In this article, the author recounts her teaching experience with new high school students at Northwest Yeshiva High School, an Orthodox Jewish high school on Mercer Island. In teaching the students about writing, the author describes how she was moved by the narratives written by her students, and that after reading their stories she decided to…

The method suggested by W. Timothy Gallwey for teaching tennis--a positive approach which avoids over-instruction--is also an effective method for teaching writing. (DD)

Describes writing as a dynamic process involving both creativity and discipline, and suggests classroom strategies useful in teaching this process. (DD)

Describes how to formulate writing assignments that are purposeful, audience-aware, and cumulatively structured. (DD)

Presents four basic steps students should follow in formula essay writing. (DD)

Summarizes and discusses the implications of the Writing Research Unit and the Writing Across the Curriculum Project at the University of London Institute of Education. (DD)

Argues that formulaic writing, as in the five-paragraph essay, blocks diversity of expression. Asserts that each composition should be unique to the writer and subject, and that the writing process must be allowed to move through "untidy" stages that characterize the creative process. (MM)

Recounts the diverse reactions elicited by a college writing teacher when he asked his students to compose using his copy of Keats' life-mask as a resource. Discusses how the life-mask acted as a stimulus, turning in-class writing into an exciting and useful composition experience. (NKA)

Uses personal reminiscences to show how the past does not die but becomes part of an understandable pattern in life. Suggests that keeping a journal increases that understanding. (MM)

Describes some of the linguistic misinformation presented in a recent magazine article on the teaching of writing. (DD)

A selective review of research on written composition and the teaching of writing. (DD)

Discusses five qualities that underlie the approaches used by effective writing teachers. (DD)

A tongue-in-cheek version of a school administrator's "memorandum" illustrates how simplistic solutions to the educational problems, such as establishing minimum competencies for writing achievement, are generated and why they may not solve the problems. (RL)

Describes a faculty writing group, modeled on the Eastern Virginia Writing Project. Provides guidelines for starting a faculty writing group. (MM)