Describes satellite-delivered education for isolated learners, in which students interact with both teacher and fellow students using voice, video, and data. Reports that students were highly motivated to write a teleplay and poetry collaboratively and that the burden of distance education was eased for parent, teacher, and learner. (RS)

Describes writing assignments for increasing communication skills in a first-year chemistry course for science majors. Rationale for the assignments are discussed. Fourteen assignment topics for exercises and examinations are provided. (YP)

Focuses on letter writing as a way of evaluating children's growth as responders to fiction. Points out that not all children will enter into letter writing with equal success but concludes that it is a potentially powerful tool for teaching and learning. (MG)

Describes several writing projects that use computers to expose students to art, cultural history, and present day technology. Suggests activities for Prehistoric art, Egyptian art, African art, Japanese art, and Native American art. (MG)

Suggests that students should consider five parts of the social environment for any writing/reading situation, especially considering social relationships forged there between writers and readers. Describes these five aspects, and argues that activities using computer technology and writing should focus students primarily on the social nature of…

Explains how sentence-combining exercises can improve advanced English as a second language (ESL) students' writing. (MM)

A study classified 61 writing assignments from 10 undergraduate science and technology courses on the basis of audience and task specifications. Most assignments emphasized reporting on specific participatory experiences, and 25 percent of assignments specified an audience other than the course instructor. Pedagogical implications for…

Reviews research on handwriting instruction that focuses on these questions: (1) Do learners need particular writing instruments and paper? (2) Should educators encourage students to trace or copy? and (3) How can educators evaluate learners' writing? Offers implications and suggestions for handwriting instruction. (BB)

Discusses beginning writing activities that teachers can use with young children. Notes that preschoolers use writing systems that include drawings, scribblings, letterlike forms, words, and invented spelling. Suggests that teachers can use functional writing projects, such as greeting cards, lists, journals, address books, and pen pals, to…

Suggests topics and assignments to elicit real, authentic, and expressive student writing. Such "real writing" tasks ask students to look inside themselves and to write genuine responses and about actual feelings and beliefs. (TM)

Communicating about mathematics not only enriches the learning of mathematics but also makes mathematics relevant and meaningful to students. This article describes an instructional sequence for fostering students' journal writing on mathematics. The sequence involves motivation of students, verbal interaction, class and individual writing,…

Offers five reading activities for classroom use, including "Poetry in Motion" (Janet Millar Grant); "Book-a-Mania" (Maria Ramirez Zirkelback); "Signs of Life" (Karl A. Matz); "Football and Reading Do Mix!" (Cindy Visser); and "Poetry-of-the-Month Club" (Steven Schneider). (MG)

A demonstration writing project involving 97 primary through secondary students with learning disabilities is described. Students developed journals containing ongoing written dialogues with teachers, who also corrected student errors through examples in their own responses. Procedures, integration with writing curriculum, and results of journal…

A variety of exercises based on manipulation of a single text are described. The activities involve replacing words or phrases in the text with synonyms or opposites, transposing gender, changing tenses, filling in blanks, and answering multiple-choice questions about linguistic forms. Three brief sample texts are offered. (MSE)

For most English-as-a-Second-Language students, writing is the most difficult skill to master. By integrating writing within the daily routine of language learning, students become as comfortable with writing as they are with speaking and reading. This article presents practical examples for integrating writing within everyday K-12 classroom…