This article explores the connections between creating an equitable classroom and antiracist assessment. The article attempts to explain the impact of the equitable classroom on student apathy. Additionally, rigid concepts of "failing" under this equitable classroom model are interrogated. Finally, the article provides some insights into…

In her recent "Teaching English in the Two-Year College" ("TETYC") article, Denise Marchionda argues for a grading system in her first-year writing course that turns over responsibility to students for earning grades. The approach, which she calls "the point-by-point grading system," is a variation on a contract grading approach in which each…

An emphasis on visual rhetoric can be incorporated into a variety of classrooms. This article illustrates teaching visual rhetoric to first-year composition students via interpretation and analysis through a trip to a local art museum for the first essay assignment and through an exploration of photography for the second essay assignment. In the…

In "Funds of Knowledge: Theorizing Practices in Households, Communities, and Classrooms" (Gonzalez, Moll, and Amanti x), a group of K-12 educators conducted ethnographic work on the home lives of their working-class students. With the premise that people are "competent, they have knowledge and their life experiences have given them…

Multimodal writing is considered as a "new" way of composing, or, somewhat cynically, as a strategy for adding relevance or interest to a required composition course. Jody Shipka's "A Multimodal Task-Based Framework for Composing" suggests that "students' uptakes of a much wider, richer repertoire of semiotic resources,…

Composition teachers have generally embraced collaborative learning in the years since Kenneth Bruffee published his first article promoting its advantages in "College English" in 1972. But assigning collaboratively written papers in an introductory college writing course is still rare. This study assesses the benefits and drawbacks of assigning a…

Examines prewriting and writing assignments designed to tighten the continuity between the personal essays typically written in English 101 and the more literature-based essays of English 102. Aims to help students blend personal and public voices. (MG)

Presents teaching tips for (1) generating titles as a prewriting activity; (2) having students write a biography of a classmate; (3) asking students to determine scenarios for their business communication documents; (4) using interviewing as a method of primary research; and (5) sequencing writing assignments to help students clarify their…

Describes a cross-disciplinary research paper assignment in which students engage in original research and interview an expert before researching in the library. (SR)

Describes how the author, in 3 to 4 50-minute class sessions of an entry-level composition course, uses popular culture to help students understand and appreciate the use of irony. (SR)

At the University of Akron, the administration decided to segregate the students previously called "provisional" from the "regular" population. As an open-access institution, the university directly admits only approximately 15 percent of the students to a program of study. The vast majority of students start in University College and transfer to…

Describes an approach to teaching a literature-based first-year composition course that allows students to read poetry and understand it, which in turn helps them to become better writers. Outlines class activities and writing assignments that foster independent thinking and personal writing, finally leading to essays. (HB)

Details a first-year college composition course that blends journalism instruction with first-year composition. Describes how students learn about news gathering and news writing techniques common to feature writing and complete a profile writing project which encourages a level of discourse that bears closer kinship to everyday workplace writing.…

The concept of student voice has become a powerful metaphor in college-level writing class. In this article, the author enthusiastically invites her students to activate their "voices." But like healthy self-concept or freedom or individuality, voice only comes from within. It cannot be given, imposed, and "taught." Too many students seem hesitant…

Describes a research project designed to take students from personal writing to academic writing requiring research and application of documentation skills. Explains that the project involves choosing a career, is divided into four parts, and is completed over a four- to five-week period. (MG)