The treatment of a research paper as an isolated utterance within a composition classroom is problematic in that such papers may fail to encourage transfer of writing knowledge. In this essay, I argue that a research paper's failure to work as a utterance situated within a conversation--as critiqued through a framework constructed by Mikhail…

Participation, a commonly graded component of composition classrooms, is rarely the focus of current research studies. While some discussions have addressed grading practices or ways to increase participation, student and instructor voices have yet to be included in studies of classroom participation in composition courses. Yet these voices are…

This article presents the techniques used by six teachers for their writing classes. To help her students get their topics on paper, Carrie DuPre instructs her students to call themselves on their cellphones and leave themselves a message on voice mail. Samm Erickson asks his students with laptops to be "the researchers" in their literature class.…