Examines "writing" as a word that means one thing to some people and another to others. Suggests that sloppy usage of such a charged word could lead to trouble. Looks particularly at the move from the "writing process" or "process writing" and at what this semantic transformation indicates. (TB)

Describes a high school advanced composition course which uses films and the metaphor of stellar constellations (a writer finding or imposing order and meaning in a chaos of ideas). Notes that most students understood this approach to criticism by the end of the course. (RS)

The humanities department of the community college where the author teaches has a long-standing policy regarding the demand for sentence-structure correctness in all the composition courses that they provide. That policy holds students accountable for total control over the rules that govern sentence structure. Any student paragraph or essay that…

In this article, the author relates her experience in teaching poetry and how it shapes everything she and her students do in the classroom. As a language arts teacher for students in grades 7 to 12, she discovered poetry to be magical in many ways, for it offers such advantages as, brevity, which allows a quick reading and discussion of a…

In the Bicentennial spirit, an English class delved into the histories of several deceased local people and wrote their epitaphs. (JH)

Standardized tests, with their preoccupation with correctness, encourage barren formulaic writing by students. (DD)

Students can be motivated to write by games such as rewriting well-known passages or inventing phrases which express a thesis presented to them. (DD)

Describes 24 books and articles on the teaching of composition published in 1976 and the first half of 1977. (DD)

Describes a successful exercise which involved junior high school students in writing a musical comedy. (DD)

Evaluates four textbooks recommended by junior high and high school teachers for teaching writing and literature: "Enjoying Literature" (published by Macmillan, 1985); "Exposition: Critical Writing and Thinking" (Robert J. Gula); "Situational Writing" (Gene Krupa); and "Double Exposure: Composing through Writing…

Presents a rationale for the use of journalism in teaching English. Drawing from sources in the ERIC database, surveys journalistic aspects and sources that are closely related to and useful for the teaching of writing, critical reading, and production of a student literary magazine. (JK)

Contributors review the advantages and disadvantages of essay contests. Considers typical essay topics, evaluation criteria, contests as motivational techniques, the validity of the essay form, and contests' impact on writers' audience awareness. (MM)

Urges teachers to write for publication, with their class's help, in order to demonstrate the writing process to students. (DD)