The William Perry model of learning is directly parallel to what has been learned about writing processes. He observed that the student is essentially a dualist who sees everything as right or wrong. This stance of absolute acceptance wavers when the student encounters varieties of or disagreements among truths, thus gradually evolving into the…

Imaging, or disciplined daydreaming, can be used in the composition class to expose students to their innate creativity, lessen writing anxiety, refresh memories before writing of personal experiences, and make impersonal subjects, such as historical events, vital and personal. Teachers can construct a classroom imaging session (which takes about…

Although student writers will accept evaluation more readily from their peers than from their instructors, beginning writers in particular hesitate to offer suggestions to another writer because they do not want to hurt their fellow students' feelings, and because they do not feel they know enough to evaluate someone else's work. The collaborative…

When students have difficulty writing, it is often because they are apathetic or afraid of failing, rather than because of a serious lack of skill. Basic writing teachers must break through student apathy and fear before the students can begin to progress. One way is to ask basic writers to unscramble sentences or analyze ambiguous sentences to…

Once its source has been identified using the multidimensional model developed by D. W. Stacks, R. W. Boozer, and T. D. P. Lally, writing apprehension, especially among business writing students, can be treated in the classroom with specific pedagogical techniques. Emphasizing the writing process rather than the product--stressing peer and teacher…

Acknowledging that basic skills instructors must deal with the affective characteristics of developmental students, this paper describes factors to consider for creating an environment in which developmental students can improve their learning skills. The first section of the paper discusses ways to meet emotional needs when planning a pretest for…

In an effort to reduce student writing apprehension, an informal, in-class study was conducted in a lower-level college writing course at an Alabama university. The 16 students in this course took a Writing Apprehension Test (WAT--pretest) on the first day of class. Throughout the course, all writing was based on student experiences and came from…

When students do not write well in stressful situations, traditional instruction such as grammar exercises, sentence combining, and imitation of sentences will not be especially useful. Students are not often aware of their linguistic insecurity or of how insecurity affects language usage. The writing lab, however, creates an ideal setting for…

Creating a writing workshop atmosphere using computers in the English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom improves the opportunities for integrating all language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The computer also represents a new way of learning, emphasizing students' problem solving strategies and learning processes. Teachers…

A project using on-campus electronic mail (e-mail) to teach communicative writing in English as a Second Language to Japanese junior college students is described. The project had three stages: (1) planning; (2) piloting with a small group of students; and (3) implementation in three large classes (n=55, 28, 36). The aim was to help students write…