Trickster tales, with their teachings on how to behave in the world, are a powerful means for transmitting social knowledge and cultural mores to children. In this study we compared two approaches to teaching fourth-grade students to write trickster tales. Although both instructional methods incorporated aspects of the writing process approach,…

Intended for elementary level students, this book presents 12 writing ideas and several suggestions on how students can make a book using their writing. Each writing idea is presented with a brief description (addressed to the student), several examples of student writing, and a blank page on which to write. Writing ideas include freewriting,…

The author provides seven guidelines for writing a book review. Included in the guidelines are publication information, author background, purpose, scope, major themes, thesis, basic flaws, source material, and stylistic suggestions. (DE)

Intended to familiarize persons with the scoring standards and criteria used for the Georgia Basic Skills Writing Test, this scoring manual is in eight sections: (1) an introduction to the scoring dimensions and scale points; (2) definitions of the four scale points; (3) definitions of scoring dimensions and components (content and organization,…

Findings of the Writing Research Unit at the University of London Institute suggest that writing curricula in British secondary schools do not foster independent thinking or individual personality development. (JH)

Claims that the real value of a response journal is that it enables readers to make meaning as they read, to be actively involved in their own learning process. Includes guidelines for keeping a response journal. (JAD)

Designed for high school and college students as a pattern for writing essay examination answers in a history course, this guide is applicable to students' need to write cogent and coherent essay answers in examinations in any social science or humanities course. (SM)

Inexpensive collections of student writing for use in public school classrooms could do more to stimulate interest in writing and literature than all the adult- written anthologies and stories published to date. (Author/NH)

Describes a teaching method which can be used in college level sociology classes to improve student writing. The teacher provides students with concrete examples of well-written work by other students in the class to compare with their own. The example clearly illustrates what the teacher expects from the students. (AM)

Discusses back-to-basics emphasis on writing skills and describes thematic approach of a five-week session for high school seniors with little writing experience. Student pre- and posttest essays are appended. (KC)

Tells how students in a journalism class learn copyreading skills through reading and editing each other's work. (GT)

Describes using self-reflective synesthetic writing exercises (which prompt students to think metaphorically about crossed senses--taste of clouds, smell of anger, etc.) in creative writing with high school students. Notes how such writing allows a reader/teacher insights into students' lives and personalities. Includes student sample poems. (SR)

Encourages students to attempt to capture the voice of established poets in parodies. Notes that this close interaction with literature allows the students to gain a deeper appreciation and understanding of literary styles. Presents two student parodies of William Wordsworth's "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud." (RS)

Considers how over 10 years of teaching first-year composition, more than two-thirds of the authors' students have elected to write about things that have caused them sorrow, about the deaths of loved ones, about the deaths of neighbors, even of hope itself. Composes a set of "meditations" - brief essays in which the authors try to understand…