Describes a process (AIR: Achievement, Improvement, Reflection) that helps students organize their portfolios and see their own achievement and improvement. (SR)

Reports on teaching strategies that strengthen students' reading skills in identifying how autobiographical writers signal specific purposes. Notes that students benefit from making stronger links between their reading and writing. (SR)

Describes a "writing workshop" for eighth graders which focuses on the writing process as well as the finished product. Reports the approach's effectiveness by noting students' improvement on standardized exams and syntactic maturity of student compositions (as measured by the increase in number of words per T-unit). (MM)

Describes a reading technique for college writing and a method of teaching word structue. (HOD)

Describes having students draw a picture and write a paragraph of description at the end of each chapter of "The Lord of the Flies." Reports gains in reading comprehension, increased cooperation and enjoyment, and improved writing quality. (SR)

Outlines the steps a college composition instructor can take to help students connect the idea relationships in a reading selection or in a writing assignment. The steps are based on a conceptual strategy known as semantic mapping or semantic networking. (SRT)

Presents three ideas for teaching content area writing, noting that such writing is most productive when assignments are based on real subject area topics and authentic styles. (HOD)

Describes the use of alternative types of poetry and affirmations to encourage self-esteem and break down barriers to learning in an adult basic skills reading class. (SR)

Finds the use of mapping strategies drawn from current research enhances students' ability to organize, analyze, evaluate, and reason critically when composing from academic sources. Presents five examples. (NH)

Discusses the use of holistic evaluation, the use of rubrics and checklists, peer evaluation, and small group peer evaluation as means of making writing evaluation effective while keeping the paper load manageable. (FL)

Advocates the use of journal writing in reaction to readings to help make reading a more significant part of students' lives. (SRT)

Offers suggestions for: (1) using new question strategies for improving students' reading comprehension; (2) using the novel "Clan of the Cave Bear" (by J. Auel) in a college developmental reading course; (3) using "Writing Your Way" (by P. Stillman) to encourage a love of writing in junior high and high school students. (SKC)

Describes a four-step instructional process that helps middle and secondary students become actively involved in their reading and provides a structure for main idea development in reading and writing. (HOD)

Reviews how background knowledge fits into a model of the expository writing process. Describes a project involving gifted seventh-grade students who increased their background knowledge about their chosen research paper topics in order to overcome some of the difficulty of expository writing. (RS)

Discusses (1) activities that encourage students to use formal vocabulary; (2) the use of computers to motivate remedial readers to write; and (3) a pilot study in which sustained silent reading and writing was used to improve the literacy of seventh and eighth grade remedial students.