Outlines a teaching technique whereby students are taught writing skills through the use of sound effects. (MAI)

Presents a method for helping students learn to evaluate data, draw conclusions, and state a most probable hypothesis in writing essays. (TJ)

Describes questioning techniques and other approaches that stimulate class discussion and lead to better student writing. (DD)

Displays student work in "portrait exercises"--writing designed to give students a feel for characterization and to prepare them for future writing. (RL)

Describes how a comparison chart may be used by children in grades three through six to record and organize information from several sources for student reports. (DD)

Summarizes the outcomes of an interdisciplinary conference on writing held by UCLA's Writing Research Project and points out its implications for the teaching of writing in college. (DD)

The technical writing exercise described here requires the student to write a technical manual. The assignment is the last project of a technical writing course and brings into focus the total course content. (BB)

Describes a unit on rhetorical stance, or choosing a tone which is appropriate for the intended audience, which utilizes Randy Newman's song "Short People." (MKM)

Examines traditional theoretical assumptions about the pedagogy of writing and critical thinking, and shows that they are linked dialectically. Illustrates how a pedagogy of writing can be used as a learning vehicle to help students learn and think critically about any given social studies subject. (Author/MLF)

Evaluates CorrecText, Houghton-Mifflin's computer-based grammar checker that fully parses sentences and finds errors in grammar, style, and usage. Argues that, while CorrecText is an improvement over similar programs, it still cannot accommodate the syntactically ambiguous nature of English. Limits current design's usefulness to unedited prose.…

Competence as administrators and managers is judged in part by the quality of their writing. Twelve suggestions for improving writing are provided. A bibliography on reference books for the process of writing and a test to assess writing skills are provided. (MLW)

The article suggests the use of non-expert sighted volunteers to teach the reading and writing of Moon Script, a tactual system of raised-line characters similar to the Roman alphabet, to visually impaired people. Experimental courses with both blind and sighted volunteers are described. (DB)

Four vocabulary lists were used to generate a basic spelling list for students with learning disabilities and other poor spellers. Each word was assigned a grade placement (one through three) based on pattern of occurrence in children's writing and placement on current vocabulary lists and spelling materials. The resulting spelling list of 335…

This article discusses methods for teaching students to improve the introductory paragraphs of their papers and essays. The use of specific concrete images, interesting contrasts and facts, and illustrative metaphors to grab the reader's attention is explored, and examples of students' writing and brainstorming processes are provided. (PB)

"Fantasia-Land" is a text composed by a young woman in a secondary school in Dresden that recounts changes in Germany in the past two years. The text is followed by two essays written in response to it by second-semester German students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. (Author/LB)