This study was designed to determine (a) whether the writing of persuasive discourse can be improved by instruction and (b) the effect of reading on writing and of writing on reading within the mode of persuasion. Students in two sixth-grade classes in each of two schools (n= 110) were stratified by sex and ability and randomly assigned to one of four treatment groups: 1. instruction in a model for persuasion plus writing practice; 2. instruction in a model for persuasion plus reading practice; 3. reading novels and writing book reports plus a single lesson in the persuasion model; 4. reading novels and writing book reports (control group). Instruction was given for ten 45-minute lessons over five weeks. Pretests and posttests each consisted of writing a recall protocol of a persuasive text and writing two persuasive compositions. On the posttest, both the writing and the reading groups (groups 1 and 2) scored significantly higher than the control group on writing quality, on the organization of compositions, on the number of conclusions and text markers used, and on the degree of elaboration of reasons. There were no differences between the control group and other groups on reading recall scores.

Twenty-three stimulating papers, including essays by Peter Elbow, Donald Murray, and William Strong, selected from the more than sixty presented at the Second Miami University Conference on Sentence Combining and the Teaching of Writing.Sentence combining has not only survived the paradigm shift in the teaching of writing but continues to stimulate provocative, creative thinking about the writing process itself. No longer an end in itself, but a tool, sentence combining has become a method of teaching about ways of thinking, of perceiving, and of organizing reality.

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