At the beginning of each school year, the Languages and Humanities Division at Chandler-Gilbert Community College (CGCC) meets to discuss first-year composition matters. Faculty leave the workshop renewed by the collaboration and buoyed by the promise and potential of a new semester. Yet, when classes actually begin, faculty may find that they are…

In two-year college writing classrooms and beyond, peer review is one of the most widely used tools for helping students improve their writing. Despite its widespread usage, however, it is one of the most diffuse, inconsistent, and ambiguous practices associated with writing instruction. This essay aims to explore the widely varying terminology…

Describes the job of a technical editor. (MKM)

Discusses the development of "Teaching English in the Two-Year College," a journal designed to serve the special needs of community college English faculty. Discusses success and subsequent growth of the journal and considers the different subject matters addressed throughout the first five developmental years of the journal. (SC)

Presents five activities: (1) transforming--requires that a student put aside a first draft and create a new piece on the same subject in a different genre; (2) meaningless words--encourages deleting unnecessary words; (3) group work; (4) definitions quiz; and (5) audience, synthesis, and the thematic analysis--considering these three when writing…

Indicates that using highlighters to mark errors produced a 76% class improvement in removing comma errors and a 95.5% improvement in removing apostrophe errors. Outlines two teaching procedures, to be followed before introducing this tool to the class, that enable students to remove errors at this effective rate. (JD)

Shows how an editing assignment emphasizing punctuation can help students in a first-year writing class discover new ideas and perspectives as part of the revision process. Considers a class that experimented with editing punctuation for a dual purpose--as a revision heuristic as well as for correctness. Reconsiders editing and revision…

Describes a writing class activity to encourage peer feedback when peers are reluctant to give it. Notes how it invites personal dialectic and critical analysis while protecting the writer's originality and sense of control. (SR)

Claims recent research involving premature editing--thinking aloud for the study--is too narrow in scope to allow for basic writers whose writing processes do not resemble the model. Using eight basic writers produces evidence to support the claim that many or most basic writers can write without editing prematurely.(NH)

Describes how a writing teacher used Classroom Assessment Techniques to improve the functioning of editing groups in her classroom, involving students directly and honestly in classroom management and evaluation of instruction. (SR)

Argues that a computer-integrated classroom for basic writers can build community and enhance peer response. (TB)

Provides beginning writers and their instructors with an oral proofreading technique to reduce student errors by 40-50 percent. (CRH)