Recommends avoiding cliches, overly long statements, and label themes for a literary magazine and coming up with tailor-made themes through staff brainstorming. (CRH)

Reviews some of the existing data on the effects of homework on learning. (HOD)

For a growing student demographic, college is not an intellectual or residential destination; rather, it is an intellectual errand. Students are, in the most existential sense, "already gone." For commuter students, academia is "unsituated." That is, they experience academia as moments scattered throughout a day or week. In…

Writing classes ought to be among the most creative environments imaginable, but sadly, some writing teachers seem to think that their own writing ability, in proximity, is enough to get students started. A good writing teacher must be a constant student of creativity, always searching for new ways to teach, new inspirations, new forms of…

For both reading and writing, context and perspective are everything; Ann Berthoff suggests that students "write continuously in a double-entry notebook." One instructor has utilized Berthoff's double-entry notebook in a technical writing class and finds that this classroom practice has also been informed by other theories inquiring into…

What astounds one writing teacher is what her students do with the reflective writing portion of a portfolio assignment, where they are instructed to use reflective writing to bring together their portfolio submissions into one cohesive unit. The class members first discuss the assignment, look at abandoned portfolios from previous semesters, and…

Some causes for reliability problems in tutor-marked assignments are discussed: factors relating to the questions such as ambiguous, overloaded, hidden agenda, and unrealistic questions; variations caused by differing tutor notes; and students not answering the question, scales and standards, rounding and partial scores, and bonus marks. (JMF)

Essay assignments provide a major portion of students' grades in most Open University curricula. The main educational objectives of essay questions are relevance and the ability to argue a thesis in the light of the course material. (JMF)

Provides six remembrances by teachers and students of the Teachers and Writers Collaborative on the occasion of its 35th anniversary. Discusses the quality of colleagues and the excitement of teaching. Notes the motivating influence of this teaching on students. (PM)

Characterizes academic discourse. Argues for the need for some nonacademic writing in freshman writing courses. Discusses the different styles of academic discourse within the field of composition. Notes stylistic conventions of academic discourse. Discusses implications for the teaching of freshman writing. (RS)

Presents an approach to teaching various kind of business messages that helps students recognize that different situations call for different rhetorical strategies. Details a memo assignment that blurs the boundaries between message types. (HB)

Suggests that, despite the expanding variety of the university population, despite diversity and challenges to the literary canon, writing assignments continue to be uninspired and outdated. Describes an "Alternative Responses to Literature" course whose aim was to open up the communal readings, the forms of response to them, and the…

Reviews briefly how imagery is integral to knowing and thinking, and how perception and reason do indeed reside under the same blanket. Details two college writing assignments that require writers to engage in "imaginal processes" in proportion to their verbal process. (SR)

Suggests that an effective way to develop students' writing abilities is to teach writing through journalism. Discusses the successes the author has had in incorporating journalistic writing strategies into elementary and secondary English/language arts classrooms. (RS)

Criticizes teaching formal, impersonal writing and argues for teaching that encourages students to write about what they know and love as they discover who they are and why words matter. (PRA)