This concise handbook helps educators write for the rhetorical situations they will face as students of education, and as preservice and practicing teachers. It provides clear and helpful advice for responding to the varying contexts, audiences, and purposes that arise in four written categories in education: classroom, research, credential, and…

The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) Practice Guide, "Teaching Secondary Students to Write Effectively," offers educators three specific, evidence-based recommendations that address the challenges of teaching students in grades 6-12 to write effectively. This summary focuses on the first of the three recommendations: Explicitly teach…

This article introduces a new course in the Virginia Community College System English Curriculum, "English 114: Scientific Writing." The article briefly reviews the concept of "science rhetoric," then discusses the intended audience and purpose of the course, and explains the basic goals of the course in relation to the…

In this Teaching Tips article, the author argues for a dialogic conception of voice, based in the work of Mikhail Bakhtin. He demonstrates a dialogic view of voice in action, using two writing examples about the same topic from his daughter, a fifth-grade student. He then provides five practical tips for teaching a dialogic conception of voice in…

Service-learning projects and traditional internships both prepare the student of technical communication for the workforce in many ways. What is lacking in the scholarship is a discussion of how to successfully link these two ideas. To help teachers implement courses that bridge the gap between service-learning projects and internships, I discuss…

Biographical writing is highly imaginative writing and always has been. The task of the biographer is to weave a riveting story from the fabric of the subject's life. For example, a single pivotal incident in the lives of Percy Bysshe Shelley, the English poet, and Mary Godwin, author of "Frankenstein", at the grave of Mary's mother,…

In this lesson, grade 6-8 students analyze a variety of poets and their poetry by reading and listening to their work. Students then use information gathered from Internet resources to select a favorite poet and perform one of their poems for the class. During the four 30-minute and five 20-minute sessions, students will: analyze a variety of…

After students' interest in literature has been stirred by journal writing, it is time for them to turn their private journal writing into writing for an audience. Instead of having students write the usual responses to literature, vary their assignments by offering them creative responses, either occasionally or as an individual alternative to…

This revised and updated resource contains a total of 43 essays that serve to initiate graduate students and more experienced teachers into the theories that inform composition studies. Under Section One--The Givens in Our Conversations: The Writing Process--are these essays: "Teach Writing as a Process Not Product" (Donald M. Murray);…

Description can make a piece of writing come alive. This lesson plan combines art and word play, emphasizing writing for an audience while drawing on multiple intelligences. Peer review and feedback reinforces the revision process as students create trading cards by drawing pictures of monsters and describing and categorizing them in detail.…

The writing and art program described in this lesson plan employs scientific observation, descriptive writing, sketching, reading, investigation, and poetry writing to train middle school students to use their senses and focus their attention. During the four 45-minute lessons, students will: make careful observations of natural objects; write…

An approach to college faculty development applies fundamental principles of writing to improvement of the writing of college faculty. A series of rules for writing are presented in six categories: motivation; imagination; fluency; control; audience; and resilience. The rules focus more on efficiencies and economies of writing than content or…

This book presents 113 writing "workouts" (exercises) to help students, and especially teachers, think about the small steps writers take as they learn their craft. The workouts in Part I, Writers Speak Up, are intended to help novice writers develop confidence in the value of their experience. Part II, Writers Pay Attention, presents challenges…

Developed by classroom teachers during the development phase of Minnesota's Graduation Standards, this performance package is made up of locally designed assignments that, taken together, show whether a student has learned and can apply the knowledge and skills related to writing a short story for a variety of academic and technical purposes,…

Providing a way to organize and document third- through sixth-grade student writing through the use of writing folders and other organizing aids, this book is for educators who believe that writing and word processing strategies and skills are best taught as students do real writing for a variety of readers. The book includes mini-lessons to…