This article explores the "scope," "foundation," and "application" of autoethnography in first-year composition and critical thinking classrooms. I broaden autoethnography's scope from Mary Louise Pratt's focus on colonial power dynamics to engage rhetoric, discourse, ideology, and materiality at large. I argue that…

In this study, we examine the use of community-engaged writing pedagogy and the authentic, contextualized writing projects it creates to determine if students better understand the concept of audience and incorporate that foundational knowledge into their writing process. Thematic analysis of student reflections and interviews found students view…

In first-year writing (FYW), instructors want students to understand how reading texts in particular ways affects how and what they learn and, in turn, how and what they might communicate to their own readers. Because students tend to come to FYW predisposed to notice more visual aspects (e.g., headings, bulleted lists) than verbal aspects (e.g.,…

This paper focuses on a pedagogical and instructional approach to engaging students in the classroom with the specific activity of a writing prompt, which utilizes a short video about current events and trends coupled with writing and discussion. This strategy allows active student learning in which the students engage, develop critical thinking…

The role of reflection in the learning process has taken on new significance in a digital environment. The potential of using innovative teaching methods to prompt first-year writing students to self-regulate learning behaviors and write more critical reflection statements when using electronic portfolios was studied over eight fall semesters.…

The first reading assignment one educator gives his first-year composition students helps answer their questions about what college work will be like. For this reason, he gives them Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death" to read, a book which shows that the late 20th century is undergoing a vast epistemological shift, moving from…

The computer and the World Wide Web must be recognized for the new and different slant that they can offer to the assignments in writing classes, including as a method of embodiment for M. Bakhtin's concept of dialogism. While students encounter articles and approaches to controversial issues, many will not attempt to understand or embrace the…

The freshman research paper is the most institutionalized writing assignment in the academy, with the possible exception of the dissertation, and the research paper in general (of which the dissertation may be a species) is the most institutionalized genre of student writing, at least in the humanities. First, the research paper is the most…

Integrating up-to-date composition theory with pedagogical research in critical thinking and inquiry, this book presents a flexible organizational structure to accommodate a range of freshman composition course designs and to engage students intellectually in problem-centered writing activities to prepare them for academic tasks across the…

By linking a first-year writing class and an introductory chemistry class at Utica College of Syracuse University (Syracuse, New York) the instructor hoped to foster camaraderie among the students; help students see the connections between the two disciplines; and disrupt students' pattern of unquestioning acceptance of the authority of the…

A study examined whether assigning students to write analytically in response to video texts can lead to students becoming more critical viewers of television. A 30-second television commercial was shown to a freshman composition class with limited visual literacy training and to a class without such media literacy training. Students in both…