English teachers, as well as teachers within other disciplines, often boil down abstract principles to easily explainable bullet points. Students often pick up and retain these points but fail to grasp the broader contexts that make them relevant. It is therefore sometimes helpful to revisit some of the more common of these "rules of thumb" to…

A college English teacher discusses how her experience in learning to play a guitar has illuminated the teaching and learning processes, especially for first-year composition students who are motivated but not talented, or not highly motivated and expect failure. It is concluded that patience and kindness are important teaching tools. (MSE)

A college teacher and student describe the rationale behind collaborative test taking and their efforts to implement it in a freshman English course. The approach, in which students learn to work collaboratively from the beginning of the course, allows participants to solve problems related to a writing task and teaches real-world work skills.…