A fifth-grade school teacher discusses the usefulness of brainstorming as a prewriting activity and illustrates how she used this activity with her students. (MP)

Picture books provide effective models for student writing. For purposes of organization and writing lessons, the models found in picture books may be divided into three groups: (1) language patterns; (2) story structures; and (3) literary elements. Language patterns include repetitive sentence patterns, verse forms, word patterns, and cultural…

This study investigated the effect of class discussion, one-to-one interaction, or no prewriting activity on the voluntary writing decisions of fourth graders. No differences were found for boys; however, the proportion of control group girls who chose to write was significantly higher than those in the class discussion group. (Author/MT)

Describes four prewriting techniques that elementary and middle grade students can use to gather and organize ideas for writing, and by so doing, cure writer's block. Techniques discussed are: (1) brainstorming; (2) clustering; (3) freewriting; and (4) cubing.

The processes of prewriting, writing, revising, and proofreading are outlined in this four-page guide for writing center volunteers. Each section lists "things to remember" and provides ideas on "how to help students" when teaching these four stages of the writing process. (JW)

Compositions of 10 high-knowledge and 10 low-knowledge fourth-grade students taught by either academically-oriented or cognitive developmentally-oriented teachers were analyzed in terms of four types of propositions they contained to assess the relative influence of writers' prior knowledge and teachers' classroom lesson structure on students'…

Invention is a dynamic, recursive process influenced by the rhetorical situation of audience and purpose, the writer's long-term memory, and the text which has already been produced at any given moment. Most heuristics are concerned with the generation of ideas, that is, content oriented. However, the relationship of form-oriented planning to the…

Urges that teachers consider a broader view of the writing process and experiment with the notion of children applying the skills of process writing to their writing in the content areas. Outlines the major phases of process writing and discusses their application to writing in content areas. (MM)

Describes a unit for third and fourth graders that begins with stimulating activities, progresses through activities designed to focus students' thinking, and culminates in prewriting/writing activities. A flow chart of the sequence is provided to aid adaptation for fifth and sixth graders. (RH)

Suitable for grades K-6, the paper presents guidelines for evaluating various levels of writing ability. Also presented are a description of a four-phase writing process model and a list of components necessary for a good writing program. Characteristics of superior, typical, and weak writing are presented on a continuum according to the student's…

Describes a project that included prewriting activities based on the students' experiences, imaginative literature, encouragement to expand their descriptive ability, and opportunities to revise and edit their own work. (FL)

Suggests that teachers attempt to have children write poetry that deals with the senses. Develops lessons to demonstrate to students their own potential for writing poetry. (MS)

Examines materials designed to improve children's writing or composition abilities. Focuses on whether the materials have students use the task/strategy/skill in such a way that they can transfer the task to other materials in reading or writing situations that serve a real function. (MG)

Noting that computer instruction for teaching composition is generally limited to the component skills of spelling, punctuation, and grammar, this paper proposes a program that can help elementary school students use computers to generate ideas for descriptive writing. The first section of the paper provides orientation procedures designed to…

This special journal issue focuses on writing in the elementary school. Topics discussed in the various articles include (1) a technique for teaching persuasive composition, (2) writing in the second and third grades, (3) correlating writing assignments with the study of literature, (4) a problem solving approach to composition, (5) the Virginia…