The problem of college students' writing skills or lack thereof is generally agreed upon in academia. One cause is the inordinate amount of multiple choice/true false/fill in the blank type of tests that students take in high school and college. Not only is there is a dearth of actual classes in writing available, few students recognize the need…

This paper analyzes two student papers, "Pygmalion" and "Waiting to Inhale," in terms of the type of thinking demonstrated in them. It examines the difference between higher order patterns of thinking evident in advanced or adult writers and patterns of thinking in young writers or students. The study reported in the paper…

This report contains a collection of articles that document the evolution of English for Science and Technology (EST) instruction and research--one of the earliest and most active branches of English for Specific Purposes (ESP). Articles included are: (1) "WWW-Based Instruction for EST" (Roy Bowers); (2) "English for Medical Purposes in Mexico: A…

This paper examines some prominent criticisms of higher education and contends that systems theory is a means of understanding the nature of the problems by taking into account the complexity of interconnections among several factors. Problems discussed include: (1) inflated grades awarded to today's university students do not reflect their true…

Teachers can develop reflection and evaluation options by keeping a classroom journal. A classroom journal is a record of the teacher's experience within the classroom itself, as well as experience outside the classroom which bears on classroom life. As an observor of one's own actions and reactions to classroom incidents, the teacher opens the…

A college English teacher, dissatisfied with the approach used in her composition classes and with its results, turned to the Outward Bound concepts of the German physician and schoolmaster, Kurt Hahn. These concepts include a belief in the value of creating adversity in order to overcome it, a belief that important things happen to people who are…

Learning difficult literary concepts (such as point of view, symbolism, or internal monologue) while reading difficult and often unfamiliar content prematurely places too many demands upon middle school and high school students. Young adult literature allows students to address the demands of a new concept while reading more familiar content. One…

This issue of "Communitas" contains 12 articles by Connecticut community college professional staff. In "On the Higher Illiteracy in America," Grant Roti analyzes the grammatical and punctuation errors in a standard scholarly work. Edward Bollenbach's "Teaching Stress Management in the Community College Environment"…

Three high school students present findings of their survey of professional writers' training, influences, and writing processes conducted to judge whether secondary school writing programs adequately prepare high schoolers for writing in the future. Comments from writers emphasized prewriting, inspiration, reader feedback, and sequential drafts.…

Presents a case study of critical pedagogy in practice. Demonstrates how the "ageing women" and their teacher in a writing class came to a better understanding of their own personal texts when they learned to distance themselves sufficiently to see the broader social and cultural patterns their texts reflected and constructed. (18…

Minority language students can be successfully taught to write through programs that validate the students' experiences and cultural heritage. Adopting an approach developed by Eliot Wiggington in the Foxfire project, a California educator teaches his Chicano students English composition by emphasizing the richness of family and community folklore…

Presents results of a survey of patient information needs and satisfaction levels in a large hospital in the United Kingdom as part of a feasibility study on the provision of a patient information service. Topics discussed include changes in the patient/doctor relationship; gender differences; and verbal versus written information. (Contains 20…

Discussion of the use of computer networks to create electronic communities highlights a research strategy that compared educational activities conducted across electronic networks to examine features of successful and unsuccessful electronic communities. Networks described include university researchers' networks; teacher networks; student…

Describes a college English-as-a-Second-Language curriculum model based on a whole-language approach that is presented to stimulate others to review and revise their own curriculum. (25 references) (GLR)

This article examines a children's book writing workshop for middle school students of color in which 12 girls participated. The curriculum was developed to create intersections between students' in- and out-of-school lives. The students' writing within the workshop is analyzed by unpacking their "recontextualizations" of settings, characters,…