Argues that outlining should not be abandoned as a means to teaching students how to organize their thoughts because it can be an invaluable tool in certain circumstances. Describes in outline form how one teacher goes about teaching outlines to her students. (TB)

Discusses the pedagogical consequences that follow from distinguishing invention from prewriting. Contrasts the importance of stasis in invention, and the resulting importance of writing with an audience in mind, with prewriting techniques that merely direct students toward exploring a topic without reference to an audience. (RL)

Recommends adding formal training in note taking to the high school English curriculum to help students master the skills of abstracting major ideas from texts, summarizing facts, and paraphrasing materials. Suggests an approach to note taking. (RBW)

Presents a professional writer and writing teacher's ideas on writing and the writing process. (JL)

Describes method in which students write a draft requiring some writing skill before learning about that skill. Concludes that predrafting (1) enforces first-drafting; (2) shows students their natural writing abilities; (3) emphasizes discovery of substance first, rules and form second; (4) promotes an active student role; (5) arranges learning in…

Describes how studying under Ken Macrorie led one high school English teacher to use freewriting as a prewriting activity in her classroom. (ARH)

Discusses motivation, ritual, perception, language and perception, heuristics, investigation, and character as a catalogue of inventionist themes and explains their potential applications to the teaching of writing. (JL)

Computers, if programed to respond to writer-generated content with heuristic strategies, can guide the writer in the prewriting stage. Heuristics are problem solving strategies that can aid the writer in exploring a topic either through a systematic posting of relevant questions or through an unsystematic process of free-association. To date the…

Explores the mental processes involved in preparing to write. (FL)

Argues that students need invention strategies as well as introspection to collect information and make sense of it, but they also need instruction in discriminating among invention strategies and help in choosing the best strategy for a given writing task. Three overlooked strategies are research, collaboration, and form. (RS)

In the absence of appropriate instruction, word processing programs in general and stylistic analysis programs in particular can reinforce the unproductive revision strategies of inexperienced student writers. For example, the predilection of inexperienced writers to see text as parts (words) rather than as whole (communication) can be reinforced…

Notes that many preservice teacher education students in a composition methods course confess they did not prewrite seriously in middle and high school, and that many did not prewrite at all. Introduces a technical writer who spends 80% of his writing time in prewriting activities alone. Discusses strategies to help students realize the value and…

Prewriting involves the entire period of time (and necessary activities) which extends between knowing that one is going to write on something and knowing that one has found something specific and substantial to say about it. In classical rhetoric, prewriting is expressed by such terms as "inventio" (whereby the writer discovers ideas to…

Fundamental changes are needed in English classes if writing is to be taught. Students must have time to write, and they must have someone reading and responding to their writing. Students need to pay attention to their writing and the writing of others, and this writing should be as important as well-known literary works. (MD)

Deals with the split in English departments between perpetuating humanistic study and teaching technical communication skills, and offers suggestions to promote appreciation of good literature as well as effective writing and the relation between the two. (CRH)