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…

With sustainability becoming a familiar concept in society, higher education institutions have also started playing a more active role in this field, showing an increasing interest in students' comprehension of sustainability. This interest has led to the need for developing methods of assessing students' sustainability knowledge, as observed in…

This article explores the connections between creating an equitable classroom and antiracist assessment. The article attempts to explain the impact of the equitable classroom on student apathy. Additionally, rigid concepts of "failing" under this equitable classroom model are interrogated. Finally, the article provides some insights into…

I have always valued reflection highly -- as a means of developing as a writer and as a life practice -- but I have been disappointed by the lack of thought resembling reflection when asking students to write about their writing practices. This dissertation presents the results of a grounded theory study of student reflective assignments through a…

This article presents the results of a 2016 classroom research study assessing the impact of open pedagogy on student skills mastery in English 101, a first-year undergraduate composition course at a two-year community college in North America. Ninety-two students in five sections used the same free OER course materials, but two sections were…

This study explores the pedagogical effectiveness of assignments developed for a first-year composition course to encourage reflexive reading habits that can aid students in the writing process. Students in this course were asked to articulate the connections they found between multimodal texts of their own choosing and texts assigned by their…

We needed to provide options and to create space for first-year writing courses at a growing tier-one, four-year, public university. Therefore, three faculty members--the program director, the associate director, and a full-time teaching fellow--collaborated to create, pilot, and assess a hybrid version of our writing course. The teaching fellow…

Process-based composition pedagogy has ignored the question of "doneness": the criteria used to decide when a piece of writing is complete. This article uses survey results from first- and second-year composition courses to challenge common beliefs about how students determine when writing assignments are sufficiently completed. We find…

Writing educators have long sought to disrupt academic convention. However, we currently know little about students' affective experiences when they are asked to compose differently. This article explores the results of a research study to illuminate the feelings and attitudes students experience when convention is disrupted and offers pedagogical…

My fulfillment in life comes through helping others develop their potential, work through their troubles, and follow their dreams. I have found that my college students embrace this aspect as I teach them expressive, author-involved writing. Peter Elbow's work asserts that this type of writing fits into his theory of personal development, which is…

In "Funds of Knowledge: Theorizing Practices in Households, Communities, and Classrooms" (Gonzalez, Moll, and Amanti x), a group of K-12 educators conducted ethnographic work on the home lives of their working-class students. With the premise that people are "competent, they have knowledge and their life experiences have given them…

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…

Composition teachers have generally embraced collaborative learning in the years since Kenneth Bruffee published his first article promoting its advantages in "College English" in 1972. But assigning collaboratively written papers in an introductory college writing course is still rare. This study assesses the benefits and drawbacks of assigning a…

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.…

In Fall 2006, a faculty member in George Washington University's University Writing 20 (UW20) program began incorporating service learning into her theme-based first-year writing course. Along with her librarian partner, they linked two research assignments to the service work of the students. An end-of-semester survey was administrated over three…