Describes how one teacher of a business writing course uses a car recall notice to address business writing principles of purpose, readers, information, organization, and style in relation to a specific example; and then has students revise it into the type of letter they would like to receive as car owners. Includes two examples of such…

Describes how one teacher uses life writing (reading and writing about transformative life experiences) in her basic writing class to engage students and to help them understand the power and purpose of reaching out to a variety of audiences. Discusses grading life writing. (SR)

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…