Argues that the possibility for surprise is the starting point for both effective writers and teachers and describes six elements that help create surprise: expectation, habit, ease, recognition, "pounceability," and acceptance. (MM)

Suggestions are provided for including writing from personal experience as a part of the school's curriculum. The philosophy is that experience in the real world provides motivation for writing. (KC)

The article identifies five modes of thinking--defensive, productive, adaptive, elaborative, and developmental. Case studies of artistic, creative writing illustrate the modes. A writing program designed to identify and develop these thinking modes is described. (Author/DB)

Examples and ideas are given for stimulating creative writing in gifted children, using children's literature as a model, a stimulus, a motivational device, and a source of factual information. (DB)

The development of the advertising writer is really the development of an artist, an artistic process governed by the same exasperating lack of rules. It is above all an internal journey that each student must make to discover his or her own distinctive voice. Frequent assignments will eventually give rise to frequent moments of insight, charm,…

Intended for writing teachers, the activities in this issue blend right/left brain lessons--kinesthetic, spatial, and playful--to provide students with prewriting experience. The activities include the following: (1) creativity olympics, such as finding criteria by which large groups of students may subdivide themselves into successively smaller…

This study evaluated the use of guided imagery practice to enhance creative writing with 43 academically gifted students (stratified as either high or low creativity) in grades 3 and 4. Groups receiving the guided imagery practice (regardless of original creativity level) generated more original writing, which contained more sensory descriptions…

The Scenario Writing component of the Future Problem Solving Program calls for students to write a short-short story exploring variables in the future. This article describes the scenario writing process, presents samples of award-winning scenarios, and offers tips for student-authors and for coaches. (JDD)

The advantages of using word processing in a business writing course are identified as making students feel more comfortable with writing, enhancing creativity, and making revision easier. The need for an initial large investment of time by instructors before initiating word processing use is discussed. (MBR)

Description can make a piece of writing come alive. This lesson plan combines art and word play, emphasizing writing for an audience while drawing on multiple intelligences. Peer review and feedback reinforces the revision process as students create trading cards by drawing pictures of monsters and describing and categorizing them in detail.…

Recommends that teachers look for and value the freshness, naivete, humor, and wisdom in children's writing. Samples of children's writing are provided to illustrate these traits. (AEA)

Four classroom activities are described: (1) one for stimulating beginning students' interest in finding evidence of French language and culture in their own environment; (2) a card game for learning grammar; (3) a letter-writing exercise; and (4) a game using lipograms in the creation of a fictional community. (MSE)

Describes the emphasis on creativity in expository writing in a college composition class. Outlines four traits of creativity promoted and encouraged in student nonfiction writing and writing assignments for that purpose. Includes samples of students' creative nonfiction. (HTH)

This article describes one poet/teacher's program to explore and cultivate student creativity, intuition, and imagination through a series of visual, verbal, and psychological exercises. Visualization, free-writing, association, variations on other poets' work, and memory mapping are among the creativity exercises employed prior to actual writing…

Imaging, or disciplined daydreaming, can be used in the composition class to expose students to their innate creativity, lessen writing anxiety, refresh memories before writing of personal experiences, and make impersonal subjects, such as historical events, vital and personal. Teachers can construct a classroom imaging session (which takes about…