This book emphasizes the role of critical thinking and reading skills in the development of persuasive writing. The book also introduces several different methods to teach argument (for example, those of Aristotle, Stephen Toulmin, and Carl Rogers) as a way of giving students the freedom to find the systems that work best for them and to find ways…

Popcorn story frames from a multicultural perspective are holistic outlines that in the reading/writing process facilitate comprehension for all cultures learning to read and write stories. Popcorn story frames are structured and modeled in a horizontal fashion just like popcorn pops in a horizontal fashion. The frames are designed for learners…

With the recent interest in the fifth century B.C. theories of Protagoras and Gorgias come assumptions about the philosophical affinity of the Greek educator Isocrates to this pair of older sophists. Isocratean education in discourse, with its emphasis on collaborative political discourse, falls within recent definitions of a sophist curriculum.…

This paper presents "popcorn story frames"--holistic outlines that facilitate comprehension when reading and writing stories, useful for outlining stories read and for creating outlines for original student stories--that are particularly useful for elementary and intermediate school students. "Popcorn" pops in a horizontal…

To become writers, students must see themselves as writers and be treated as writers by their teachers. Students need to find the motivation to go beyond formulas, to grapple with messy, often inchoate ideas, to find their own particular angle of vision. What rhetoricians call "invention" or "discovery" is difficult to pin…

This booklet offers practical ideas, specific examples, and realistic solutions to the most common writing problems that administrators face. The booklet's four chapters are: (1) Writing Basics (ideas on organization, reasons to write, writers' responsibilities, getting personal, and writing for a particular occasion); (2) Getting Started (getting…

Freewriting, according to Peter Elbow, is based on an equal affirmation of the student's experience, and his or her right to ground behaviors and writing in those experiences. Insofar as the term "free" in freewriting can be linked to a notion that expression is an event which occurs between a socially and culturally autonomous subject…

In this article, the author notes that it is not an uncommon scenario for a student assigned an argumentative paper in the composition classroom to appropriate a "hot" topic from the currency of public discourse, one for which they often already have a pre-formed opinion that becomes codified simultaneously with the need to formulate a…

This workbook is intended to aid in the preparation of the New York State Conservation/Preservation Discretionary Grant Program application and should be used in conjunction with the current Discretionary Grant Guidelines. The workbook contains hints on grant writing, a completed sample cover sheet and other application forms, good and…

A course in speech writing (preparing speeches for delivery by another person) is critical to the development of public speaking skills for college students. Unlike the traditional public speaking course, speech writing classes emphasize the preparation of the content of a speech over the delivery of the message. Students develop the ability to…

Individuals mostly write texts which are directed to other persons, the readers. Even though individuals cannot rely on immediate reactions, as in spoken dialogue, they are nevertheless able to communicate successfully with them. A writing experiment focused on the role of the addressee in the writing process. Writers grouped in pairs were asked…

A study investigated the effects of four writing strategies on fifth graders' idea production across three aims of discourse (informative, expressive, and persuasive) and the effect of gender. The four strategies tested were clustering, drawing, freewriting, and thinking. More than 100 children from varied socioeconomic backgrounds and ethnic…

This paper describes, reflects on, and analyzes the process of engaging student writers in a creative-critical writing workshop in which they not only work toward presenting a portfolio of original work, but are engaged in performance, dramatic intervention, and creative challenges to texts. The paper explains how students are invited to meet…

This article suggests one way of categorizing types of factual writing and introduces a teaching strategy for developing students' awareness of structural and language features of many factual genres. It is based on genre theory and the idea that generic structures of texts are determined by the purpose of the text. Six nonfiction genres are…

This article offers ideas as to how students can collaborate as they learn about and utilize a variety of text types (also known as rhetorical modes). The article begins with explanations of the teaching of text types and cooperative learning. The longest section of the article consists of examples of ways that students can use cooperative…