Information Transfer in the Teaching of Academic Writing.

Recent research indicates that typical writing assignments given to advanced students of English as a second language do not prepare them for university level writing. However, the technique of information transfer, which involves presentation of a visual stimulus to prompt writing, can be used effectively to practice the skills most university-level writing requires--restatement and reorganization of a given body of material. Information transfer may be used to teach the various types of academic discourse commonly encountered by college students: process descriptions, narration, physical description, comparison and contrast, categorizing and listing, cause and effect, and generalizing from numerical data. When using this technique, teachers should always present the visual stimulus to the class in a series of instructional moves paralleling those leading up to a writing assignment in a content course. Six sample visuals are included. (ARH)