To challenge resistance to required literature courses, instructors quiz students regularly on the readings; they also require examinations that ask students to define key terms, to answer background questions focused on authors and dates, to identify key passages by author/title/speaker, and to explain the thematic significance of each quotation.…

One way to encourage performance and persistence in STEM fields is to have students write about the utility value (UV) or personal relevance of course topics to their life. This intervention has been shown to increase engagement and performance in introductory courses. However, questions remain about the longevity of the effects and how best to…

The initial composition course in the community college has the potential to be a transformative space for the identity formation of adult learners towards the linguistic signifier of "scholar." Freshman students of variable ages enter a new culture which demands the negotiation of an alternative academic language, an adaptation to the…

In this article, the author discusses composition studies by examining how incorporating "songwriting" into a first-year writing course enables students to begin expressing their own ideas/perspectives, while also developing the ability to create the concise, detailed texts associated with academic writing. The discussion offers a…

Tinkering is a longstanding material practice that has gained popularity in recent years as a learning strategy at numerous schools, camps, and makerspaces. This article seeks to establish in composition pedagogy tinkering's playful, exploratory ethos by introducing a practice called "critical-creative tinkering." In critical-creative…

WRT 329: Introduction to Writing Studies is a course in Oakland University's (OU) Writing and Rhetoric major program that provides students with a survey of composition studies as an academic discipline. It includes an examination of the history, theories, research, curricula, and pedagogies associated with composition studies in the university.…

Student plagiarism in higher education is widespread and presents a growing concern for faculty and administrators who are intent on upholding academic integrity. However, a myopic view of plagiarism as a purely ethical issue is misguided. It is not always simply a deliberate attempt to deceive. Through the involvement of students in an…

Utility-value (UV) writing interventions help students find the personal relevance of course material to promote interest and performance. However, little is known about how best to frame the intervention, particularly in the 2-year college context where students have more varied backgrounds than the samples previously studied. Using a randomized…

We present a strategy for using scientific argumentation in an early undergraduate laboratory course to teach disciplinary writing practices and to promote critical thinking, knowledge transformation, and understanding of the scientific method. The approach combines targeted writing instruction; data analysis and interpretation; formulation of a…

Getting students to read actively for a required introductory course in literature poses several challenges, to say nothing of trying to make required reading personally meaningful. This essay outlines assignments that encourage students to make literature meaningful by establishing personal connections to texts in ways that can also impact…

Despite widely acknowledged benefits of integrating writing into economics courses, instructors' costs are often prohibitive. To reduce costs and make writing assignments more feasible, the authors describe multi-part, scaffolded writing assignments developed by an economist and a WAC (Writing Across the Curriculum) specialist, integrated into an…

For students with little experience in mathematical thinking and conceptualization, writing-to-learn activities (WTL) can be particularly effective in promoting discovery and understanding. For community college students embarking on a first calculus course in particular, writing activities can help facilitate the transition from an "apply…

In the interest of developing a combination of teaching techniques designed to maximize efficiency "and" quality of instruction, we have experimentally tested three separate and relatively common teaching techniques in three large introductory political science classes at a large urban public university. Our results indicate that the…

Published in a 2008 issue of "Journal of Basic Writing" ("JBW"), "Journalism, Poetry, Stand-Up Comedy, and Academic Writing: Mapping the Interplay of Curricular and Extracurricular Literate Activities" was Kevin Roozen's first single-authored publication. Drawn from data collected for the first case study from…

This study examined introductory journalism writing courses and compared hybrid (part online/part classroom) versus online grammar instruction. The hybrid structure allowed for grammar topics to be taught online, with a pretest following, and then reviewing missed/difficult pretest concepts in class prior to a posttest. The quasi-experimental…