In the best of times, students training to be writing center consultants are empowered to work creatively with writers and professors as part of an integrated enterprise that contributes to teaching and learning on their campuses. In the worst of times, students training to be writing center consultants are disempowered, caught between faculty and…

Discusses the problems that teachers face in dealing with developmental writers, including (1) why they are academically disadvantaged, (2) where to begin instruction, (3) how to determine assignments, and (4) how to evaluate their progress. (JD)

Although writing instructors have a clear picture of how well our students can write by the end of a composition course, very rarely do we learn how well the students carry over the skills and strategies we teach them to the essays they write for other courses. I collected essays from other courses to determine how effectively students transfer…

When teaching writing, a teacher never knows when a student will truly grasp the importance of the lesson being presented. Teachers know that some students will see the relevance, while others may not immediately grasp the value of what they present in the classroom. In order to convince students they should actively participate in his technical…

Describes five activities for college writing courses: (1) sports as a literary topic; (2) paragraph descriptions of a favorite meal; (3) interdisciplinary team teaching in the humanities; (4) use of "real" letters and memoranda in a technical writing course; and (5) a word-strength chart for a poetry-writing class. (MM)