Suggests that, although writing instructors cannot completely eliminate writing anxiety in students, they can create a positive environment and offer strategies that will help reduce students' fears and build confidence in their writing skills. (AEA)

Presents the problem of intentional or unintentional plagiarism on the part of young students, several possible causes for it, and offers ways teachers can help students avoid copying and understand the value of owning one's writing. (JC)

A composition researcher collected stories from students with writing anxiety, using qualitative research tools of interview and interpretation. In literary theory it is not unusual to speak of anxiety of influence when referring to the torment of proving one is equal to a revered author. The critic Harold Bloom presented it as his theory of the…

Offers suggestions to help writing teachers overcome inertia and fear and begin writing themselves. (FL)

One of a series dealing with current issues affecting language arts instruction, this paper focuses on spelling. The paper begins with the observation that when people complain that students cannot write, too often they mean that when the students do write, they misspell a few words. After noting that spelling improvement comes from using words in…

Describes a research project for teachers on reading and writing in which teachers meet regularly in small groups to share their creative writing. (EL)

Argues that grammar correction in second-language writing classes should be abandoned because it is ineffective, harmful, and unhelpful in any interesting sense for theoretical and practical reasons. The article also considers and rejects a number of arguments previously offered in favor of grammar correction. (122 references) (Author/CK)

By building up the confidence of student writers, writing teachers hope to reduce the hostility and anxiety so often found in authoritarian introductory college composition classes. Process oriented writing theory implicitly defines confidence as a wholly personal quality resulting from students' discovery that they do have "something to…