Using a mixed-methods, multi-institutional design of general education writing courses at four institutions, this study examined genre as a key factor for understanding and promoting writing development. It thus aims to provide empirical validation of decades of theoretical work on and qualitative studies of genre and the nature of genre…

In this study, we examine the use of community-engaged writing pedagogy and the authentic, contextualized writing projects it creates to determine if students better understand the concept of audience and incorporate that foundational knowledge into their writing process. Thematic analysis of student reflections and interviews found students view…

For an instructor of freshman composition at the University of Michigan at Flint, faith-based writing topics offer particular challenges and sometimes intersect in troubling ways with her own prejudices and personal history as a teacher and as a person. But if handled correctly, she believes that a teacher's interaction with students about…

The problems of writer's block and writing apprehension have just started to be examined in conjunction with modern rhetorical theories and practices. One of the variables that can make students more vulnerable to writer's block and writing apprehension is the degree of freedom the student is granted in the writing assignments. Two such freedoms…

After several years in academic public relations, a professional writer returned to teaching composition. After her first attendance at the annual meeting of the Conference on College Composition and Communication, she experienced a turning point in her view of "the essay." Following the conference, she changed her assignments from…

In a Purdue University English 101 class, students were told to identify an audience outside the classroom for each paper they wrote. The central challenge to composition teachers is preserving elements valued in teaching academic writing in the context of ill-defined problems to be addressed outside the classroom. Most useful for instructors…

Writing 125 is a 13-week course that all first-year students at Wellesley College (Massachusetts) are required to take. One instructor teaches a section of it called "Law in Contemporary Society" which centers writing and reading activities around legal issues, namely "Roe v. Wade" and "Webster v. Cruzan." As an…

The library can assist in grounding college student writing in reading and inquiry rather than in the mere retrieval of information Fundamental rhetorical goals can best by met by getting students into the library to ask questions, analyze sources, and evaluate claims so they can react to and incorporate the work of other writers into their own…