There is valuable scholarship on the importance of teaching narratives in the FYC classroom, but none does so through the frame of vulnerability. This paper explores, through an IRB approved case study, how composition teachers can best guide students to write powerful and well-crafted personal narratives to ignite students' own voices, histories,…

This study explores the effectiveness of video demonstrations compared to live classroom visits for promoting writing center services to students in first-year writing courses. Using a randomized cluster experimental design, the researchers implemented either an in-person demonstration, a video demonstration, or no intervention (control). Pre- and…

This case study investigated first-year composition students' perceptions of instructors' written feedback. Participants reported on their understanding of the role of feedback, how they processed feedback, and if and how they used it. Thirty-one participants completed a short online survey; the responses were analyzed to identify students who…

This qualitative study investigates how these students navigate the challenges of academic Discourse communities. Eight first-year students and one composition professor participated in semi-structured interviews, which were thematically coded around two core themes: students' cocreation of identity through writing, family, and university…

This study aims to investigate how engineering undergraduates perform writing transfer from first-year composition (FYC) to engineering writing-in-the major courses. A sample of seventeen engineering students' Junior Writing Portfolios, containing FYC research papers and engineering lab reports, was chosen for analysis in five broad rhetorical…

The purpose of this research is to explore the perceptions of English Foreign Language University students towards online freshman composition courses at the university. The study aims to explore students' perspectives on the course and evaluate the reliability, convergent validity and discriminant validity of the construct among Omani EFL…

This paper examines the use of ChatGPT as an educational tool to teach writing and revision in a first-semester writing course in Fall 2023 at a regional university. The course used ChatGPT as a classroom model to show students how to ethically use generative AI as part of their writing and revision process. One-on-one conferences about student…

The purpose of the study was to validate a writing motivation questionnaire that consists of four scales for first-year college writers--students with low writing skills in basic writing classes and students in typical first-year composition (FYC)--to investigate differences between these two groups and to examine the relationship of motivational…

Background: Upon returning to in-person teaching at Kingsborough Community College after the pandemic, I realized something profound had shifted in my students. The well-documented drop in community college enrollment attributed to the pandemic seemed to reflect deeper disjunctures that had led students to an existential questioning of the purpose…

This paper presents a qualitative study that used student interviews to investigate the influence of non-cognitive barriers on developmental student success in a corequisite first-year composition course that was offered on line following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Students answered open-ended questions about their previous educational…

Mindfulness is rapidly increasing its popularity amongst instructors and administrators in higher education (Bush, 2011; Egras, 2015; Egras and Hadars, 2019; Wenger, 2019). The simplicity of mindfulness makes it an inclusive practice that can be performed by every individual. Further, it is time and cost effective as it only requires a couple of…

Over the past few decades, standards-based educational reforms in the U.S. have sought to enhance students' college and career readiness. The most recent wave of such reforms has emphasized writing as an essential aspect of college readiness and a 21st century skill necessary for success in the workplace. A common feature of these conversations…

This study explores the relationship between the dispositions toward research that writing teachers convey through their assignments and those that their students express in their reflective writing. We applied the term "problem-exploring" to a set of dispositions described by the ACRL Framework and coded each clause of instructor…

Instructors can play an important role in students' transitions to college by explaining academic expectations and offering support. Yet, less is known about college instructors' beliefs about "what" students should do and why. In addition, students' beliefs and experiences regarding what students should do to succeed may not align with…

Dual enrollment has become an embedded aspect of our writing programs yet is still an under-researched area within rhetoric and composition. One reason for this research gap is that many DE students experience their FYC courses on secondary campuses, liminal spaces that are more difficult to access for research. DE students within these spaces…