Two interviews, one with an experienced instructor of General Education Development (GED) classes and another with a student working towards a GED, provided a neophyte instructor with insight into the similarities and the differences between the composition teaching techniques learned in college and those which seem to be effective in teaching GED…

In a Purdue University English 101 class, students were told to identify an audience outside the classroom for each paper they wrote. The central challenge to composition teachers is preserving elements valued in teaching academic writing in the context of ill-defined problems to be addressed outside the classroom. Most useful for instructors…

Names themselves have great power. Teachers and students of language know that certain words resonate and have the power to make connections to forces that cannot always be identified, or, at least, named. Names are certainly in this category of words--they define an individual, tell who he or she is, and connect a person to his or her ancestors…

A study examined use of prewriting techniques among 11 students of English as a Second Language (ESL), of varying language backgrounds, enrolled in a pre-freshman composition class. It investigated use of both prewriting strategies and invention techniques taught in class, looking at: (1) whether they would be used when not specifically required;…

A study examined whether students actually used the composition processes they learned in their first-year college writing classroom when they leave the classroom. Subjects were 200 Florida State University students--a mixture of freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors from a variety of majors during fall semester 1997. Subjects were asked to…

Peter Elbow's expressionist approach to rhetoric lacks the critical position that feminism requires. Expressionist rhetoric's focus on the personal does not make it a feminist rhetoric because its conception of the personal as well as its conception of itself as a rhetoric is uncritical and ignores the social context that subject positions,…

Notes on evaluating the effectiveness of literacy programs are presented in outline form. An introductory section proposes that alternative assessment approaches focus primarily on providing meaningful feedback to learners and teachers and are useful in improving teaching. Part I addresses assessment of change in student literacy practices outside…

A writing across the curriculum program at Queensborough Community College in New York began its work on campus as Writing and Reading in the Technologies (WRIT) and chose to work with the Electrical and Computer Engineering Technology (ECET) department. The program's implementation was two-tiered. In Tier 1, over a period of three years, the WRIT…

This paper discusses the similarities in the difficulties that developmental writers and non-native English speakers/writers bring to the classroom and how this can influence instructors' choices of pedagogical strategies. The paper proposes a method of teaching that encourages teacher comfort with basic writing such that student work remains the…

A case study investigated the writing strategies use by high ability seventh graders (n=4) responding to explanatory tasks from the Maryland Writing Test (MWT), a state-mandated writing assessment. Central questions were: (1) what are the writing strategies elicited by the MWT?; (2) what evidence is revealed of participants' self-monitoring…

This study investigated cognitive processes involved in English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students' correcting and revising drafts after receiving oral feedback from their teachers, noting factors that led to better written products and factors that did not improve student writing. The study examined what kinds of revision strategies students…

A keen understanding of ethnocentricity and the role it might play in classroom instruction may determine whether or not writing strategies for language-diverse learners will be effective. Research indicates that it is the attitudes of teachers toward students that most distinguishes successful teachers from unsuccessful teachers. The first…

This paper shows how changing the learning situations in which psychology students find themselves can affect their motivation to write differently. When students have something to say to someone for some reason, they can learn both content and important lessons about writing. The paper describes a project that involved an introductory college…

The purpose of this 3-year data gathering and analysis project is to specify ways in which strategic instruction is conducted in classrooms, including how teachers adapt instruction to their curriculum and how students adapt instruction to fit their purposes for and methods of writing. The purposes of the writing instruction on which the study is…

A survey investigated the attitudes of 52 elementary school teachers of limited-English-proficient (LEP) students concerning their preference for product- or process-oriented writing strategies for this population. The teachers were administered a questionnaire on which they indicated preference, on a four-point scale, for 28 product- and…