Because the cumulative nature of paragraphs can be compared to that of a sentence, Indian students who learn how to add words to the end of sentences to make them "richer" and more complex can better understand how to improve their writing at the paragraph level. (DS)

As children move toward learning specified forms of writing, they organize print in their environment and learn generalized communication strategies. Learning to write is developmentally similar to the acquisition of oral language. Ten stages are suggested for understanding the development of children's writing. (JN)

A case study of a six-year-old reveals that unfounded assumptions about language growth and development may debilitate rather than facilitate the process of language literacy. Recommendations are made for open-entry language activities where constraints are allowed to evolve in a risk free language environment. (JN)

Among the various methods used by a classroom teacher to encourage writing in her first grade class are letter writing, writing a book, writing notes to each other, and keeping journals. The desire to communicate is the primary motivating factor in the development of both oral and written language. (JN)

Presents remarks on essay testing made by Edward M. White, an account of procedures for developing essay questions for the California State University and Colleges (CSUC) English Equivalency Examination, the 1974 essay scale with accompanying writing samples, and the questions and scale used in the 1975 test. (RL)

Describes the procedures that a community college used in instituting an exit examination for a developmental writing course. Discusses reasons for the policies that were set up and tells what has been learned as a result of using the exit examination. (RL)

Discusses a French course designed to help students learn the dynamics of good writing and become sensitive to style. The approach to teaching writing relies on in-class editing of compositions that students produce on a weekly basis. (NCR)

Describes several projects that have enabled teachers to leave the isolation of their own classrooms and think together about student work in the broader contexts of school improvement and professional development. (Contains 18 references.) (Author/MLF)

Describes a student's journal entry which discusses her response to a work of digital fiction. Reads the journal entry as a resistance narrative, an assemblage, a remediation, and an emergence. Reflects upon the changes in instruction and identity that occur in computer classrooms, online course supplements, and Internet classes. (PM)

Studies the visual markers which students employ in writing descriptive and instructional text. Applies the guidelines approach, design decisions approach, and the information/reader model approach. Reports that beginning technical writing majors used fewer illustrations and visual markers than did technical majors. Suggests that the results may…

Explores how high school students' reading logs reveal their reading processes as they read and respond to literature. Examines the reading logs from three eleventh-grade English classes throughout the school year. (MM)

Maintains that the challenge of writing vibrant yearbook copy means accepting the risk of self-exposure, doing extensive preliminary research, asking pointed questions during interviews, and double-checking quotes prior to publication. (SR)

Studies secondary school classrooms in Great Britain and the United States, revealing that, when teachers apply similar theories to everyday practice, important pedagogical contrasts illustrate the ways in which instruction is organized and in what students produce. Finds that, in classrooms with the most highly involved interactions, students…

Describes a workplace literacy program that uses both workplace and participant-generated materials, including job descriptions, job procedures, training materials, newsletters, booklets, and memos. Shows how literacy development went beyond the survival stage to levels of empowerment and human development. (SR)

Describes how, in a second-/third-grade classroom, and in the context of writing workshop, another kind of community developed--an informal but long-lasting "writing club" with eight core members who worked collaboratively and developed a story topic that became the dominant story topic pattern throughout the remainder of the school year. (SR)