Since writing in the disciplines (WID) is focused on learning how to write formal documents of a professional register, it is important to note that each field or discipline has its own style, structure, and format when it comes to writing, and most composition courses seldom facilitate the transfer of these specialized skills in the classroom.…

During Charles Dickens's lifetime, education publications such as "The Union Sixth Reader" already shared methods for teaching his works. "The Union Sixth Reader" gives evidence to educational concerns surrounding the best uses of language, as though Dickens's turns of phrase could empower students. Today, educators may not…

A central objective of many writing courses is to prepare students to effectively communicate in their personal, professional, and public lives, but writing instruction can seem disconnected from contemporary societal practices that constitute civil public discourse. This project aims to explore the connections between instructors' perceptions and…

In this article, the author discusses composition studies by examining how incorporating "songwriting" into a first-year writing course enables students to begin expressing their own ideas/perspectives, while also developing the ability to create the concise, detailed texts associated with academic writing. The discussion offers a…

The kind of writing the author is describing in the article is fostered by academic discourse, which, as Peter Elbow has persuasively argued, "tries to peel away from messages the evidence of how those messages are situated as the center of personal, political, or cultural interest." He goes on, "the conventions [of academic…

Looking to the possibility that interdisciplinary, thematic courses can build student confidence in the writing process, this essay argues that a first-year writing course that combines close attention to rhetorical skills, readings about an interdisciplinary field, and a carefully scaffolded assignment sequence enhances the potential transfer of…

Based on perceived student resistance to peer review, we conducted a study to lessen this resistance and demystify the writing process for STEM students. While many composition theorists advocate for peer review in the classroom, its application at a STEM institution remains underexamined. To foster student engagement with peer review, we…

To help many students stay in college today, faculty need to advise students in areas such as financial struggles, coping with stress, mental or physical issues, and family pressures as much as they need to advise them about what classes to take. But what Erin Clair found in surveying the faculty at Arkansas Tech University and in the surveys of…

This article presents an approach to fiction devoted to detailing, visually presenting, and analyzing structural patterns in the literary text. This enhanced formalism will be illustrated with elementary examples ranging from the world of music to the world of the Brothers Grimm. Employing this "architectonic" approach would complement…

This article, based on Andrea Walsh's teaching experience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), focuses on a strategy to inspire students to approach the revision process proactively with imagination and critical insight: envisioning essays as documentary films. It first looks at some central tasks of revision and then explores the…

Information literacy has become one of the most essential skills we teach undergraduates. One highly effective way of teaching this skill is to put students in the active role of the mediator by asking them to produce a critical edition of an existing, open-access text. The process of inserting explanatory footnotes, writing introductory material,…

The findings from this multiple case study research project on the use of cooperative learning (specifically affinity groups) among developmental college students demonstrate that students benefited from from building community and becoming interdependent. Four themes that emerged from this study, (a) accountability, (b) building…

This essay describes an adaptable, multimodal assignment in which students create a comic in lieu of a traditional essay or exam. I outline the theoretical and practical value of this assignment and provide a detailed description of its implementation in two different literature courses: an introduction to the major course and a course on…

This paper reviews the debate over the use of trigger warnings when teaching sensitive material and discusses the importance of teaching difficult texts in light of troubling subject matter. The argument is that trigger warnings may provide students with the opportunity to manage their stress and anxiety when encountering material that may be…

William Blake's poetry seeks to inspire readers to participate in the construction of an intellectual community that he calls "Jerusalem." This process remains ever incomplete and is, in a sense, incompletable, for the work of producing such a community involves "continually building & continually decaying"…