This publication on fantasy and folklore is a collection of puzzles, games, stories, exercises, activities, and other ideas for teachers. Materials and their authors include: (1) "Once upon a Plot" (Joyce Bennett); (2) "Kennings" (Marjorie Merwin); (3) "Putting a Hex On" (Marilyn Kahl); (4) "What's Your…

Theory and research indicated that sentence-combining exercises (SCE's) might be effective for improving the writing of learning disabled (LD) pupils. Seven college seniors in special education were trained to implement SCE's naturalistically in tutoring 13 LD pupils in grades 1-6 over a 10 week period, with a control group of 8 seniors tutoring…

Perhaps because of their familiarity with joke telling, students often do their best writing when using humor. In both telling jokes and creating humorous works, students need to develop a strong sense of audience, an awareness of the importance of vivid description, a strong sense of purpose, and the ability to use punctuation for effect. The…

With a central theme of how people create a means to communicate reliably, and based on language-making exercises that touch students' imaginations, this book aims to interest students in language and how language is made. Since students like codes and ciphers, the book begins with secret writing, which is then used to reveal the foundation of…

Intended for teachers, students, and for anyone who is dissatisfied with his or her understanding of writing, this book is focused on practical exercises and experiments. The first section of the book, "What Writing Is," consists of two chapters of primary interest to teachers, and provides a general orientation to the document's approach. The…

This workbook contains ten short stories by modern masters aimed at young adult readers, with each story followed by a concise lesson on a basic element of literature (such as plot, setting, or mood) clearly illustrated in the story. Some of the authors represented in the book are John Updike, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Carson McCullers, and Ray…

The teacher of elementary level gifted students discusses successful creative writing activities. Among the reasons for students to learn writing early in the educational program are that written expression complements oral communication, heightens awareness of ordinary experiences, and helps students become more appreciative of language.…

Generating writing ideas is often a serious obstacle for students. Some classroom techniques to help them out of this dilemma include word associating and self-questioning. Students can also construct a matrix chart with the subheadings from their information resources. Once ideas are generated, they can be arranged in appropriate presentation…

The time has come for students to enjoy the right to write what they want without fear of school censorship. (JH)

This grammar handbook analyzes the rules of Solomon Islands Pijin and provides exercises on them. It is divided into 24 lessons. The first part of each lesson is a description of some element or function of the language, with examples; the second part is made up of oral and written exercises. The volume concludes with appendices on the personal…

To aid in the understanding of "cases" for writing (defined as highly focused situations in which students assume a role that demands writing to specific audiences and for utilitarian purposes), this paper begins by outlining the problem case faced by the author: to present a convincing argument for the use of the case approach to composition. It…

The design of a program for teaching audience awareness proceeds in a clear and logical order so that it can be incorporated into any writing syllabus concerned with traditional matters of form. The program begins with a brief questionnaire designed to elicit student problems with and feelings about audience. Class discussion of the questionnaire…

An inservice project to review the functional handwriting being taught in the Williamsport, Pennsylvania, school district produced a handwriting manual that provides teachers and students with models of letter forms and instructional exercises leading to the development of an individualized style of handwriting. The manual describes student…

AN ILLUSTRATED SET OF AFRICAN ANIMAL TALES HAS BEEN SELECTED AND LINGUISTICALLY STRUCTURED FOR PRACTICE IN WRITING ENGLISH COMPOSITION. FIRST USED BY FOREIGN STUDENTS AT TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, AND BY SIXTH-GRADE STUDENTS (NATIVE SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH) IN MASSACHUSETTS, THESE MATERIALS ARE NOW BEING USED BY VARIOUS GROUPS IN THE…

CONTROLLED CLASSROOM EXPERIMENTS ATTEMPTED TO ESTABLISH A BASIS FOR EVALUATING THE COMPARATIVE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE WRITING ACT ITSELF, DRILL ON USAGE AND MECHANICS, SELF-INSTRUCTION, GROUP DISCUSSION, THEME CORRECTION AND CRITICISM, AND IMMEDIATE TUTORIAL FEEDBACK. EXPERIMENTS WERE CONDUCTED WITH ALMOST 300 STUDENTS IN GRADES 8 THROUGH 12. IT WAS…