An approach to using values clarification exercises in a college freshman composition or a high school English class is presented in this brief article. AUTHOR'S COMMENT (excerpt): Since the integration of writing and thinking is vital in the development of writing abilities, the values clarification experience is a natural bridge for students to…

The ways in which our common ways of teaching the art of writing differ from successful practices in teaching the fine arts are analyzed.

As handwriting instruction is abandoned by the schools, the legibility of written communications will continue to decline. (JH)

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…

To determine the status of students' physical fitness, a test battery consisting of pullups, curlups, shuttle run, and one-mile walk/run was administered to both sexes. The mean fitness test results of 9-year-old students from a school participating in physical education five times a week were compared to the mean fitness test results of…

Since 1977, the Department of Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, has participated in adult fitness and recreation instruction at the College of Education. The department has offered two programs for selected students: (1) a formal course and practicum in cardiac rehabilitation for selected students; and (2) a summer studentship in…

Women in colonial New Zealand did not have the variety of recreational options available in the "motherland" (Great Britain). Nevertheless, there was a social climate of acceptance if not for the female athlete then certainly for the woman eager to enjoy the fun and freedom of recreational activities. In New Zealand, the social class…

This paper describes a writing assignment given in an introductory literature class at an open-admissions university. In what can be called "the paper of many parts," students write six short pieces in which they do different things with a poem. The paper begins and ends with response statements: an initial one and one at the end that…

In this discussion of childhood obesity, the medical and psychological problems associated with the condition are noted. Childhood obesity most likely results from an interaction of nutritional, psychological, familial, and physiological factors. Three factors--the family, low-energy expenditure, and heredity--are briefly examined. Early…

Autobiographical writing can, by its nature as expressive discourse, connect to the residual orality and literacy that students possess before they enter college writing classes, because it crosses more easily between the spoken word and the written word than other forms of writing. Adapting the Ong-Havelock orality-literacy thesis to writing…

In order to have freshman composition students review and strengthen their research and documentation skills, they are asked to write 700 to 1,000-word papers synthesizing from sources such as anthologies, journals, government documents, films, biographies, almanacs, and interviews. Three assignments require the students to gather information…

Technical writers involved in an institutional writing project need some way of viewing the raw material globally before writing. In this way they can build a framework which can be used for different types of information. This is accomplished through a task analysis meeting that highlights the following preparatory steps prior to writing: (1)…

Noting that too many children leave elementary school without developing the ability to use words imaginatively, this paper presents a teaching approach that uses literature to foster invention in children's writing. The approach described is part of a total composition program that structures writing experiences in which children observe…

The Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) movement has gone from valuable but less effective individual efforts to organized, district- and campus-supported projects based on goals for improved student learning in every area and every program. On the college level, WAC takes two forms: a more traditional, formally structured approach from faculty…

Integrated approaches to the teaching of reading and writing being used in classrooms in Australia and New Zealand are described in this booklet. The first part of the booklet presents theoretical background on how children learn to talk and the reading and writing processes. The second and third parts of the booklet describe ways of putting…