Student writers labeled "underprepared" by colleges often have trouble imagining themselves as scholars. Challenges these students routinely encounter include difficulty forming original insights and translating ideas to the page. Although the usage of the term "underprepared" varies across institutional contexts, the…

This article explores the "scope," "foundation," and "application" of autoethnography in first-year composition and critical thinking classrooms. I broaden autoethnography's scope from Mary Louise Pratt's focus on colonial power dynamics to engage rhetoric, discourse, ideology, and materiality at large. I argue that…

Writing instructors and writing tutors are often interested in discovering whether their responses to student writing facilitate student revision at a deep level. This teaching article illustrates how written metaphorical response can prompt student revision beyond surface features. It includes a description of tutor training in metaphorical…

The Writing Program (WP) at Saint Louis University has striven to create a course that draws on a richer disciplinary understanding of writing and rhetoric. The standard course structure, from which instructors are asked to fashion their own syllabi, asks students to pursue a scaffolded semester-long project. As they pursue the scaffolded…

Positioned within our field's work on supporting transfer of writing-related knowledge through careful course design, this article describes the development of a pedagogical intervention designed to help students identify knowledge gaps and pose questions about rhetoric and genre. Below, I tell the story of a 2012 teacher research study that…

As a first-year writing instructor, I generally expect a few mainstays: a handful of bored students, recurring absences, and plenty of covert texting. In order to disrupt the usual lackluster engagement associated with required classes, I approach my writing seminar like a theatre class. By incorporating common performance practices such as the…

This article gives an account of creating and delivering a (trans)disciplinary writing-intensive course focused on translation and translingual writing. The course, offered in a comparative literature program at a Canadian university, was co-created by an applied linguist, a literature professor, and a curriculum theorist, and was inspired in part…

Multimodality is recognized as a useful pedagogical tool, but it is often difficult to apply in real-life curricula. Further, expectations on educators and various campus units are increasingly complex and require nimble and innovative partnerships. In this article, Christina, a first-year composition instructor, and Lucie, the university's…

In a world that is fraught with a troubling political climate, Lu believes it is especially important that teachers provide guidance to students not only for their academic endeavors but also for their understanding of the complexities in language and the social implications of language varieties. With such belief in mind, she asks: How can…

In this article, the author discusses a graphic narrative or comic book writing assignment in greater detail to demonstrate the pedagogical benefits of teaching comics in the writing classroom. She argues that by assigning students a comic book project, writing instructors can promote competence in academic discourse by helping students learn and…

In addition to teaching research and writing skills, First-Year Composition classes are well situated to help students develop strategies for managing stress and increasing well-being. I describe an assignment sequence in which students interview others from three generations about topics related to happiness and wellbeing, analyze shared…

Annmarie Guzy teaches honors composition at the University of South Alabama. This essay discusses her observation that students who took her class were more likely to complete the honors program, which led to her wondering what elements of her course might give students an edge in honors program completion. As an English professor with training in…

This paper will give a step-by-step demonstration on how to create MP4 files to video-grade undergraduate writing assignments. The process of using prepared rubrics to guide video and audio feedback will be presented and examples shown. This assessment method provides students with personalized video-feedback as a re-usable learning object. The…

The College Writing/Elon Academy summer partnership at Elon University offers a program model for supporting underrepresented students' transition to college. While the modified section of a required first-year writing course has some limitations, the summer course supports students' development of more complex writing processes and provides…

This paper focuses on a pedagogical and instructional approach to engaging students in the classroom with the specific activity of a writing prompt, which utilizes a short video about current events and trends coupled with writing and discussion. This strategy allows active student learning in which the students engage, develop critical thinking…