Demonstrates how composition textbook advertisements suggest, project, and perhaps even create an audience. Proposes four different audience-related elements of the ad-object: context, genre, borrowings, and reflexivity. (MS)

Reviews a survey of members of the College Section of the National Council of Teachers of English concerning their use of grading scales in the evaluation of freshman writing. Concludes that the theoretical interest in the scales is apparently not matched by their use by teachers. (FL)

Responds to an article appearing in an earlier issue of the journal that discussed the relationship between social-cognitive ability and writing skill. Reports on a study that investigated the relationship and found that social cognitive ability was more closely related to oral than to written performance. (FL)

Explores features of conference proposals submitted to the Conference on College Composition in 1989, 1990, and 1992--345 abstracts in total. Results showed that successful abstracts were more likely to follow generic qualities associated with "unsolicited proposals"; foundational discourse remained constant throughout the abstracts but…

Presents a description and qualitative case study of three high school classrooms, in two of which the teachers actively elicited student dialog and thereby improved writing. Draws on M. Bakhtin, R. Rommetveit and Y. M. Lotman to suggest that a combination of writing and dialogue (spoken interaction) lead to more chances to learn than either…

Examines the reading and writing strategies of one student over a three-year period and traces the process she went through to acquire college-level academic literacy in English, her second language. Suggests that the student's educational background shaped her approach to United States academic discourse practices. (TB)

Considers two competing accounts of how writers construct meaning, the designative tradition (which holds that speech artifacts mediate people's thinking) and the expressive tradition (which focuses on the transformation of inner speech to public speech). Show how one student's writing experiences reveal the interrelated roles of these two…

Elaborates and evaluates a sociolinguistic framework for the study of writing. Discusses application of the framework to the writing that takes place at a local government office. Finds that the workplace constitutes a communicative group of the local-public type, where communication is socially based and hierarchically structured with both spoken…

Compares textual notes taken by seventh-grade students on the 1954 school desegregation case, "Brown v. Board of Education," to those taken by legal professionals. Shows that the students rejected what they saw as violations of conventions of Supreme Court argument, while the winning argument in the actual case plays with conventions by…

Examines the linguistic processes through which a projected effect is constructed within factual discourse. Applies critical linguistic analysis to coverage of the 1990 Gulf War in the "New York Times" and "Washington Post." Expands on work in critical linguistics and demonstrates how political interests underlying newspaper…

Examines the use of ironic quotation in academic writing. Considers differences in irony within published exchanges, conference discussions, and unpublished papers. Argues that irony begins with rhetorical relations (between quoting writer, quoted writer, and reader) which leads to discipline-specific assumptions and interpretations. (KEH)

Reappraises conventional distinctions between oral-like and literate-like discourse, particularly Tannen's distinction between involvement focus and message focus. Treats message as an embodiment of involvement, and cohesion as an aspect of a developing writer-reader relationship. Offers speculations for rethinking "literate…

Presents a study of the grammatical subjects as used in scientific discourse. Provides evidence that the grammatical subjects in a sample of scientific discourse are markedly long. Identifies three pressures that operate on scientists to produce such markedly long grammatical subjects. (HB)

Explores how ninth- and eleventh-grade students reformulated their initial written analyses of two short stories through revisions fostered by between-draft written comments. Indicates significant effects for response condition and grade level. Analyzes data collected in two response modes: directive and dialogue. (HB)

Presents a case study of a fourth-grade student who learned to participate in the literacy community of her classroom by writing letters. Claims that letter writing aided this student in gaining confidence and skill. Discusses implications of this study for forging a new pedagogy of writing. (HB)