Recounts how personal experience led to the realization that writing should be the physical and metaphysical center of what goes on in the English classroom. (JL)

Lists 16 questions for eliciting student writing. (JT)

Recounts the experiences of a writer-in-residence at a small liberal arts college as she helped her students through the composing process. (RL)

Lists reasons for using the study of literature in helping students learn to write. (RL)

Encourages English teachers to promote letter writing among their students. (DD)

Discusses the findings of two studies of the teaching of writing in high school and provides a "Students' Writing Questionnaire" with which teachers can determine the writing instruction their students have received. (DD)

Describes successes encountered in teaching and sponsoring a school newspaper, and encourages others to sponsor school papers despite the pressures operating against such publications. (DD)

Presents the benefits to be derived from journal writing and provides 47 ideas for journal writing. (DD)

Suggests why four prime time television series are worthy of attention in the English classroom and suggests topics for classroom discussion and writing activities based on them. (DD)

Describes a study which led to the conclusion that teachers of writing should stress audience sensitivity instead of mistakenly focusing on language as an object. (DD)

Describes an elective English course which involves readings and writing in new journalism style. (DD)

This column shares innovative lesson ideas grounded in current literature or action research. Two books are discussed: Lesley Atwater Kahle's book "Cut Word Story," which allows students to become individually engrossed in words and grammar within stories that they create; and Anete Vasquez's "Literary Analysis 101", which gives teachers a simple,…

Students use analyzing themes in song lyrics, rhetorical devices in essays and advertisements, and psychology in contemporary film, to improve their skills in critical thinking and writing. Popular culture is deduced to have an important place in English curricula.

The primary aim of the writing class should be to create a nourishing environment in which students can discover themselves and their natural instincts for communication. (DD)

British students are skilled writers because they are asked to write frequently and extensively. (DD)