Argues one way to make sense of a catastrophe is to use Kenneth Koch's poetry methods. By using these strategics, teachers can help students discover the thoughts and feelings of great artists. Students can then express their thoughts through these model poems. (BR)

Experience in teaching composition at every level, from seventh grade to advanced writing courses intended for college sophomores, reveals one common problem--lack of specificity. Hillocks discusses this problem and suggests that it can be surmounted by involving students in the process of observing, encouraging them to draw inferences from their…

Publishing children's written work in the elementary classroom enables children to see themselves as creators of ideas, as producers of language, and as functioning members of the language community. This paper suggests many forms in which children's writings may be published. Step-by-step explanations and accompanying illustrations tell how to…

The Albion (New York) school district provides this guide to written composition instruction in its kindergarten through grade 12 curriculum because of the importance and necessity of writing, not only as a school activity but also as a lifelong intellectual, self-actualizing, and daily-living activity. Following a brief overview that summarizes…

The main purposes of this handbook are to present a series of activities and performance goals intended to improve the English program in Baltimore County; to establish the basic language skills and experiences that all students at each grade level should have; and to suggest a number of methods and procedures for implementing these learning…

Seven language arts booklets present samples of student writing, teaching suggestions and resources for an enrichment program for gifted elementary students. Focused on in each of the booklets are the following topics (sample subtopics in parentheses): introductory activities (word and sentence expansion, imagery, and patterns in poetry); short…

One of a series prepared by the Hawaii Newspaper Agency, this teaching guide suggests ways of using the newspaper in the classroom and serves as an idea kit for introducing elementary school students to the newspaper. The two booklets comprising this kit provide background descriptions of the newspapering process, tips for good writing,…

The ideas provided in this document may be used in teaching the language arts in elementary and secondary schools. Some of the many ideas focus on hand-made books, psychological logs (journals), dialogue writing, Shakespeare and Dickens study activities, word matching, fairy tales, writing a book, imaginary worlds, magic, sales talk, impromptu…

This language arts minicourse guide for Lampeter-Strasburg (Pennsylvania) High School contains a topical outline for a course on technical and business writing. The guide includes a list of five course objectives; an outline of the sequence of instruction in the course; a description of the content, concepts, and writing exercises covered by the…

This curriculum guide reviews current theories on the teaching of writing, focuses on the nature of composition, and enumerates sequences of writing exercises for seventh and eighth grade teachers to consider for assigning to their students. Contents include "Rhetoric in the 1960's," which defines composition and explains what languaging is about;…

This book explores the many visually oriented activities that can be used to teach the composition process. Chapter one outlines the format of the book and discusses the composition process in terms of visual perception and reaction to visual stimuli. Chapter two introduces the general aspects of composition that are pertinent to all types of…

In a sixth-grade unit, students learned about people's facial expressions through careful observation, recording, reporting, and generalizing. The students studied the faces of people of various ages; explored "masks" that people wear in different situations; learned about the use of ritual masks; made case studies of individuals to show…

The major focus of this resource book is on people and the problems they have in relating to one another for mutual growth and development in a rapidly changing society. The goals and objectives of the guide, especially those related to the use and misuse of language in human affairs, have been validated by research as effective for the…