In face-to-face conversation, it's easy to react with shock and moralism to the incivility enabled by social media, easy to lament that we live in an era when communication has gone wrong. The digital era, however has also reinvigorated voice--both written and spoken--in other, less toxic, ways. We've seen a resurgence in oral composition (think:…

This article excavates how style in writing was represented and taught in the under-investigated mid-twentieth century. I trace four editions of the textbook "Modern Rhetoric" (1949-1979), authored by Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren; I detail how the book was surprisingly innovative for the time, despite its eventual re-entrenchment to a…

According to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), to be college and career ready students must be able to construct logical arguments using facts and reason. A feminist perspective provides an alternative point of view on the value of argumentation. The purpose of this study was to question the theories that frame the current CCSS 9-12 English…

This article presents the findings of an action research project conducted with a group of pre-service teachers of a program in modern languages at a Colombian university. The study intended to go beyond an emphasis on linguistic and textual features in English as a foreign language argumentative essays by using a set of genre-based activities and…

In the poetry creation, poets use many different writing techniques. This paper expounds the image expressions in British love poems and lyrics from four aspects: description, symbolism, figure of speech and personification. Man has been singing for love since written language was invented. Love has been the eternal subject theme of poems and…

Genre-based approaches to teaching writing have made important strides in heightening students' awareness of audience and purpose but have paid less attention to the ways in which expectations for written performance in school context are embedded in expectations for certain kinds of discipline-based thinking. In this paper we present a study that…

Some researchers believe that the ESP genre-based framework of writing instruction is effective in teaching discipline-specific English EAP writing to L2 learners, especially to advanced L2 graduate students. However, studies examining students' genre-based learning in such a framework are still underrepresented in current ESP genre-based…

Describes rewriting examples of good writing into "ordinary" writing, to identify what elements of style made the original version so effective. (HTH)

Briefly discusses the four composition philosophies: expressive, rhetorical, formalist, and mimetic. Recommends teaching the rhetorical, because of its emphasis on the reader. (HTH)

If lesbian and gay students are to be moved into the classroom writing communities consciously and aggressively, in the same way other "minorities" are included, then first-person narratives are an effective starting place for their own work and as material for reading and discussion. Half of the reading selections in one composition…

Considers the reasons for making the rhetorical choices that constitute a writer's "voice." Examines teaching models that help students learn how to influence meaning through the rhetorical choices they make. (RL)

Intended for secondary teachers and student writers but useful for anyone interested in poetic forms, this book defines 74 basic poetic forms, summarizes their histories, quotes examples from noted poets, and offers professional tricks of the trade on how to use each form. The book covers the following poetic forms: abstract poem, acrostic,…

Some principles upon which writing assignments can be built include the following: (1) different skills are involved in the steps of writing, rewriting, editing, and proofreading; (2) writing is a subconscious act involving the holistic powers of the right brain; (3) students become aware of their performance through accurate feedback; (4) real…

Describes a unit in which gothic novels are first read and then used by students as models for the writing of an entire "gothic" novel of their own. (JL)

Shows how students improve their powers in writing nonfiction when they are asked to solve writing problems similar to those facing major novelists. Advocates teaching literature by teaching writing, and vice versa. (RL)