To determine the effects of oral sentence-structure exercises upon student writing, a 1-year experiment was conducted with two randomly matched fourth-grade classes of approximately equal size, one control class and one experimental class. The experimental group regularly completed exercises designed to teach students to produce sentences…

This study--a follow-up to one conducted by Giles in 1965-- compared the written compositions of fourth grade pupils who had been in Project Head Start in the summer of 1965 with those of comparable pupils not in the program to determine possible differences in their written language development. Seventy Negro students were divided by sex and…

Investigates the effects of writing ability and mode of discourse on cognitive capacity engagement across three stages of the composing process, noting that writing ability differentially affected cognitive capacity engagement across discourse modes when using the secondary-task method. (HOD)

The second of three volumes on the relationship between writing research and instruction, this report first describes a 1982 conference on writing policies and problems sponsored by the Educational Research and Development division of the Southwest Regional Laboratory (SWRL) and the California State University, Long Beach. The second section…

Eighteen fourth grade students and twenty sixth grade students participated in a study to determine if there was a significant difference in the quality of written composition among students exposed to the peer editing process as opposed to those exposed to teacher editing. The control group consisted of 8 fourth grade students and 10 sixth grade…

This booklet is one of a series of teacher-written curriculum publications launched by the Bay Area Writing Project, each focusing on a different aspect of the teaching of composition. The basic principles of literary cohesion (the way a text hangs together) are discussed and exercises are suggested to help students increase their sensitivity to…

A total of 113 seventh grade students participated in a study to test the effectiveness of sentence combining practice as a means to significantly improve syntactic and semantic fluency in student writing. Methods included pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest t-unit analyses of syntactic fluency, and four pretest and posttest analyses of…

Intended for preservice and inservice teachers at all educational levels, but especially for those in English education classes, this book examines the foundations of grammar instruction and supplies some definitions and examples of grammar usage. Part one of the book explores relevant language research, reasons for teaching grammar, the…

The purposes of this study were (1) to provide a method for the quantitative study of grammatical (syntactic) structures which is coherent, systematic, and broad, yet capable of refinement to accommodate details, and (2) to search for the developmental trends in the frequency of various grammatical structures written by students of average…

Answers to questions asked of college freshman composition students indicated that one-third lacked confidence in their ability to write because of their ignorance of the rules of grammar and inability to use correct grammar. This may be a result of the textbook presentation of grammar as a straightforward set of rules to be mastered without…

Secondary school students can be taught the skills of precise and complex composition by providing analysis of sentence types. While in the process of learning the formation of complex sentences, students should be given the opportunity to read more complex sentences as well. Christensen's study of modifier types (whether initial, medial, or…

The identification and study of 20 syntactical patterns responsible for much of the structural ambiguity found in literary composition can develop in students an audience awareness. When they realize that such constructions as "a dull boy's knife" and "the club will be open to members from Monday to Thursday" can be misinterpreted, they take more…

The purpose of this study was to describe, analyze, and compare the original writings of two fourth-grade classes. Selected aspects of content and structure were used to determine the effects of an integrated and individualized approach to the teaching of the language arts by the same teacher. The data were collected over a 2-year period. The…

Compositions of 1000 words were collected from 32 eighth-graders and 32 twelfth-graders in Manitowac, Wisconsin. In each grade, 16 males and 16 females were equally distributed into two ability groups based on IQ. Data from the writing samples were analyzed with an analysis of variance in which the factors were grade, sex, and ability level. The…

Students at first, fourth, seventh, and tenth grade levels and at graduate levels chose conjunctions "and" and "but" in two-clause sentences with varying degrees of logical relationship, with similar or contrasting clauses. Grade, type of relationship, and similarity were variables in a 5 x 3 x 2 repeated measures analysis of response to logical…