Facetiously examines heuristics in mumbling, staring, moving, doodling, and noise that can be used by writing teachers to help their writing students with rhetorical invention. (RL)

Suggests how to teach the writing of technical proposals; thoroughly discusses each section that should be included in such proposals. (TJ)

Describes nine prewriting activities using supermarket tabloids as the model for producing a newspaper on mythology. (RS)

Offers a strong rationale for the idea that the journey of writing good poetry begins on a path that infuses technology into the first stage of the writing process. Presents several ideas of ways to incorporate technology into the prewriting poetry experience. Concludes that by making technology an ingredient, the true potential for synergy…

By engaging in philosophical discussion in their writing, freshman composition students can discover that writing is a mediating tool between the self and the objective world, a means to examine the nature of reality and their thinking processes. Introducing philosophical issues opens the door for the investigation of difficult and abstract topics…

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)

Freewriting can be more than merely a prewriting heuristic that provides preparation for more advanced kinds of writing. A class at Jefferson Davis State Junior College (Alabama) attempts to promote the lack of pressure as well as the freedom and spontaneity that freewriting allows to a traditional composition course. In this class, freewritings…

Suggests the value of a prewriting sheet which asks remedial students to specify an occasion, audience, and purpose for each of their one-paragraph papers. (DD)

Points out the value of responding to students' first drafts of papers, outlines a three-step approach for doing so, and gives five examples of such an approach. (JL)

Suggests teaching a variety of sentence beginnings in writing instruction. (AEA)

Describes a freshman composition course which employs problem-solving exercises as a writing improvement technique. Notes that sharing ideas while solving problems builds new writers' openness and trust, whereas thinking aloud prepares students to benefit from other writers' thinking protocol methods. Suggests that brainstorming can help students…

The nine-step grid strategy provides prompts in both structure and content areas to improve the narrative writing skills of students with learning disabilities. The steps include developing a story grid with characters, setting, action, emotion, and so on; planning and writing the story; and completing both cognitive and technical edits. (DB)

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…

The narrative concepts of the implied author and implied reader elucidate how business texts represent writers and readers. It is important, though, to distinguish carefully between writers' "implications" and readers' "inferences." Instructors should contrast implied versus inferred writers and readers, provide multiple ways to comprehend these…

Designed to combine the science and the art of teaching composition, this series of assignments encourages junior high and high school writing students to explore tone, original visual images, point of view, and other literary techniques. One assignment asks students to write a number of paragraphs alternately using sarcasm, humor, melancholy, and…