Surveys instructors and students regarding what they believe students learn and what writing skills they improve by completing business report writing assignments. Finds that business communication instructors reported greater improvement in students' skills than students reported for themselves. Offers four guidelines for closing this gap.…

Describes a drama-based language arts unit taught to a fifth grade class. Provides empirical evidence that drama as a strategy of instruction embedded within a writing/language arts unit helps students improve their writing. Suggests continued research and development of drama as a strategy of instruction. (PM)

Evaluates a method of re-drafting that puts the emphasis on meaning rather than appearance of text and reveals pupils' ability to improve their written work unaided. Presents evidence concerning how a group of low ability students alter their own written work when reading it aloud. (MG)

Discusses the problems (and some causes) in the writing of Asian college students. Interviews college English professors who have taught Asian students. Suggests methods to help Asian students be more successful in composition classes. (SR)

Describes two computer applications that can enhance peer review in business-communication classes: news groups and specialized communication client software. Suggests ways to integrate these applications into such a class, including providing guidelines and topics, training students directly in the computer applications, and allotting time to…

Investigates children's interest in the nursery rhyme genre. Notes that by talking about the rhymes, seeing an expert writer modeling the writing process and writing collaboratively with their teacher and with each other, the children wrote an "alternative" nursery rhyme book. Concludes the children began to see writing as a long term process but…

Describes fourth-grade students' experiences during a concentrated research writing project. Shows through a case study how students learned to present objective information through a narrative vehicle. (HTH)

Advocates a basic writing approach that assesses potential language competence as it develops both in speech and writing, and redefines the notion of "error." Presents a pilot project in which the use of speech is found to assist basic writers in producing writing that is improved in its length, fluency, involvement, concrete detail, and…

Uses on-line protocol analysis to contrast the effects on the writing process of knowledge taught in three instructional treatments: models, general procedures, and task-specific procedures. Finds that the task-specific group integrated their ideas purposefully, thought critically about the concepts being defined, and appeared to establish a…

In order to make information about technical writing more available, the South Central Modern Language Association (SCMLA) has collected the papers not subject to copyright restrictions that were presented at the technical writing section of its 1987 meeting. The essays cover a wide range of topics in technical writing pedagogy and research. The…

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)

Evaluates the reader-protocol method of teaching writers to anticipate readers' comprehension needs. Involves asking writers to predict readers' problems with a text and providing them with reader responses. Finds that writers taught with the reader-protocol method improved more than writers in control classes, and increased in their ability to…

Using instructional system design, a learning activity was developed to teach students how to use the writing process to write a persuasive essay. The 20 students involved in the development of the activity attended East Meadow High School in Nassau County, New York, scored low on a standardized test of writing, were enrolled in an…

This paper presents practical classroom activities for teaching narrative/descriptive writing based on approaches to writing instruction that research indicates are powerfully effective, and discusses principles upon which effective and exciting instruction can be designed. The paper gives a brief overview of what research in the teaching of…

Working collaboratively can be uncomfortable and bewildering, especially for developmental students. It is common for students to be anxious about their first experience with group work, and often they have a lot of questions about grading, cooperation, and what might happen if the group does not get along. The amount of time and variety of ways…