Many of the rules in The Elements of Style, the classic text on English usage for writers, are also useful rules for teaching. While these rules are not all that is needed for good teaching, they are helpful for enhancing classroom instructions.

Rhetorically challenging literature can be made to serve the purposes of first-year composition in new ways. Excerpts from the novels of Marcel Proust that focus on the author's characteristic scrutinizing, reflexive attention to style work successfully as models for assisting writers in acquiring the habits of reading and re-reading, and of…

Considers the role of the visiting writer in encouraging and supplying useful writing advice to student writers. Proposes some principles for the art of writing that writers offer composition students, especially related to the art of writing over its craft. (HB)

Provides a complete text of David Bartholomae's speech on the debate with compositionist Peter Elbow regarding the pros and cons of teaching either academic discourse or personal writing modes to undergraduates. (HB)

Conflict is the basis of all stories and thus should appear in some form in the first sentence. There are three kinds of conflict: people vs. people; people vs. nature; and people vs. themselves. Conflict must be repeated in all the various elements of the story's structure, including the plot, which is the plan of action telling what happens to…

To indicate what high school students have actually studied during the previous 10 years of changing secondary school curricula, this document reports the findings of a questionnaire survey conducted among 2,247 students who took the 1965-66 College Entrance Examination Board's English Composition Test. The report is divided into three…

The purpose of this study was to identify the main elements of writing that have been identified by selected professional writers and, on the basis of this record, to make recommendations about composition instruction in the public schools. The works of four American novelists and randomly selected book reviews from "Saturday Review" were examined…

Reviews five books by James Moffett, discussing ways these practical applications of his development theory can be adopted as a course, a program, or a curriculum. Presents Moffett's work as a holistic integrated arts approach that offers a "real writing" alternative to such external controls as standardized tests, formalized writing…