The first-year composition requirement at Murray State University was revised in 2008 from a 6-credit-hour, two-semester sequence to a 4-credit-hour, one-semester course. The revision overtly emphasizes critical reading, writing, and inquiry, while addressing the realities of the institution's resources for teaching first-year composition. This…

Faculty involved in implementing a grant to incorporate technology into post-secondary ESL teaching and learning describe the coaching model they used to do this. The authors explain how they drew from principles of literacy coaching to develop and implement their model; describe their experiences in working with coachees; discuss technology…

E-book devices (and devices that support e-books) are increasingly being integrated into the working lives of students and teachers. We discuss our pedagogical and institutional experiences with the Sony Reader in composition courses at both the graduate and undergraduate level, reporting on dynamics and challenges associated with three key…

Interviews Susan Miller, a teacher of composition studies and author of well-known articles about the field. Discusses what it means to be able to write, and the cultural forces that have shaped her as a writer and teacher of writing. Argues for a renewed focus on the act of writing and the production of texts. (PM)

Notes that pleasure rarely receives much attention in literacy pedagogy. Argues that while composition should engage in the work of making writing pleasurable, it is equally important to recognize the pleasures that already exist for students and all textual users. Examines a critical reading of textual meaning and sensation. Explores an…

Explores dilemmas that arise as compositionists continue to develop theories and practices of mixed and alternative discourses. Focuses on how composition studies have attached spatial designations to discourses. Notes that the label "home" implies that such discourses have been protected from the onslaughts of a dynamic and changing world's…

Describes the opening of the author's first class teaching "Issues in Composition." Explains that the course started with silence to immediately upset student expectations. Outlines the author's attempts to create a truly student centered class. (PM)

Notes that new teaching assistants (TAs) and first year composition students similarly grapple with ambiguity, multiplicity, and open-endedness. Contends that new TAs' queries and early classroom experiences can provide a valuable occasion to re-balance the emphasis in a pro-seminar between teaching and learning. Presents strategies for addressing…

Presents and discusses three sets of texts that are excerpted from essays written for a second-semester, first-year composition course at a regional public university. Considers the relationship of the linguistic and sociolinguistic markedness of texts. Explores what the sociolinguistic markedness should be in the writing classroom given the…

Describes general characteristics of edited collections and then offers a brief history of the genre in composition studies based in part on the existing data in CompPile, an online and ongoing bibliography. Explores several explanations for the proliferation of edited collections in the field. Makes note of what these explanations can say about…

Argues for the systematic use of patterns of arrangement to order and revise texts for a particular subject matter, purpose, and audience. Illustrates how writers mobilize textual patterns to some tangible effect and, as a consequence, how writing teachers and student-writers can overcome the pragmatic limitations ready-built into arrangement and…

Addresses the need to extend the conversation about critical literacy narratives beyond the composition classroom. Argues that students who plan to enter careers that will require them to produce and distribute written materials benefit greatly from an examination of literacy events in their lives. Describes a pedagogical exercise that attempts to…

Offers an overview of changing attitudes towards the place of mechanics in writing instruction, as documented in "College Composition and Communication" over the 50 years of the journal's existence. Argues that the role of formal correctness within each instructor's teaching depends on the purposes, goals, and contexts of each writing course. (SR)

Argues that writing teachers ultimately need to view their prompts rhetorically. Argues that writing teachers should consider carefully the role that students have as audiences, writing audience responses to teachers' texts through their essays. Argues that a rhetorical analysis of the prompt will help students criticize the cues of a real-world…

Discusses the redistribution of power and authority invited by networked computers. Examines the changing roles of teachers and tutors as they set up and monitor occasions for writing to take advantage of the increased participation and involvement when students write with computers. Discusses how this valuable experience can be most effectively…