For the past ten years, the author has been teaching a dual credit college first-year writing course to seniors in high school. In this article, the author presents a framework for writing instruction and evaluation that centers on students responding to current topics and issues through digital writing for an authentic audience.

The authors designed an assignment for a writing class for late-secondary and early-college students, one with a central goal of giving students the opportunity to engage with a controversial topic by identifying and representing views other than their own. The authors called it a "not my opinion" assignment, and they piloted it in a…

The emphasis on college and career readiness has transformed secondary classrooms into sites for innovative explorations in disciplinary literacy. The exigencies of valuing classroom experiences as preparation for students' future involvement in their careers has created teaching spaces that invite cross- disciplinary, cross- level collaboration.…

This article argues for the importance of teaching research as a creative practice. The authors recommend geography and conversation as generative metaphors for teaching and learning creative research methods, offering examples from their undergraduate composition courses. Creating knowledge as a researcher requires posing the question to be…

This article focuses on writing instruction and seeks to: (1) define the expectations of first-year composition (FYC) programs; (2) consider the factors shaping high school writing instruction; and (3) explore the gap between the goals of each. The authors have interviewed secondary writing teachers and college first-year composition instructors…

High school teacher J. Arias employs a research method from anthropology to motivate students to research and write. Learning to use the methods and perspectives of ethnography, students become critical viewers and thinkers, able to connect the themes of literary works to their lives and to critique the variety of texts that surround them. Arias…

Describes a collaborative writing assignment devised for a first-year composition class. Outlines how the assignment was undertaken and carried out by the students. Provides background on the theoretical literature concerning collaborative writing. (HB)

Presents a conversation between the teacher of a first-year college composition course and a high school English/language arts teacher regarding what they do in the college composition course. Offers students' insights and suggestions about how they might most effectively be prepared for such a course. (SR)

Lists the characteristics that college instructors expect in first-year writing. Suggests ways that a writing instructor can resist such simplistic expectations. Provides five basic strategies for subverting these expectations. (HB)

Reports on two studies conducted in college freshman composition classes dealing with gender-based variations in verbal behavior. For an in-class assignment, students described two objects, a metal washer and a piece of cloth; for an out-of-class assignment, students wrote a letter to a landlord asking for a $300 deposit refund which had been…