Students will have to develop a presence on the page along with mastering grammar, spelling, and punctuation in order to become accomplished writers. Students should be given opportunities to hear their own written voices and the written voices of the others, their peers, their teachers and the best authors because the voice helps them to develop…

Reviews four computer programs that check grammar, punctuation, and spelling; discusses their applicability in the business writing process. (AEA)

Describes a business English hotline, staffed by faculty members, which serves to augment the instructional aims of Los Angeles Pierce College, and keeps faculty members in touch with the office world and its problems. (JOW)

Reprints the inaugural address of the 1986 president of the National Council of Teachers of English. Examines issues in English instruction such as emphasizing facts over reasoning; developing a sense of audience; mechanics; dialects; and literature instruction. (RS)

Describes calls to a grammar hot line about usage, grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Concludes that many people besides educators and professional writers care about exact and accurate language usage. (EL)

Argues that recent teaching strategies geared toward improving student writing through positive reinforcement have resulted in mediocre writing products. Suggests that mechanics be given the same value as content in the evaluation process. (KEH)

England's Leslie Stratta shares his views on teaching basic writing and assessing student growth in writing. (AEA)

Suggests that in evaluating student papers audiotapes have several advantages over written comments: audiotapes make for a holistic instead of myopic evaluating approach, and make it easier to make positive comments. Explains system for transferring responsibility for grammatical errors from the teacher to the student. (TB)

Reviews several software packages that analyze text readability, check for spelling and style problems, offer desktop publishing capabilities, teach interviewing skills, and teach grammar using a computer game. (SRT)

It is a commonly held assumption that Harvard-trained rhetoricians during the late 19th and early 20th centuries were concerned mainly with superficial mechanical correction, and, further, that they dissociated student writing from any meaningful context and contributed to the division between composition and literature. Howard James Savage was…

Elementary school teachers acknowledge the need for better writing instruction, but seldom have time for it within their already crowded curricula. Writing instruction suffers from placing skills development before writing activities, from emphasis on reading, and because many teachers are not well prepared to teach writing. A low priority is…

Discusses nine orthodoxies, including the idea that spelling, grammar, and punctuation are unimportant, that decrease teacher effectiveness. (DF)