In this article, the author describes a practice of peer evaluation that she has found fruitful, both for developing students' sense of audience and for elevating the status of peer reviewers, whose opinions on successful writing are too often viewed as less trustworthy than those of their instructors. This technique of peer evaluation involves…

As students increasingly rely on digital media to locate information, composition instructors must incorporate into writing instruction critical evaluation of and reflection on students' use of Web content. A growing problem in the composition class is underdeveloped critical digital literacy skills. To become fully literate, students need more…

The mock research paper combines creative writing with academic writing and, in the process, breaks down that binary. This article describes a writing assignment that offers an introduction to the college research paper genre. This assignment helps students focus on crafting an argument and learning genre conventions while postponing until the…

Implementing deracination and the Detached Intellectual Space (D.I.S.)--components of a developing critical thinking pedagogy termed "decritique"--offer a more critically reflective alternative to classroom peer-review activities that mistakenly focus on a "notion of caring." Working within a theoretical framework drawn from Derrida and Bakhtin,…

Notes how students learn to examine multiple elements of a text with critical perspective making analogies between others' writing and their own. Concludes that students may only have one opportunity to workshop their writing, but that intense learning experience, coupled with critical responses to another 20 or so drafts, coaxes writers into…

In this article, I examine Lynn Truss's book of punctuation rules and faux pas, "Eats, Shoots & Leaves," contemplating the complex relationships among class, academics, and language snobbery. I don't refute Truss's lessons on punctuation. Instead, I use her text as a jumping-off point for discussion of the social issues embedded in her guide and…