Designed with real teachers and real conditions in mind, this booklet presents a model for a writing-across-the-curriculum/writing-to-learn program that can be used in all classrooms in all subject areas from grades 4 to 12. The model presented in the booklet defines five types of writing assignments and the outcomes expected for each--using…

This paper describes the approach used successfully at California State University, Dominguez Hills, to instruct college students in the research paper writing process. To achieve the results, the instructor followed a specific set of steps during a class meeting set aside for this specialized training. This paper details each step in the…

This conference proceedings reflects the substance of the 3-day Conference on Written Communication, sponsored by the Ohio Department of Education and designed to provide professional growth opportunities for more than 350 school administrators, teachers, and university and state department personnel. The papers in the proceedings present a review…

A semester-long, introductory, freshman composition class (24 students) engaged in fieldwork, interviews, workshopping, a literature review, an ethnography, and a final paper allowing the student to critique their experiences with the ethnographic process. The first 2 weeks were spent familiarizing students with the ethnographic process. Through…

Two studies compared the impact of black and white audiences on black students' writing style. In the first study, eight students in an all-black intermediate composition class completed one argumentative draft addressed to black opponents and one addressed to white opponents on two different topics. The essays were examined for stylistic features…

Designed to be accessible for students and teachers and to provide models and alternatives for conducting research, this handbook serves as a common reference source for research in all subjects within schools and across school districts. The handbook includes sections on establishing a topic; finding information; developing an outline; making and…

A home writing program was developed and implemented using 22 second-grade target students to increase writing proficiency by soliciting parent involvement with home writing and to improve attitudes toward writing. Students attending a north central Florida school were supplied with a writing suitcase containing thematic story starter cards, a…

This bibliography offers detailed summaries of five articles (published between 1983 and 1993) that provide practical and theoretical advice on designing writing assignments that can serve as more than just evaluation tools. The articles summarized in the bibliography confirm common sense but also dispel some common misconceptions about student…

Getting students to react to literature and write more than a good "topic" sentence is a perennial dilemma for teachers. A course at the Bread Loaf School of English, Middlebury College, Vermont, that incorporated improvisation with the writing process used role playing to solve real life situations, physical and verbal warm-up exercises to…

One version of a first year seminar in rhetoric examines the President Kennedy assassination controversy as seen by several writers in a rhetorical framework that stresses the difference, particularly in regard to the writers' approaches to truth, in intellectual and imaginative discourses. The assignments, three major writing projects, introduce…

A writing across the curriculum coordinator considers it part of her job to help faculty assist students to write better. She reminds faculty that she is available to do workshops for teaching assistants, to help design sequenced assignments, and to meet with students to set up effective peer response groups. A sociology professor sought her out…

A writing portfolio provides material to use in evaluating not only students' finished products but also their persistence in developing and revising to a finished draft. Typically, portfolios contain the assignment sheet, brainstorming exercises, essay plan/outline, and first through final drafts of all writing. A table of contents sheet, listing…

Eckerd College in Florida has instituted portfolio assessment in writing classes, a method which invites students to engage in learning on a variety of levels. Portfolios encourage students to consider the responses of various readers in their revision processes, claim ownership of their writing, review the papers they have written in college,…

Effective writing is nearly impossible without engagement with the material. The informal journal may be the only place in the composition class which clearly respects and encourages students' individuality, and which cannot be accused of trying to force them into an academic straitjacket of a sometimes loose, sometimes tight, fit. At the same…

In their recent article, "Materiality and Genre in the Study of Discourse Communities," Devitt, Bawarshi, and Reiff maintain that genre analysis can enable outsiders to a discourse community "to connect what community members know and do with what they say and how they say it--their language practices" (542). Genre analysis,…