Beyond Correctness: The Computer and the Composing Process.

Noting that teachers must devise writing situations that help students see possibilities for revision beyond mechanics and usage, this paper describes several exercises that will help students use the computer or word processor as a tool for assisting them when they write. The exercises, which can be done with or without a microcomputer, with a local area network (LAN), or with time-sharing mini- or mainframe computers, include the following: (1) writing a variation on the themes of a poem on borrowing, (2) generating as many translations as possible of Latin sentences from history and literature, (3) altering sentences with the students' own language, (4) inserting interior monologues into historical speeches or literary soliloquies, (5) writing both a speech or scolding and an interior monologue of the listener's reactions, and (6) writing reactions to the work of peers. The paper also describes ways in which the computer has been successfully incorporated into the classroom and into the English curriculum. Samples of the exercises are appended. (HTH)