Suggests that the power of autobiographical writing, as part of teachers' reflection and theorizing, is in its potential for rethinking teaching and schooling from a critical and feminist vantage point. Maintains that an autobiographical approach keeps alive a woman's sense of the problematic nature of all theoretical discourses and works to test…

Describes the development of an assignment designed to take the place of the standard research paper. The new assignment is of particular relevance to teacher education, especially in English and language arts. (AEW)

Assesses surveys of college writing teachers using computers in their composition courses. Results show little consensus in equipment or methods, but indicate that all teachers are positive about the computer's potential as a teaching and writing tool. The questionnaire is appended. (AEW)

Presents some points of divergence between current English and French rhetorical theory. Documents a few standard forms of composition in French that are not found in the English. Assesses pedagogies typical of the French tradition and concludes that the theory and pedagogy of the two languages are quite disparate. (AEW)

Examines the roots of the modern language arts curriculum in Canada. Claims it is based on nineteenth-century interdependence of studies in rhetoric, history of the English language, and literature. And asserts that this curriculum was designed to develop rhetorical and critical sophistication. (JK)

Describes efforts in the Canadian provinces of Manitoba, British Columbia, New Brunswick, and Ontario to require actual samples of student writing on English performance tests. Includes a bibliography, a holistic marking scale, and an outline of criteria typical in analytic scoring. (EL)

Examines three writing assignment variables--topic, purpose, and audience--to determine how writing prompts affect student performance in grades 7, 9, and 11, and in college freshmen. Finds these variables influenced writing quality at different grades in different ways; generally, specific purpose and topic cues produced better essays. (SR)

Reports a longitudinal study in which first drafts on one assigned topic and one self-selected topic were collected once a year in grades one-three, and were analyzed for story structure, syntax, and cohesion. Finds no significant differences between the writing for the two tasks except in the area of cohesion. (SR)

Examines how students make and revise meaning when writing in purposeful, informal ways about their interpretation of literary texts. Also reveals five ways in which students develop their understanding of literature through writing. Suggests a mutually enriching reading-writing process of interpretation. (AEW)

Reviews the research literature on the teaching of writing. Lists practices and procedures that the research shows to be either helpful or of dubious value. (AEA)

Explores responses to fiction reading by students who record these responses in journals. (NKA)

Describes how using traditional methods to grade students' written compositions forces evaluators to undertake simultaneously two incompatible tasks, responding and assessing. Suggests that, because of variations in grading, team grading procedures be used as a workable method of arriving at fair and reliable composition grades. (EL)

Reports on two research studies investigating whether teachers can enhance third-grade students' written composition skills by reading aloud to them. Indicates that written composition skills improved, especially written syntactic maturity. (SR)

Outlines the curriculum used in the nineteenth century in Canada for instructing elementary and secondary students in grammar and composition. Notes that modern teachers of English have continued to rely upon the aims of traditional pedagogy because other programs for writing instruction have not displaced older pedagogical beliefs and…

Discusses some of the issues of choice and diversity in multicultural writing and reading assignments for secondary students. Draws on two research studies, one on high school students and one on middle school students. Notes that both studies found a mixture of desire for and discomfort with plurality in the classroom. (TB)