The Young Writers Program (YWP) is the latest writing workshop to be developed for the classroom. It challenges students to choose a topic and write a novel-length piece based on that topic, without worrying about spelling or grammar. While the foundation of this philosophy is solid, the support and structure of the Young Writers Program website…

Teacher candidates have few opportunities during their teacher preparation coursework to investigate practices associated with eliciting and responding to student writing. This article describes an attempt to address this problem with a searchable online digital archive of student writing, with and without teachers' written feedback, as well…

Notes that some students invent their own styles of poetry, and regularly use them in their writing. Recommends that teachers encourage this. Presents several examples of students' styles. (RS)

Describes the Six-Trait Writing Model, developed to aid in student writing and the analyses of K-12 compositions. Defines these six traits as: ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions. Discusses how student writing is scored according to these traits, how teachers can implement the model, and presents research…

Presents 11 strategies writing teachers can use to alleviate writing apprehension and to encourage student writers to feel confident about revealing their thoughts in writing. (SR)

Describes three poetry-writing exercises that encourage students to break from linear, normal thinking patterns: answering questions that have no answers; describing impossible objects; and contemplating infinity. (MM)

Describes several exercises to help students change their perspectives when writing poetry. (MM)

Discusses the implementation of a writing improvement model for students in Crete Public Schools (Nebraska). Students who completed courses with the six-trait analytical model were given writing self-perception scales. The results showed that they felt they had made much progress in their writing abilities, both in their own eyes and in the eyes…

Relates a poet's experiences in graduate school, and the poetry he wrote in the 1970s. Discusses methods and techniques for poetry writing in the classroom. Suggests topics for a series of poetry exercises: moebius strip, poetry sights, shadow poems, poetry chair, chopstick quatrains, poetry shirt, poem wrapping the school, word beads, and a haiku…

Four principles are presented for teaching children, across age and grade levels, to write and enjoy writing: interrelating literature and writing, teaching writing as an intellectual rather than a mechanical process, emphasizing process over product, and teaching writing as a holistic process rather than a set of isolated skills. (PB)

This guidebook was developed by a team of elementary and secondary school English teachers to help teachers of all subjects with the difficult tasks of evaluating students' expository writing and stimulating student growth in the art and craft of writing. The twelve parts of the guidebook deal with the following topics: guidelines for giving a…

Describes several projects that have enabled teachers to leave the isolation of their own classrooms and think together about student work in the broader contexts of school improvement and professional development. (Contains 18 references.) (Author/MLF)

This paper presents practical classroom activities for teaching narrative/descriptive writing based on approaches to writing instruction that research indicates are powerfully effective, and discusses principles upon which effective and exciting instruction can be designed. The paper gives a brief overview of what research in the teaching of…

The teaching of poetry can be used as a language experience approach to develop good writing skills in elementary and high school students. This paper discusses the techniques a "poet-in-residence" employed to help students create poems and, indirectly, to teach the function of such writing skills as parts of speech, punctuation, and…

This paper discusses parody as an effective pedagogical device and as a way of teaching recognition of, and appreciation for, form. If the subject parodied is in poetic form, then rhyme and rhythm become factors for the parodist to consider. If the subject parodied is in prose, then the parodist must address the techniques of narrative,…