In a study designed to analyze faculty and student perceptions of the value of digital writing in the first year composition classroom, 21 first-year college students and a nationwide sample of 50 college composition teachers participated in conceptualizing digital multimodal composition and defining the benchmarks for first-year college digital…

Argues that digressiveness enables the effective writer to avoid the limitations of the small thesis statement and to explore freely thought and experiences. Describes several kinds of digression, including: Platonic thesis; structural; the example "digressio"; figurative; modification; monistic; allusive; and Dali. (RS)

A freshman writing assignment sequence encouraged students to use metaphors to think their way through scientific topics, improving their writing skills in the process. The students were all women, aged 18 to 48 years, who had been journal writing for several months but who did not consider themselves competent readers or writers. Reading material…