Logical strategies used in informative writing include factuality, comprehensiveness, and surprise value, which provides the focus of the paper and guides both the organization and the thoroughness with which each subtopic must be covered. Failure to teach surprise value is the main problem behind the uninteresting reports that teachers must face…

This paper examines several language learning and teaching experiences described in the literary works of Burroughs's "Tarzan of the Apes," Shakespeare's "Henry V," Scott's "The Jewel in the Crown," and Alcott's "Little Women." In all cases, the language being learned was not necessary for daily activities, yet each case demonstrates that language…

This paper demonstrates the compatability of Aristotle's Four Causes (material, formal, efficient, and final) and George Campbell's Four Forms of Discourse (description, narration, exposition, and argumentation) and synthesizes them to form an ordered yet flexible writing model that can be used in composition instruction. Within the context of…

By following the "steppingstone" or marker theory of dividing one's life into no more than 12 and no less than 8 significant periods, a student in a writing course can develop a brief response for each phase to articulate multiple experiences. Writing teachers can aid students in realizing that important life experiences are the stuff of…

A year-long study of the writing growth of eight seventh grade children was conducted to determine whether knowledge of reading rhetoric could be directly applied to personal writing behavior. It was assumed that active comprehension of a distinctive literary model would provide awareness of the structure of narrative prose and improve the…

Arranged into four parts, the paper offers practical and motivating techniques for using the dime novel in high school classrooms, particularly in the study of women's history. The first part of the paper describes the historical background of the dime novel that was originally intended to entertain the reading public with fast-paced action, high…