The purpose of this article is to present a case for building racial literacy in students. The author offers support for her argument by foregrounding a three-month study she conducted in her community college first-year composition (FYC) classroom. She hopes that this article will contribute to the growing body of research that emphasizes the…

There has been a great deal of groundbreaking research done on motivation during the last twenty-five years, and all of it points to the importance of intrinsic motivation. This research has very significant ramifications for teachers of English. In this essay, the author engages the issue of "aversion" that Linda Brodkey raises in her essay…

Do students transfer the skills that they learn in English 101 to other courses and contexts? Often, it seems that they do not--or, at least, that the transfer is not visible or readily apparent. On the positive side, however, one may underestimate the complex nature of many of the tasks that students undertake, often for the first time, in the…

This article explores the use of scoring rubrics in the context of deteriorating material conditions of writing instruction. The author hopes to offer a consideration of rubrics that enables a revision of rubric designs, in order to facilitate teacher response to student writing, and that offers suggestions for uses of rubrics that account for…

Gives suggestions to operating room nurses on how to write for publication. (MKM)

For beginning college students, effective paraphrasing is the most difficult of the research-writing skills they must learn and demonstrate. Many students understand summarizing, and the frequent appearance of unwieldy block quotations in their essays suggests their preference for using a source's exact words. But the art of paraphrasing escapes…

In this paper, the author explains the simplification of a theory of punctuation for college-level instruction. He describes a systematization of the punctuation marks that has pedagogical possibilities. He concludes by stressing that the notion of a hierarchy of punctuation marks is not a difficult one for college students; after all, the…

Argues that instruction in technical writing can be valuable to medical students. (MKM)

Describes how to have students in technical writing courses turn term papers into brochures suitable for publication. (MKM)

Characters in this short play, designed to interest students in learning about punctuation, are punctuation marks. (MKM)

Argues that composition teachers should teach students to raise and define questions. (RB)

Examines various definitions of process analysis and finds a noticeable lack of agreement between them. Suggests clarifying the concept by separating it into three modes: instruction (how to do it), narrative (how it was done), and analysis (how it happens). (RBW)

Argues that prewriting is the most important skill to emphasize and practice extensively in basic writing classes. Describes basic writers as almost universally neglecting prewriting activities. Suggests some guidelines for teaching prewriting effectively. (HB)

Argues that students must be taught specific techniques for adapting their prose through increasing the level of language. Suggests one technique of analyzing the choices of subjects and verbs in sentences that can help students produce more intelligent and powerful writing. (HB)