminiscences, anecdotes, family histories, etc., which provide entry points for exploration in life experiences. Lifewriting texts provide the best point of penetration for the developing reader…

For teachers of speech-oriented basic writers, the choices of what to teach--and what to count as learning--ought to be guided by those requirements of academic culture that are indispensable for basic writers to know, specifically the use of written language, a discourse specialized in both form and function and differing substantially from…

Emphasizing the constructive role teachers pay in children's literacy development, this book provides a clear and richly illustrated description of children's writing development from preschool through approximately fourth grade. The book, divided into the three sections covering beginning writing, spelling, and composition, consists of the…

The treatment of educational trends is seldom fine-grained enough to communicate the complexity of the issues involved. A "beyond-the-trend" analysis of movements and countermovements in composition, reading, literature, and oral language reveals some new wrinkles in trends that are now well established in the professional literature of English…

Research has found that the process of writing is similar for both first and second language learners. Therefore, several conclusions can be drawn about writing development in English-as-a-second-language (ESL) children, including: (1) ESL learners can write and can create meaning, while they are learning English; (2) ESL learners can respond to…

Intended for secondary teachers and student writers but useful for anyone interested in poetic forms, this book defines 74 basic poetic forms, summarizes their histories, quotes examples from noted poets, and offers professional tricks of the trade on how to use each form. The book covers the following poetic forms: abstract poem, acrostic,…

The first of two volumes, this book is primarily concerned with the teaching of creative writing at any grade level, although some ideas may not be applicable in teaching very young students. Although concentrating on the writing of free verse poetry and short "expressive" prose, much of the material presented can be applied to any…

With a central theme of how people create a means to communicate reliably, and based on language-making exercises that touch students' imaginations, this book aims to interest students in language and how language is made. Since students like codes and ciphers, the book begins with secret writing, which is then used to reveal the foundation of…

Intended for teachers, students, and for anyone who is dissatisfied with his or her understanding of writing, this book is focused on practical exercises and experiments. The first section of the book, "What Writing Is," consists of two chapters of primary interest to teachers, and provides a general orientation to the document's approach. The…

A developmental writing program created for grades three through six is described in this paper. The first half of the paper describes the four-phase instructional model, which includes teacher-directed prewriting activities; successive drafts; editing by the writer, by peer editors, and by the instructor; and a publishing stage. The second half…

Word processing does not, in itself, teach revision. Students with incomplete revision strategies will not begin revising at a higher level simply by using a word processor. New computer strategies for teaching revision are needed--revision strategies that use the computer to reorganize, elaborate, and strengthen what has already been written. For…