Discusses the preperation necessary for children's poetic expression of creativity, the teachers role and the process by which the children can be aided to write poetry. (RB)

Ascertaining that the college freshman and professional writing he analyzed did not differ significantly in the rank order or frequency with which transitional devices were used in description, author advises that it may be a waste of time to teach high school and college students these devices as if they were not already a basic component of…

This article is based on the Ganienkeh settlement founded by a group of Mohawk Indians determined to find their way back to their traditional way of life, their original homelands and self government. (RTS)

Suggests ways to help students revise their written compositions by teaching them to "see" their work again. (DF)

Included among the 10 commandments for good writing are: (1) Write with verbs and nouns; (2) Write for yourself and other people; (3) Do not write in jargon; (4) Read aloud your writing; (5) Do not write cluttered sentences; and (6) Use concrete words and phrases. (JN)

A college technical writing class project on preparing an instruction manual for a toy race-car set not only showed that the students recognized their audience and used appropriate language, but also provided subject matter for other coursework. (RL)

Two studies involving 177 undergraduates examined the effects that mental representations derived from maps and verbal descriptions have on the recall of facts from a text. Findings suggest that there may be fundamental differences between visual and verbal representations of the same space. (SLD)

Explains a descriptive analysis exercise based on Chapter 99 of "Moby Dick." Notes that students are given a description of a coin, asked to draw the coin, and then freewrite about what they and their classmates have drawn. States that the exercise is intended to illustrate the relationship between objective and subjective description.…

Presents suggestions for teaching students about poetry by using pets. The article recommends discussing poems about pets, writing with rhyme to describe pets, writing free-verse sketches about pets, collaboratively describing pets, and studying line breaks by writing one-line descriptions of imaginary pets. A reproducible teacher page offers two…

Describes how a writing teacher has his students write about one object in the four modes (description, narration, argumentation, and exposition) as a means of learning about writing and writing to learn. Suggests that students learn about their topics when they write about them in the four modes. (SR)

Analysis of descriptive reports about individuals with autism included case studies, diagnostic reports, single-subject research studies, family accounts, and autobiographies. Seven distinct types of descriptions were identified, including a child on a specific occasion, typical behavior, what a child should have done, how behavior was…

Describes a writing assignment (useful for junior high through college age students) that seeks to improve students' descriptive writing through a set of class writing assignments using visual and concrete objects. Allows students to gain awareness, gain knowledge and discuss it, and ask questions as a body of learners rather than in isolation.…

Presents a functional grammatical analysis of the writing that 128 seventh- and eighth-grade students produced in response to their science teacher's directive to describe a picture. Identifies the register elements of the task and the grammatical difficulties it posed for students. Shows that teachers can help students use grammatical resources…

Advice on writing the history of a college is offered. Until recently, there appear to have been few examples of rigorous, ongoing programs to record the facts regarding the founding and development of colleges. One problem is that much of the historical and detailed information relative to the development of colleges is not found in one…

Based on courses showing teachers how to use many kinds of objects to teach writing and stimulated by ideas from teachers across the country, this booklet contains suggestions for helping students improve their writing. The booklet discusses writing about objects as a process involving the following steps: making observations and gathering data,…