As students are asked to complete multimodal assignments in their higher education courses, librarians can guide students to the use of open educational resources (OER), as many librarians are already teaching students about copyright and how to respect intellectual property rights. Two instructional librarians designed a one-shot lesson for…

This dissertation examines how the interests of feminist composition theory, digital media, and new literacies studies intersect within the research context of the first-year writing classroom. Specifically, this project examines what happens to the "contact zone" (Pratt 1991; Bizzell 1994) of first-year composition when we introduce digital…

Asserts that college composition courses should go beyond having students write about their own experiences and should encompass a study of texts that reveal conversations going on among educated people. Notes that successful programs have shown that such changes can be made. (SG)

Addresses the question of what constitutes a writing course. Maintains that the main objective of a writing course is the development of the writer, and that the privileged text is students' writing. Takes issue with writing courses that emphasize reading, subject content, or investigation over the writing process. (TB)

Despite the widespread acceptance of many kinds of nonliterary texts for first-year writing courses, primary scientific communication (PSC) remains largely absent. Objections to including PSC, especially that it is not rhetorically appropriate or sufficiently rich, do not hold. We argue for including PSC and give some practical suggestions for…

A field of study sequence designed at the University of Iowa to introduce the research paper to freshman rhetoric students encourages them to view themselves as interpretive anthropologists entering a strange culture and exploring their declared majors or areas of special interest. Each student is responsible for (1) writing an essay in response…

The wide gap that exists between linguists and English teachers accounts for some of the difficulty involved in determining whether or not students "have a right to their own language." Linguists generally concern themselves with cognitive sufficiency; whereas, English teachers, concerned with behavioral sufficiency, encounter language…

In reorganizing its core curriculum, Duquesne University (Pennsylvania) created a course that combined the required freshman composition and speech communication courses. A two-term pilot course offered eight hours of credit, meeting for one hour three times a week and for a two hour lab once a week. Oral readings were assigned in order to help…