Presents a model that the student can use in analyzing the communication context of the business letter, and in composing and revising the letter. Also provides the evaluator with necessary contextual data. (PD)

Eleven spelling series were analyzed by grade level to determine their use of high-frequency words, and students' writing samples were examined for misspellings of such words. Researchers found considerable variation among word lists in the series and suggest that student writing may be a better source of words for spelling lists. (PP)

Presents a case study suggesting that teachers who know how to analyze adult literature can use similar skills to analyze children's stories, leading to an increased understanding and sensitivity of the child's creative efforts. (RL)

The use of student peers in editing the writing of fellow students has become a popular tool for teachers. Students learn from the feedback given them by other students and develop a discriminatory eye when rereading their own papers. Samples of tasks are given to aid the teacher. (JN)

A respectable reliability of scoring twelfth-grade essays can be achieved through the use of essay models in the two Alberta Essay Scales (style-content and mechanics). The scales can assist classroom teachers in the day-to-day scoring of essays by providing a constant standard. (Author/SB)

Describes five specific tools that provide the author's seventh-grade students with a set of easily accessible options for revising their writing. (SR)

Suggests that educators fundamentally change the way they teach grammar. Offers the author's experience with some curious success with students taking on grammar as part of their writing process, and gives some ideas about starting the teaching of grammar in a radically different place and as a radical agent. Speaks against using student writing…

Argues that writing students can be their own best critics, if teachers allow them to be. Describes a class in which students were assigned to write and discuss commentaries of their work. Explains that the procedure helps student and teacher alike to identify writing problems. (SG)

Describes how a teacher uses Stanley Kunitz's poem "The Portrait" to help students write poems full of concrete, sensory images about deeply private experiences. Presents examples of student poems. (RS)

Describes the author's teaching of satire as it evolved from a small part of a literature course to a semester-length course, valuing written and oral literature. Explains how technique has become central, and analysis has become a meaningful preliminary to students writing their own satires. (SR)

Describes the buddy journal (a diary that two students keep together, in which they "converse" in writing) and suggests ways to use such journals to build children's literacy. Proposes that buddy journals can highlight the reading-writing connection for children by involving purposeful, personal communication to enhance students'…

Advocates the use of seminar participants' own written documents produced on the job as a meaningful knowledge context for a one-day seminar in business writing. (SR)

Classifies three domains of register: "field" (context); "mode" (function); and "tenor" (role interaction). Examines examples of student writing for evidence of register. Asserts that an identification of registers permits teachers and researchers to understand features of text coherence. Suggests implications for…

Describes a research paper assignment in which students choose a controversial news event reported by six to eight newspapers and arrive at a thesis by comparing the accounts. Notes that students become truly engaged with the assignment and that engagement shows itself strongly in the intelligence and life of the papers. (RS)

Discusses how to approach journalistic situations in which professional responsibility and personal ethics collide. (SR)