Advocates the frequent use of journalistic texts for classroom discussions because unplanned material creates a supportive environment. Reports how two groups of students who had failed an upper-division writing exam and who were reluctant to discuss assigned readings, became engaged and careful readers when similar material was presented…

Reviews the scholarship on the connections between meditation and writing. Analyzes objections to the use of meditation in the writing classroom. Relates experiences using meditation techniques with various writing students. Suggests that writing teachers use meditation techniques with apprehensive or blocked writers. (HB)

Investigated the links between second-language classroom anxiety and second-language writing anxiety, as well a their associations with second-language speaking and writing achievement. Findings suggest that second-language classroom anxiety is a more general type of anxiety about learning a second language with a strong speaking-anxiety element,…

Responses from 73 of 100 vocational-technical faculty indicated they were generally not apprehensive about writing. There was a need for emphasizing the writing process in graduate programs and overcoming fear of evaluation of written work and of publishing. There were no differences between two- and four-year faculty. (SK)

Examines the online communications behavior of students with high degrees of writing apprehension as they communicated with both familiar and unknown audiences via Internet newsgroups. Finds that low-apprehensive writers tend to exhibit similar communication strategies in both types of newsgroups, but high-apprehensive writers contributed more and…

Composition teachers and researchers recognize the difficulty young writers, especially females, face as they enter postsecondary education and attempt to learn the language of the academy. Addressing academic audiences "takes confidence and authority, qualities that are often challenged in women because of their historical exclusion from and…

To examine the effects of background and personality on the attitudes of developing writers, a study surveyed and interviewed 17 high school students from a 1988 summer school writing class (an in-house Rural Scholars Program sponsored by the Continuing Education Office at Indiana University of Pennsylvania). Students completed a questionnaire…

Research on the composition process and writing instruction has reiterated that red-pencilling students' literary efforts achieves mostly negative effects. Researchers contend that if teachers ignore the mechanics used (or misused) by beginning writers, if they encourage and stimulate the production of both oral and written language, reward the…

In a study to determine whether the writing apprehension of college writers is diminished by regular freewriting and whether apprehension affects the quality of writing, two experimental classes spent ten minutes freewriting each day while two control classes spent ten minutes on vocabulary building. The pretest and posttest consisted to two…

Offers suggestions to help writing teachers overcome inertia and fear and begin writing themselves. (FL)

Each student has personal fears, anxieties, and insecurities about writing, which are productive only insofar as they force students into a reevaluation of the ways in which they perceive writing. Approached logically from a nonadversarial position, writing fears can easily be dispelled. (MLW)

Analyzes more than 5,000 examples of "self-talk" gathered from blockers and nonblockers during the initiation and completion of writing sessions to reveal seven cognitive components of blocking: work apprehension, procrastination, dysphoria, impatience, perfectionism, evaluation anxiety, and rules. Indicates that blockers are more likely…

Relates writing apprehension to a variety of measures of self-esteem and personality in 13 separate studies. (HOD)

No matter how intimidated or how blocked, any writer can tap into the vast oceans of creativity within by following the exercises in this book. Broken into small steps, each exercise is easy and takes only minutes to do. Yet each one forms a wave that brings with it a rush of ideas, images, and scenes as it crests. Chapters in the book are: (1)…

Treated two groups of academicians (N=10) with writing blocks with contingency management. One group received treatment in individualized therapy. The other group participated in an experiment in which meetings were confined to discussions of contracting and self-monitoring. Both approaches, clinical and experimental, effected stable writing…