Includes 22 articles that address Canadian history and the importance of having students honor Canada's past by providing articles relating to the areas of History and Social Studies covering: historical fiction as instructional material; Canadian scientists; agricultural fairs; the Historical Foundation; social science books on Canada; student…

Highlights exemplary moments from the first three writing courses that Youngstown State University has been teaching at a union hall for steel workers. Includes excerpts from student interviews; illustrates the teachers' evolving approach to teaching writing in a workplace setting; and explains student responses to writing assignments. (TB)

Describes seven practical and reflective assignments that help student interns understand job contexts, gather evidence of learning from experience, and integrate theory and practice. Assignments include presentations, journals, papers describing internship and coursework connections or organizations and work colleagues, and development of…

Explains a writing assignment called "occasional paper," a brief written reflection that is read aloud and discussed but not turned in. Notes that it is important that these papers be easy to write. Contends that since adolescents experience nearly everything as personal, the occasional paper offers them an entry into thinking that is abstract and…

Describes a writing intensive seminar for college freshman. Includes goals, reading assignments, writing assignments, and group projects. Provides web-based resources on tuberculosis along with an evaluation sheet for web site reviews. Concludes that students exhibited great interest in the topic and course feedback was positive. (DLH)

Proposes that students can best learn to recognize and enjoy irony by creating it. Outlines a class activity and two exercises that help students write with irony. Concludes that the energy created by ironic tension encourages students in their writing and reading. (PM)

Examines prewriting and writing assignments designed to tighten the continuity between the personal essays typically written in English 101 and the more literature-based essays of English 102. Aims to help students blend personal and public voices. (MG)

Argues that basic writing students need incremental assignment sequences to experience success in writing and to develop their abilities to write about abstract concepts. Describes a four-part sequence of writing assignments moving from observing to narrowing to generalizing to theorizing. (RS)

Presents teaching tips for (1) generating titles as a prewriting activity; (2) having students write a biography of a classmate; (3) asking students to determine scenarios for their business communication documents; (4) using interviewing as a method of primary research; and (5) sequencing writing assignments to help students clarify their…

Discusses a process to guide students at various levels of writing ability to inquire into unfamiliar and often intimidating subject areas. Notes the process is based on a Piagetian learning cycle that asks students to identify areas of cognitive dissonance, and to engage in a conversation about ways of resolving their uncertainty. (RS)

Describes an assignment in which students write a short memo report analyzing and comparing both what a company says in its annual report and what its balance sheet shows. Describes four simple mathematical formulas students can use to quickly diagnose a company's financial health. Appends a sample of the short report format. (RS)

Describes a game whose goal is to make the largest three or four digit number possible from numbers appearing on successive rolls of a die. Discusses the written strategies developed for this game by third and seventh grade students. (RS)

Presents detailed teaching procedures for an "in-basket" business communication assignment, describing the time frame, method, and practical details necessary for teaching the assignment. Argues that students must be taught how to determine priorities for items to be answered, discarded, or noted and filed. (MM)

Argues that writing parodies of poetry is a productive, nonthreatening introduction to the creative effort of poem making. Provides several suggestions that may help in the parody-writing process. (RS)

Presents an extended sequence of reading and writing assignments using John Hersey's "Hiroshima" to introduce composition students to the nature of interpretation, understanding, and composing. Stresses learning through enactment. (RAE)