As teachers, the time they get to talk with peers, their friends, is an important time because there is never enough of it. Why not allow students the opportunity to chat with friends--the same courtesy the author appreciated in meetings with peers? Through talk, students can improve their conversational skills, which in turn would help their…

Illustrates the power of responsive teaching and how one teacher used a modern poem about cruelty to address a recent incident of her own students' cruelty to a classmate. Notes that the class responded with compassion, tolerance, and a sense of caring for those who are different. (MG)

Advocates creating a content centered writing course with research assignments that demand critical interpretation as well as appreciation of the processes writers undergo to create clear, informed, and developed prose. (CRH)

A study of writing by high school seniors and first-year college students found that classroom conditions were a large factor in student improvement. Larger class sizes in high school and less time devoted strictly to writing were the chief detriments to improvement in the seniors' writing.

Seven secondary school teachers discuss the need for writing centers in secondary schools and identify the services they should provide. Includes descriptions of existing writing centers, and suggestions that writing centers should help students change their perception of writing as well as intervene in stages of the writing process. (JG)

Recommends having students keep a reading journal on reading assignments as a way of getting them involved in reading, thinking, and discussion. (EL)

Dissatisfied with his method of teaching composition to high school seniors, Joseph M. Shosh sought ways to move from teaching as transmission to teaching as transaction. Asking students to use a dialogic discourse diary resulted in improved thinking and writing. He offers the assignments he gave and documents students? reactions and growth.

Describes how a "broadcasting minicourse" can inform students about a medium that surrounds them and motivates them to write more precisely. (CRH)

Describes the steps a writer can go through in producing an article and how a word processor can facilitate the thought and compositional processes. (CRH)

Describes how a writing center was established at Oak Knoll School in New Jersey which used honors English students as its staff and how it helped relieve students' negative attitudes towards writing. (CRH)

Establishes the value of teachers attending writers' workshops and indicates how teachers can stimulate student writing by having them respond to thematically selected readings from literature. (CRH)

Describes a writing unit for junior high students in which they respond in writing to art reproductions or photographs and are responded to in turn by their classmates. (CRH)

Offers classroom teachers from kindergarten through grade 12 seven suggestions on writing publishable manuscripts: (1) study journals' editorial policies, (2) give credit for borrowed material, (3) learn of publication plans for forthcoming issues, (4) avoid sexist language, (5) keep the intended audience in mind, (6) proofread and revise, and (7)…

Describes a teaching method that uses the student's growing need to use the language as motivation. (CRH)

Describes a successful paper exchange program between eighth-grade students and high school seniors. States that the peer evaluations created audience awareness and motivated students' writing efforts. (MM)