DESCRIPTORS Elementary Secondary Education; Instructional Design;

A synthesis of research on teaching composition and on effective schooling, this report reviewed 36 documents to present findings on: writing as a process; instructional practices; instructional modes; and teacher training. As the major general finding from the research the report identifies, higher student achievement when the teaching approach emphasizes writing as a process (involving stages of prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publication) rather than writing as a product. The rep-rt reviews research on the effectiveness of practices used in teaching writing, involving grammar instruction, sentence combining, providing a language-rich environment, teacher and peer evaluation, frequency ami amount of writing, sequenced writing, models, writing across the curriculum, and word processing. Three instructional modes were discussed in the report along with their effectiveness: the presentational mode; the natural process mode; and the environmental mode. In general, the composition research reviewed in the report corroborates the general effective schooling research; what works in a general way also works in this specific curricular area. Thirty-nine annotated references conclude the report. (SR) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document