Learning to write well is a significant outcome of higher education, as confirmed and illustrated in the Written Communication VALUE Rubric of the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). Scholars agree that writing and thinking are linked. Thinking about this relationship between writing and thinking in the context of…

English composition for the learning disabled child is discussed. Methods and sequence of the instructional principles are described. (CD)

A study of the growth of seventh grade students' writing ability after targeted discussions of children's literature was based on the assumption that active comprehension of a distinctive model of literature would provide an awareness of the structure of narrative prose that would transfer to the student's own writing. Eight students participated…

The purpose of a study undertaken by the Center for the Cooperative Study of Instruction was to learn if a set of instructions could be prepared for students of composition which would indicate in behavioral terms what kind of writing was expected of them. These instructions, called "cognitive maps" consisted of a strategy and an exemplar which…

Sequenced writing assignments--a series of related writing tasks--offer students frequent opportunities to write and to acquire writing skills through redundancy, progressively more complicated cognitive and rhetorical demands, and a diversity of learning activities. The most frequently identified goal of sequencing is to move students beyond…

Tested were the long term effects of behavior modification and training in self-management on generative writing behavior with a total of 13 educable mentally handicapped children in special classes. (PT)

This paper discusses strategies for teaching college composition, emphasizing "mechanical-meaningful-communicative" (M-M-C) sequencing. Under the M-M-C sequence, a student performs the following exercises: mechanical exercises, which build success in stimulus-response learning; meaningful exercises, which provide stimuli for problem-solving tasks;…

An instructional sequence based largely on combining B. Bloom's six-level, instructional related hierarchy with J. Piaget's causal sequence of cognitive skill development is utilized in a three-day unit on the correct use of commas in lists. The sample unit follows G. Torkelson's guidelines for instructional development that include outlining the…

To learn correct grammar, developmental students must practice writing correctly. However, the traditional exercises offered in handbooks, workbooks, and textbooks not only fail to provide habituation in correctness, they actually provide practice in "wrongness." Instead of isolating individual problems, they promote confusion by linking them.…

A training program designed to teach high school students to be specific in their writing is described in this booklet. The first section of the booklet explains the three stages of the program: (1) daily practice in translating a "telling" sentence into a "showing" paragraph; (2) application of "showing" writing to…

Describes an English as a second language course designed to build the students' reading abilities in order to develop their oral and writing skills. The course consists of group and individual projects on the topic of American Indians and culminates with a simulation of a court hearing involving an Indian land claim. (SED)

Presented in the language arts teaching guide, developed by Project Success (Nebraska) through a Title III grant for language handicapped elementary level students, are 33 basic lessons stressing phonics, a daily writing program, and ideas for creative writing. Noted are characteristics of students and goals of Project Success. The language…

Thirty-seven secondary and four college English teachers in Maine participated in research on a two-fold problem: late adolescents' indifference to writing and their typically superficial themes. The secondary teachers planned 12th-grade writing sequences integrating the study of composition and literature and relating it to problems of immediate…

This unit is intended to help teach and test the prepositions outlined in the "English as a Second Language Guide" of the Milwaukee Public Schools. The text is sequenced to develop listening and understanding skills first, then speaking and writing skills, and finally reading comprehension without visual clues. Review and testing sections are…

The implicit assumption behind personal writing assignments given at the beginning of a writing course is that personal essays eliminate the writing apprehension of having nothing to say. However, college freshmen find it very difficult to write about themselves and their own opinions because this writing involves abstract mental processes and…