A study was conducted to determine how much practice in sentence combining was necessary for black college students to reach a peak in syntactic growth. Thirty-three freshman composition students, the majority of whom had verbal Scholastic Aptitude Test scores ranging from 300 to 350, participated in the study. In addition to the regular…

Intended for junior high and high school writing instructors, this booklet provides prewriting activities designed to help students master the thinking strategies essential to effective written communication. The first portion of the booklet discusses theory and research on the role of thinking strategies in writing and gives an overview of the…

Both student and adult writers need to learn how to imagine clear and full contexts for their writing. These contexts include awareness of audience, knowledge of purpose, and creation of the proper voice befitting the purpose and audience. The critical necessity of these three elements in writing can be taught and learned most effectively through…

The steps to be taken when organizing a training program for writing teachers are discussed in this paper. The following components are examined: (1) the qualifications of the training program director; (2) the content of a training manual explaining the reasons, activities, and instructional materials of the writing courses being taught; (3)…

Current training in writing for business and industry usually takes the form of short courses. However, the short course is an inappropriate way to teach writing because it is inefficient, represents writing behaviors or strategies inappropriate for some writers, rarely allows time for adequate criticism and revision, presents too much material in…

The areas composition teachers must address when developing a sound system of conferences with students include defining the conference, scheduling, preparing, conducting the conference, and keeping conference records. There are four general kinds of conferences: (1) the diagnostic conference for discussing students' writing experiences and…

A study investigated the role of writing apprehension in the writing competency and performance of college students. Specifically, the study examined whether high writing apprehensives would perform differently than low apprehensives on standardized tests of writing-related skills and on two different types of essays. Based on the results of a…

Arguing that to consider only the writer's mental processes is an intellectualist view of the composing process that does not present a fully human way of knowing, this paper takes the position that the writer is more than a mind at work and that an account of the writer as knower must include a consideration of the interaction between mind and…

To aid in the understanding of "cases" for writing (defined as highly focused situations in which students assume a role that demands writing to specific audiences and for utilitarian purposes), this paper begins by outlining the problem case faced by the author: to present a convincing argument for the use of the case approach to composition. It…

A study conducted to determine if speaking activities facilitated growth in writing involved approximately 60 community college students enrolled in freshman composition. A review of the literature supported the notions that a definite relationship exists between talking and writing, that prewriting activities affect the quality of composition,…

The year-long development of a community college writing center designed to serve as both site and catalyst for improving students' content area writing is described in terms of the problems encountered during the year and the solutions to those problems. Seven problems are specifically dealt with: (1) the ineffectiveness of the singular use of…

In view of research findings that unskilled writers are rule-based rather than context-based in revision of their written work, a study was conducted of the stage between writing a rough draft and the teacher conference to determine how inexperienced writers would articulate their performance and evaluate their strategies for revision. An…

The usefulness of teaching advanced composition in a writing tutorial program has been demonstrated at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst with students who have passed college freshman English and who feel they still need some work in their writing. Justification for using the tutorial method is based on the premise that a teacher cannot say…

A study of the relationship between the quantity of writing assignments and writing apprehension involved 352 college students enrolled in 20 classes in eight discipline areas. Writing apprehension was measured by using the Daly-Miller writing apprehension inventory as a pretest and posttest. Tasks involving learning-centered writing (writing…

Designed for educators actively involved with the teaching of writing, this summary report contains an overview of the background, major findings, and recommendations of the 1979 Manitoba (Canada) Writing Assessment Program. Various sections of the report provide the following information: (1) highlights of the general report of the program; (2)…