This paper outlines a complete junior high school language arts curriculum and presents in detail two of the suggested courses, creative writing (advanced students) and literary appreciation (remedial students). The rationale is given for each course, along with the objectives, scope, and sequence. Units contain several sample lesson plans, varied…

Article presented at a Seminar on the Role of the Arts in Meeting the Disadvantaged (Santa Fe, New Mexico, November 18, 1960).

Basic writers can be taught to write effective expository prose if they are taught to revise, and they can make considerable progress if they are given opportunities to write narration before tackling the complexities of exposition. Narratives come easily to basic writers and allow them complete control over subject matter and language. The…

To get students started in story writing, teachers can divide them into groups and ask each group to create a story from a plot provided by one student, a character provided by another, and a setting provided by a third. In preparation for this activity, the teacher should instruct students in the development of the story elements of plot,…

The Story Maker is a teaching device that allows children to create stories by choosing options from a set of already-written story segments. This device (1) provides an active language experience that allows children to construct stories easily; (2) demonstrates the consequences of choosing different ways for a story to proceed; (3) avoids the…

PREPARING CHILDREN TO WRITE BY TAKING THEM OUT OF THE CLASSROOM TO SHARE EXPERIENCES IS A RESPECTED PRACTICE IN SOME ENGLISH PRIMARY SCHOOLS. SINCE A TEACHER CANNOT PREDICT WITH CERTAINTY WHEN A CHILD WILL BE READY FOR WRITTEN EXPRESSION, HE MUST REPEATEDLY ENCOURAGE THE CHILD TO SHARE, TO TALK OVER, AND LATER--WHEN THE MOMENT OF EXPRESSION…

CREATIVE WRITING SHOULD BE GROUNDED IN THE EXPERIENCES OF THE WRITER. THUS, IN TEACHING CREATIVE WRITING, THE TEACHER MUST REALIZE (1) THAT HE IS NOT ABLE TO TEACH CREATIVITY, (2) THAT CREATIVITY IS NOT RESERVED FOR THE INTELLECTUALLY GIFTED, (3) THAT THE STARTING POINT FOR CREATIVE WRITING IS THE INDIVIDUAL'S EXPERIENCE, (4) THAT WRITING IS…

An account of an "intensive writing" experiment to stimulate and teach secondary students to write freely and creatively is given in this book. The experimental teaching method which stresses emotion, brevity, simplicity, and honesty is described, as well as the stimulus used for each writing lesson, the results obtained, and the children's…

Tagmemic invention offers a student several ways of decreasing the unfamiliarity of the early stages of writing. The process of inquiry and the heuristic devices provide the orientation and tools for dealing with new writing tasks with increased confidence and likelihood of success. In the theory of tagmemic rhetoric, language behavior and…

Intended as a guide for educators interested in initiating a poetry in the schools program, this book is organized into four parts. The first two parts narrate the poet-author's experiences in beginning such a program in North Carolina, outline techniques for presenting poetry in the classroom, and offer numerous samples of student writing. Part…

The literature advisory group--comprised of English teachers at all levels, language arts supervisors, and professionals with a national perspective--convened in March 1972 to begin the revision of the literature objectives which had been created in 1965-66 by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. In this booklet, literature is defined…

The purpose of this curriculum guide is to provide a sequential framework for teaching reading and the language arts in a traditional classroom or in learning-centered or group-centered situations. Teachers are encouraged to draw from an abundance of basic and supplementary materials. The guide outlines language arts skills objectives, activities,…

The aim of this study was to investigate the extent to which practice in the use of figurative comparisons in the composing of poetry, in both oral and in written form, will increase the use of figurative comparisons in the writing of prose. The study tested oral composition of poetry vs. written composition of poetry, and intensive treatment in…

This issue of the "Indiana English Journal" discusses the teaching of writing and contains suggestions that will help improve students' writing. The essays contained in this monograph include "The Writer as Writer and Critic: How to Be a Schizophrenic and Still Not End Up in Bedlam,""A Teacher's Mini-Glossary of Writing Techniques,""Film--A Way to…

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the writing of elementary children, grades four through six, to determine the relationship between specified genre and the development and use of figurative language. Three teachers, one each in grades four, five, and six in the Metropolitan School District of Perry Township, Indiana, collected…