Discusses a literacy-enhancement program for undereducated university staff members tutored by college students taking a composition course on literacy. Focuses on the essays of one college student to illustrate how the sequence of writing assignments in the course fostered the reading and writing processes of academic literacy. (SR)

Describes an assignment that provides an alternative to the end of the chapter test. Students instead are asked to write a chapter of the text clarifying their ideas and explaining the material in a manner that a student unfamiliar with the subject of the chapter could understand. (ZWH)

Argues that technical communicators must be prepared to communicate via multiple media, including video. Describes a technical scriptwriting course that develops skills useful in several media. Discusses pedagogical strategies, three major assignments, reading assignments, client assignments, production diary assignment, and new technology. (SR)

Discusses a unit on performance appraisals, including writing comments to support ratings, drawing conclusions concerning performance, and making recommendations to improve performance. Provides an assignment requiring students to complete an appraisal form. (SR)

Uses central ideas from Roland Barthes's essays on connotative semiotics as a rationale for directing students in technical and professional writing classes to develop the critical reflex to analyze and then make judgments about the values implied by connotative systems. (SR)

Describes a writing assignment in a business communication class in which students, in previously designated study groups, discover for themselves the complex interaction between a writer and an audience by becoming the president, vice president, and manager of operations of a company, and solve a problem that they can handle only through memos.…

Describes a small group assignment for business communication students in which they put together a report describing the most important periodicals, reference works, or other ongoing information sources for people just entering professional fields. (SR)

Describes how creating a poem that focuses on memory, understanding, and emotion can lead to the construction of a meditative poem. States that poetry of meditation can be modified for use in almost any writing or literature classroom environment. (PA)

Annotates 12 conference papers, journal articles, and theses in the ERIC database that discuss the effectiveness of journal writing in the elementary and secondary classroom. (RS)

Describes the development of a writing assignment using the four discourse types to write about a single, physical object. Reviews specifically how this assignment was carried out to completion by students. Defends the assignment as a framework for the study of writing. (HB)

Describes a technical writing assignment in which students write two different papers on the same topic--one directed toward a lay or executive audience, and the other toward an operator or technician audience. (SR)

Presents two writing activities for math class that help students explore contexts for multiplication and write multiplication stories. (SR)

Describes an exercise that teaches the reverse of promotion--demand reduction. Discusses persuasive strategies to reduce demand for a product. (SR)

Describes a one-class-period assignment that introduces students to the different professional journals in their major areas of study and in business communication. Notes that students learn how and where to find the journals and what they contain. (SR)

Relates one teacher's solution to the late paper dilemma that strikes a balance between showing compassion and teaching students the meaning of responsibility. Four late paper coupons were issued to each student at the beginning of the year, allowing them to turn in assignments late while deterring habitual tardiness. (MDM)