Mainstream writing instruction risks marginalising non-dominant voices if not consciously adapted using critical multicultural frameworks. This study analyses Mary Lynn Rampolla's widely used "A Pocket Guide to Writing" in History through a Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) lens, taking notes on voice, power dynamics, and…

Teaching writing is complex and research related to approaches that support students' understanding and outcomes in written assessment is prolific. Written aspects including text structure, purpose, and language conventions appear to be explicit elements teachers know how to teach. However, more qualitative and nuanced elements of writing such as…

The science of reading movement has done much to improve instruction in foundational skills. But that hard-won progress may be reversed unless we also help children acquire the knowledge and vocabulary they need to understand complex text. At the same time, the science of learning movement has introduced many educators to evidence-based teaching…

This article reviews and responds to recent (re)turns to and reconceptualizations of contract grading in the teaching of writing. I reflect on my own experience using contract grading in a variety of pedagogical contexts, and how this experience complicates scholarship on contract grading (now rebranded as labor-based grading and engagement-based…

In this article, the author reflected on the challenges and opportunities that emerged as they introduced climate fiction, or cli-fi reading and writing into the curriculum, including the author's attempts to navigate the politics of the genre, activate the students' imagination and interest, and invite the students to become creators as well as…

This opinion paper focuses on foregrounding the issue of the hidden curriculum in L2 writing and how addressing its negative sides can greatly move forward our understanding of students' writing learning experiences and further promote more effective and equal writing teaching. Specifically, this paper argues that the negative sides of the hidden…

Writing workshop, as conceived by Donald Graves and other US researchers in the 1980s, positively transformed the writing instruction of many teachers. However, others experienced considerable challenges as they tried to create workshop classrooms. This article examines the three historical conditions that defined workshop: (1) choice, (2) time…

This article presents a constructivist writing placement framework, developed from the study of two pilot iterations of a local writing placement mechanism at a large public research university. Through preliminary analysis of data from these pilots, we present a model of constructivist writing placement and demonstrate how it helps move…

There is a lack of evidence-based, culturally relevant instructional approaches, especially in writing instruction, that are designed to meet deaf and hard of hearing students' diverse language needs. This article describes the three main guiding principles and two supporting principles of the Strategic and Interactive Writing Instruction…

This essay presents a reflective account of the origin story of a linguistics justice initiative within the writing center. It concludes by posing questions aimed at promoting dialogue among writing center practitioners as they consider similar initiatives within their own contexts.

This article reviews contributions to teaching reading and writing of Myriam Nemirovsky, whose conceptualization foreshadowed an emancipatory pedagogy. To do so, we have reviewed her work and interviewed three of her colleagues: Elena Laiz Sasiain, Liliana Tolchinsky Brenman and Francesco Tonucci. In the first part we recount key moments in…

Prescriptive discourse, which favors certain variants over others, like "different from" vs. "different than," has usually been characterized in terms of correctness in spelling, punctuation, word meaning, or grammar. Yet usage guides in the 20th century have added numerous entries that focus more on style considerations than…

In this article, University of Maryland writing program administrators Alexis Walston and Jessica Enoch explore the "Composition Studies" archive and its trove of articles from 1972 to the present with a focus on the emotive dimension of teaching and administration. As Walston and Enoch have worked to support a large community of…

There is valuable scholarship on the importance of teaching narratives in the FYC classroom, but none does so through the frame of vulnerability. This paper explores, through an IRB approved case study, how composition teachers can best guide students to write powerful and well-crafted personal narratives to ignite students' own voices, histories,…

This integrative research review explores in what ways multimodal writing, a newer writing approach, can promote multilingual adolescents' writing growth. This research review finds that multimodal writing benefit multilingual learners in providing flexibility in meaning making process, expanding and deepening learners' understanding of writing in…