The assignment described in this paper is an attempt to provide speech communication students with some training and experience in interviewing. Following discussion of the objective and rationale for conducting an interview and reporting information from an interview, guidelines are offered to help students with selecting subjects or content…

Each of these ten creative writing assignments includes a model poem, a writing idea, and suggested discussions or activities related to the writing idea. The assignments can be used to stimulate either poetry or prose writing. (Author/AA)

Contemporary learning theory supports the use of writing as a cognitive tool to enhance retention and assist students to understand abstract mathematical concepts. Using writing activities in the intermediate grade and secondary classroom enhances the learning of mathematics and is a way of making mathematics more reachable to those students who…

Measuring the effects of computer-managed instruction (CMI) on the teaching of and student writing about literature involves more than having students write and then evaluating their performance. Measurement is made difficult by the fact that the computer technology used in instruction is in a state of flux. Variation of computer technology,…

In order to determine the oral and written communication skills most valued by people in a wide variety of jobs, job-related activities related to those skills, and consequences of poor communication, a two-page questionnaire was designed and distributed. Results from the 196 returned questionnaires (38 percent) were summarized for seven job…

Ken Macrorie coined the term "I Search," which puts the writer at the center of the paper and seeks to put a human face on the data collected. Looking for a way to use the research writing assignment to help students learn to adjust their ideas to different formats by becoming more aware of how different structures can be shaped around…

This paper presents four introductory activities designed to help students with their reading problems, motivate them to read, and help them turn their interpretations of literature into effective compositions. The paper presents samples for each of the four activities ("Opinionnaires," Scenarios, Simulations, and Role Playing),…

This paper describes the composition of one particular kind of study guide called a pattern guide that can be used by content area teachers to aid their students in reading and understanding their textbooks. The purpose of the guide is stated as highlighting the reading and thinking skills to be used as well as the most important concepts to be…

Suggesting that teaching the literature of the Vietnam War can enliven literature study in the middle and secondary school classroom, this paper explains why this literature can have such a powerful impact on students, and how teaching it fosters students' responses to literature. The paper begins with a discussion of why students should study and…

Secondary teacher education students should be given clear instruction in the assembling and assessment of professional teaching portfolios. In the teacher education program at the University of Louisville (Kentucky), student teachers are asked to prepare portfolios, exactly as all secondary students must in the state of Kentucky, meaning that the…

A seven-step process helps students writing research papers distinguish between what they already know before they do any research and what they find out, and also avoids cut-and-paste, redeye, and plagiarized research papers. Students first narrate the story of the research process (which will be the structural spine of the paper) and then go…

Based on research using participant and nonparticipant observation in a natural setting, a study examined how teaching practices, classroom conditions, and student differences influenced the design of writing lessons in 14 English classes in five inner city schools. Data were collected from five sources--interviews, writing samples,…

A study sought to describe the nature of teacher and student behaviors related to textbook reading assignments at the secondary school level, and to explore the relationship between the amount of time secondary school teachers devoted to specific assignment-related behaviors and students' subsequent performance on the assignments. The sample…

A two-phase study was conducted of home economics teachers' use of writing in secondary programs. In the first phase of the study, quantitative data were collected to compare three populations: (1) 125 home economics teachers who had not participated in university workshops on incorporating writing in the classroom; (2) 129 agriculture teachers…

Employing a body of texts for the reading and study of literature in the English classroom leads to much argumentation, with much disagreement about what is fair game for the writing student. To help determine which texts to select it is necessary to define cultural literacy in a different way from that of E. D. Hirsch. Hirsch would prescribe…