Outlines a writing assignment for first-year composition students in which they choose a popular song and explicate its meaning both through prose and in a classroom presentation. Explains how to prepare students for public speaking regarding their essays. Discusses problems and argues for the assignment's usefulness. (HB)

Focuses on releasing students' creative impulses, their imaginations, and their memories. Discusses a set of reading and writing activities that have been used with all kinds of students in a wide variety of settings. (RS)

Offers seven brief descriptions of class projects and assignments used successfully in writing classes of all sorts, from first-year composition classes to business communication to computerized writing labs. (SR)

Describes a "distant service learning" unit in a first-year composition course in which students wrote for a nonprofit organization in the classroom. Discusses program activities in relation to the first-year composition curriculum, program activities and the nonprofit organization, classroom implementation and assessment (including scoring guide…

Describes an exercise that helps graduate students understand countertransference, a concept involving a therapist's conscious and unconscious reactions to clients and reflects the therapist's values, biases, and past experiences. Explains that the students write a paper discussing their interpersonal reactions in an interview designed as a…

Presents a case study for use in business communication classes to help students understand and learn both the context and the strategies for communication with business and management. Deals with a Los Angeles firm's attempt to expeditiously negotiate entrance of business into China, and discusses miscommunications on both sides. Includes five…

Investigates the context of writing instruction in a second-year, second-semester German course. Focusing on a children's story project, the researchers describe how writing is taught in the course; the relationship of writing assignments to the rest of the course curriculum; and the perceptions of foreign language writing, including its purpose,…

Presents an activity for upper-elementary students that correlates the actions of archaeologists, patrons, and artists with the sequencing of events in a logical order. Features ancient Egyptian art images. Discusses the preparation of materials, motivation, a pre-writing activity, and writing a story in sequence. (CMK)

Explains that political science instructors should assign several short writing assignments that are different but related. Discusses the importance of clear guidelines. Addresses responding to writing assignments, discussing the three-part evaluation process, evaluating writing as a process, being aware of student reactions, and providing helpful…

Investigates a gender-related issue raised by a 1990 study of 40 11th-grade writing students. Discusses what problems are posed by and what possible solutions there are to the tendency in young women writers--more pronounced than in their male counterparts--to please the teacher and meet his or her rhetorical expectations at the expense of…

Discusses the use of rubrics in the music classroom, focusing on a description of rubrics, using rubrics for writing assignments and to assess performance and instruction, obtaining student input when creating rubrics, and the benefits of rubrics. Provides sample rubrics. (CMK)

With the implementation of Israel's New Curriculum in English, English teachers are considering the type of assignments that help students transition from isolated skills to communicative ability. Suggests that assignments dealing with relationships are a good starting point. (Author/VWL)

Suggests a prewriting activity that encompasses peer questioning to help basic writing students come up with topics for papers. Contends teachers should explain their expectations to the students and gives a homework assignment to either write a letter to their "future" children or devise a "life tree." Describes questioning in…

Describes a family history project for kindergarten students involving families where the children and/or family members write stories and share memories based on research questions asked by the children. Explains that children can share family artifacts. States that family was defined in a broad sense. (CMK)

Considers what high school activities helped prepare students to write papers in college. Discusses how students' responses help teachers to see what students found useful (or not) in their high school preparation. Concludes that students addressed four aspects of their high school writing experience that affected their level of preparation:…