This overview of an English course, "Writing for Government, Business, and Industry" (listed as English 339 at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota), emphasizes the essential elements of audience and voice. Composition theorists' assertion that the absence of voice is symptomatic of a profound developmental deficit (suggesting an…

Considering the rhetorical strategies four 19th-century black women employed to address various audiences can be helpful in the continuing struggle to find effective means of teaching writing to college students. These four women used a variety of strategies to reach audiences which were, to one degree or another, hostile to them because of their…

"Genre" has become the keyword in a movement to create a more dynamic, dialectical, contextual conception of "dispositio," of structure as a factor in psychological and social processes of writing. A dynamic conception of genre as social process in symbolic action can be reached by combining Kenneth Burke's technique of…

In a pilot study based on a project underwritten by the United States Department of Education to add more study of international issues to writing courses, revisions in content to both a first your and an advanced composition course were tested during 1993-94. The method for the classroom procedures was also changed to enhance the greater…

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…

In the present decade, many management and organizational communication scholars have explored a guiding metaphor--organizational culture. Japanese industry has developed a corporate model that may have provided the concepts involved in organizational culture: ideology, beliefs, rituals, myths, and symbols. Organizational culture is inextricably…

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);…

Suggests enlarging the sphere of feminist composition by including in it an approach to argument, ways to proceed if one is in conflict with one's audience. Explores the beginning of the feminist theory of composition. (MG)

Discusses the most satisfying part of teaching writing--helping students discover what they have to say and showing them how to say it. Notes that the basic skills of writing (audience awareness, organizing thoughts, and revising) are bigger than the rules of grammar and spelling and do not change from grade to grade. (RS)

Discusses aspects of one teacher's responses to students' writing that have survived over the years. Argues that students (1) should write for a teenage audience; (2) deserve written and oral responses from their peers; and (3) benefit from successes shared with their parents. Suggests that responses to writing begin with content, which makes…

Suggests that technical writers should emphasize similarities rather than differences between oral and written discourse. Argues that implicit rules of conversation have much to offer the technical writer. Illustrates how the principles of conversation can be applied to the process of writing instructions. (KEH)

Suggests strategies for applying Kenneth Burke's theories of rhetoric and dialectic to technical writing instruction. Shows how teachers can use Burke's dialectic heuristic, the Pentad, to analyze writing situations they present to students. Describes how writers can use Burke's concept of "identification" as a strategy for analyzing and…

Offers four ideas for students to share their writing. Suggests that providing time and ways for children to share gives their writing purpose and direction. (MG)

Describes a program called "Writing for the Public" that allows students to revise and rewrite documents such as memos, instructions, or brochures. Shows how one high school English teacher instituted the program in his senior class. Provides some student response to the program. (HB)

Examines how students view their teachers' comments on their writing assignments. Reports the results of a survey on how students view comments. Offers suggestions for what teachers can do to create a shared context for commentary. (PRA)