Discusses film-oriented writing classes as a way of expanding student vocabularies and illustrating such literary devices as metaphor, irony, and imagery. Offers guidelines for writing instructors wishing to add films to a course plan, using "King Kong,""The Godfather," and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" as examples. (DMM)

Presents a humorous technique for teaching students about apostrophes. (FL)

Argues that the secondary English classroom needs writing that explores women's feelings, experiences, and needs; that adolescent girls not only must have active engagements as readers with such texts, but they must also struggle to achieve the same sort of openness and exploration in their own writing. (HOD)

Discusses the functions of the writing laboratory at Innis College, Toronto, Canada. (SW)

Discusses poststructuralist or postmodernist theories of literary study and suggests that English instruction is in the midst of a major upheaval. Asserts that how the upheaval is handled will have serious, long-range effects for the future of the profession. (AEA)

Relates one teacher's experiences while teaching literature and composition to prison inmates. (HOD)

Describes an English articulation program in which a college teacher evaluates the compositions of high school students and then works closely with students, English teachers, school administrators, and parents in follow-up activities. (RL)

Offers advice and techniques for poetry writing in high school English classes. (RL)

Examines the factors thwarting graceful writing style in the community college classroom and discusses some ways to heighten students' awareness of the elements of style. (HTH)

Presents four brief suggestions regarding methods for teaching poetry writing, descriptive writing, and vocabulary. (TJ)

Voices concerns with isolated exercises in grammar. Offers an alternative, in which teachers collect sentences (mostly from literature) and use them to point out or teach skills for writers. Offers numerous examples. (SR)

Suggests that students will not automatically make use of grammatical concepts, syntactic constructions, and language conventions no matter how they are taught such concepts. Argues that teaching "grammar" in the context of writing works better than teaching grammar as a formal system. Offers three examples of extended grammar minilessons. (RS)

Proposes that students can best learn to recognize and enjoy irony by creating it. Outlines a class activity and two exercises that help students write with irony. Concludes that the energy created by ironic tension encourages students in their writing and reading. (PM)

Suggests that educators can provide the nurturing and encouraging atmosphere, the sense to say what works and what does not, and the freedom to let the students express whatever their synaptic processes produce without the fear that their lives and grades depend on it. Presents a "Top Ten List" of the best "rules" in teaching poetry writing. (SG)

Attempts to bring composition studies into a more thoroughgoing discussion of the place of visual literacy in the writing classroom. Argues that throughout the history of writing instruction in the United States the terms of debate typical in discussions of visual literacy and the teaching of writing have limited the kinds of assignments educators…