| Abstract: | This study was designed to determine the effectiveness of intensive in-class guidance of daily writing practice in freshman English composition courses as opposed to the presently practiced procedures in the course. The study involved 568 themes written by 142 students enrolled in six classes at UWM. Four groups were taught according to a workshop method developed by two instructors in English and an educational psychologist. Two groups were taught according to the procedures outlined in the freshman composition syllabus. An evaluation chart was developed by the three instructors and four complete sets of themes were graded once each by three raters. The hypothesis–there will be a significant difference in the grade achievement on selected freshmen English essays based on differences in instructional procedures between two control and four experimental groups–was supported. Since major variables of initial superiority of any writing group, variation in grading practices, and effect on students of theme assignments per se were not shown to be significant, it was concluded that the instructional procedures affected the grade achievement of the groups involved. |
