Suggestions are offered to help secondary and postsecondary language teachers think more deeply about speaking activities that prepare students for writing. Criteria for evaluating prewriting activities are discussed, along with brainstorming, collaborative concept mapping, and the 4/3/2 technique. (Contains 14 references.) (LB)

This article describes a variety of collaborative writing strategies that teachers can use within the four subprocesses of writing (prewriting, drafting, revising, and publishing). The strategies include, among others, brainstorming, semantic maps, directed reading and writing, discussion tests, editing groups, and group efforts in layout and…

This paper describes the WRITE UP strategy for helping emotionally disturbed students overcome fears of creative writing, organize their thoughts and improve their writing skills. The writing process is covered from subject selection and brainstorming through composition to editing and the final draft, with grading seen as a teaching tool. (PB)

A series of six related lessons is presented that covers the three stages of process writing in which secondary students work in pairs and groups. Covering 11 35-minute periods, the lessons include prewriting, writing, and postwriting. Sample questions are appended. (Contains five references.) (LB)

State academic standards broadly support the writing process, including the planning (prewriting), drafting, revising, editing, and publishing (sharing) stages. There is also widespread recognition that a valuable part of the process is conferencing, either between teacher and student, student and student (often referred to as peer feedback), or…

This article reports on findings from a research study that set out to identify factors that enable children considered to be able by their teachers to extend and develop their literacy. The data substantiated much that is already known about the significance of preschool home influences on the emergence of literacy. It underlined the importance…

Three installments of "Writing Assignment of the Month," a regular feature of the National Council of Teachers of English publication, "Notes Plus," are presented in this compilation. The articles describe writing exercises which have proven to be successful in the classroom. The first article gives suggestions for introducing…

Prewriting programs using computers fall into two broad categories: interactive and noninteractive. An early example of a noninteractive program is that of Ellen Nold, called "Cinnamon." Its purpose was to present the student with a series of content questions. In answering such questions, the student would be accumulating a set of data…

Teachers' role as primary audience has important implications for writing instruction. Teachers represent a combination of two audiences: a literal audience--a specific person or group of people implied in a writing assignment--and an ideal audience shaped by the writers themselves. As these two general types of audiences imply, writers both…

The synthesis of four instructional models for argumentative writing--the Toulmin, Hiduke, Winder, and Crebbe-Debate approaches--with basic discourse theory produces a practical and positive method of teaching college students to write effective persuasive essays. A battery of questions based on a modified communication triangle--subject…

To evaluate the impact of revision--as distinct from other writing enrichment activities such as peer or teacher feedback--on writing skills, two classes of college-bound high school seniors who voluntarily enrolled in a writing course, were given similar instruction in writing evaluation and skill development. While both classes were permitted to…

When handled well, description can give poetry and prose a quality of immediacy and accessibility by creating a dramatic context in which the writer's ideas and feelings can be shared by the reader. The use of perception stimulation can aid the student in producing effective images that lead to this dramatic context. To begin this learning…

Good writers, as compared to a randomly-chosen comparison group, spent more time in both prewriting and writing, revised more, re-read more often during writing, and were more concerned with the purpose of their writing. (JH)

Students made increased, but statistically non-significant, use of invention procedures taught them over the span of a one-semester composition course. (JH)

English as a second dialect (ESD) students are those who have developed linguistic patterns from their parents and other members of their cultural milieu. Since the ESD students seldom find themselves in a setting that demands the use of standard English, they come to higher education with a well developed linguistic pattern that is alien to…