Offers a humorous strategy for enlivening composition courses that involves having the students emulate Andy Rooney's writing style. (NKA)

Rewriting activities are used by a teacher of the deaf to encourage children to express their ideas clearly, increase their vocabulary, work successfully as a group, and experiment with language. Each class rewrites a poem or short book once a week, does spontaneous oral rewrites, and rewrites each other's work. (VW)

Identifies three stages of developmental writing topics: simple personal topics that encourage fluency; topics that encourage students to use reading, writing, critical thinking, and dialog; and academic topics involving abstract concepts. Presents a reading/writing/critical thinking/dialog framework for writing assignments, whereby class…

Describes six types of letter writing activities providing basic writing skill practice that can be incorporated into outdoor education programs. Suggests occasions for writing friendly letters, letters to oneself to describe an experience, letter writing to next year's participants, thank-you letters, pre- and post-evaluation letters, and…

Sixteen vocabulary and self-expression exercises on the word, sentence, and paragraph levels designed to encourage creativity and free expression in writing in French as a second language are described. (MSE)

This article provides an overview of how oral language and writing activities may be integrated into a typical kindergarten through sixth-grade social studies curriculum. (JDH)

Describes a technical proposal writing assignment modeled after the conditions in industry. Provides a paradigm of government project proposals and then outlines the stages of the assignment that allow student to rework and revise, thereby discouraging students from writing formulaic and superficial proposals. (SRT)

Suggests a prewriting exercise in characterization using the legend genre as framework. (HTH)

Explains how computers can be used in the journalism class for a variety of writing exercises. (FL)

Presents dialog journal writing as an effective communication medium between student teachers and professors. Combining the best features of writing and speaking, this device allows a wide use of language functions and encourages participants to solve problems, share personal meanings, and develop an audience sense and a capacity for…

Discusses three principles germane to the idea that writing is a response to its function, compares school writing with home writing, and suggests specific functions of writing that are frequently used in classrooms. (DF)

Compares grammatical phrases to dance patterns and suggests exercises for students that will strengthen and develop their understanding of those concepts. (DF)

Claims that the term "process writing" is used indiscriminately to describe both the naturalistic approach to learning how to write and the process of selecting a topic, drafting, conferencing, and publishing. Suggests that writing to publish should not be the only writing children do. (SRT)

Presents a sequence of assignments that provides an inductive method for preparing students to write a formal proposal by imitating the grant review and proposal process. Describes the process and results of peer review of the resulting proposals.(HTH)

Discusses a favorite assignment, which is to require students to write a "real-world" business letter and then mail it with the anticipation of a response. (EL)