Presents a 30-month case study of how one business writer made decisions concerning audience. Suggests that audience theory does not adequately describe the cognitive and social decisions writers make in real-world professional contexts, with intrinsic internal factors such as writer's creditability, financial rewards, and promotions affecting…

Offers excerpts from Kenneth Koch's classic book in which he tells how he and Kate Farrell taught poetry writing to elderly people in a nursing home. Describes four poetry writing classes, first giving students' poems, then Koch's commentary. (PA)

States that persuasion as a discourse mode in composition classrooms tends to emphasize conflict and polarize students' positions. Proposes a "negotiative" mode of writing, focusing on the reader to achieve a cooperative settlement to opposing argument positions. Uses strategies including dialogic styles and structures that address issues of…

States that Crystal Eastman and Alice Hamilton, organizers of the Workers' Health Bureau, helped shape the early 20th-century health and safety communication field by targeting texts to professional and popular audiences which sought to prevent occupational accidents and disease by promoting voluntary efforts by employers, government regulation,…

Studied how preacademic students acquired revision strategies based upon their individual cognitive abilities. Revision Cuing Devices, teacher intervention and student reaction, peer support and collaboration, think-aloud protocols, and holistic assessments were used to develop individual strategies. Eventually revision support faded without signs…

Reviews an instructional strategy for remedial writers which consists of four steps: identifying a strategy worth teaching; introducing the strategy by modeling it; helping students to try it out with workshop-style teaching guidance; and then, helping students to work toward independent mastery. (TB)

Presents ways in which thematization can be used to control hortatory rhetoric, including varying the complexity of thematic structure and varying the amount of discourse participant themes. The article examines how different choices of thematic progression as text organizers can produce different effects and finds correlations with the…

Presents the idea that students should develop different writing styles. Encourages writing poetry regularly. Focuses on the need for a student to develop a prose style from his or her culture. Encourages students to develop professional, academic writing. (PM)

Describes how the author asks students to turn off their monitors (literally and figuratively) and key into their "processors." Describes a tactile writing exercise to emphasize the sensation, the feel, that "writing with flow" generates. Notes that this experience of flow is vital to his vocation as a writer and as a writing instructor. (SG)

Proposes that the qualities of nonsequentiality that make hypertext appealing to writers and readers of informative and literary texts are also those that problematize arguments in the same settings. Contends that for a hypertextual argument to succeed, it should clearly employ the fundamentals of giving good reasons and ample evidence. Presents a…

The 1987 teacher of the year from Wisconsin describes ways in which he implements the writing process among third and fourth graders. Sometimes using his own writing as a model, he shares the processes of brainstorming, drafting, revising, and publication with the students. (DG)

Argues for a contingency view of communication clarity and effectiveness based on the impact that an organization's language customs have on perceived effectiveness. Examines the psychological-social function of organizational language and discusses the role that language has in creating new knowledge in organizations. (KEH)

Reviews three professional resources which discuss the issue of the best time to present specific components of the language arts curriculum. (MG)

Cites essays by Joan Didion, John Berryman, and Martin Luther King in arguing that the essay, no matter how serious, can be considered as a fiction and a playful, exploratory and deeply interesting rhetorical game. Describes how these works were used to teach students that the essay is a living document calling for interaction. (SG)

Describes an introductory creative writing lesson in which students gave low grades to passages they later learned were written by William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway. Reports that the students graded mainly on mechanics and grammar (and very little on content). Notes that students began to learn to manipulate the various aspects of writing. (RS)