In this article, the author offers his critiques on Downs and Wardle's course, Introduction to Writing Studies. Downs and Wardle use their course to alert students to the very misconceptions that prompt the shift from "teaching writing" to "teaching about writing"--namely the inability of first-year composition courses to make good on the pledge…

Writing involves two abilities, only one of which can be taught. Competence, which cannot be taught, is unconscious knowledge of language, which is acquired by hearing it repeatedly. The second ability, performance, can be taught to those with competence. Its components are confidence, process knowledge, and reinforcement. (JOW)

Shares the experiences of one writer and how children have shown her the many ways of creating a story. Shares methods of helping children find a voice for the stories they have to tell. (MG)

Differences in girls' and boys' writing are felt to stem from cultural experiences relating to their reading and viewing. The aim of teachers should not be to produce degendered narrative but to encourage the complementary components of assertiveness, reflectiveness, and awareness of opposed values in both boys' and girls' writing. (JDD)

A study investigated how Accelerated Learning (AL), a teaching methodology that purports to increase the quantity and improve the quality of learning, affected tertiary students' knowledge of and skills in writing and their feelings towards writing. AL has its origins in G. Lozanov's "suggestopedia." Believing that formal teaching…

Reports on a study of teacher-student writing conferences which finds that conferences have an effect on the revision process; and the divergent backgrounds students bring to instructional events (in terms of writing ability, writing experience, or native language) have a structuring effect that cannot be dismissed solely as teacher bias or…

Try as she would, one instructor of preservice teachers could not convince her students that such skills as reading and vocabulary are not good indicators of how well a secondary student will write, especially in the case of minorities. One of the hardest sells to new teachers is that students--at all levels--should write extensively, regardless…

Great Britain's National Curriculum places insufficient emphasis on handwriting instruction, and its suggestion to begin joined-up writing in Level 3 is inappropriate. A historical perspective on variations in handwriting style leads to a recommendation for a simple joined style, which would be based on the skeletal italic and taught by example.…

Students' essays are increasingly being included in the assessment of their writing ability. One scholar feels that in contrast to more traditional tests of writing ability, the Written Language Assessment bases its assessment on whole pieces of text the students write. The essays represent three different types of writing: expressive,…

When evaluating the work of congenitally deaf students whose native language is spatial and semiotic, composition teachers must avoid being what Marjorie Siegel calls "verbocentric," since congenitally deaf students are, in effect, learning to write in a language completely foreign to them in structure, syntax, and grammar. The…