Reading is seen by many as an essential ingredient for learning to write. Is the relationship between reading and writing reciprocal? Does the path to better reading involve becoming a good writer? The answer to these questions presents a paradox. One does not have to learn to write in order to learn to read, as learning how to write or type words…

This paper describes a unit designed to promote the development of narrative writing skills among 5th grade students through the use of LEGO robotics. Over the course of four, two and one-half hour sessions (one day per week for four consecutive weeks), the students learned how to construct and program robots, write and present a proposal to…

Literacy is the foundation for success in school and society. An essential goal of every school is to help every student read, write and think critically. Dedicated teachers are the catalyst for reaching this goal. The Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) developed a literacy professional learning model to better support these dedicated…

This paper discusses a collaboration between a criminal justice professor and the coordinator of composition at a small, four-year University in a rural location. The goal was to restructure the writing assignments in criminal justice courses in such a way as to enhance student participation in writing assignments and to improve the quality of…

In this article, the author provides motivation and a template for integrating and teaching writing in a variety of economics courses: core theory or introductory courses, topic courses, and economic writing/research courses. For each assignment, pedagogical reasoning and syllabus integration are discussed. Additionally, the author shows that…

This paper describes assignments that have been implemented in a General Chemistry I course to promote science literacy. This course was chosen in particular because it reaches a broad audience, which includes nonscience majors. The assignment series begins with several discussions and tasks to develop information literacy, in which students find…

In this paper, we present a collaboration between writing professors and an information systems (IS) professor to scaffold case analysis writing at an American English-medium branch campus in the Middle East. We describe our process for revising the professor's writing assignment to make his expectations more explicit and for creating scaffolding…

This article covers how an interdisciplinary course was developed using the expertise and resources of a history professor, the history and psychology subject librarians, and the university's writing center. The course, supported by a grant, was aimed at helping students improve their research, information literacy, and writing skills across…

Students often enter community college with little proficiency in writing. The authors of this paper share a series of writing assignments designed to help students develop writing and critical thinking abilities throughout their community college experience. The first is a series of relatively low-stakes exercises aimed at helping beginning…

Evidence shows that the skills and dispositions that lead to thoughtful and effective participation in civic life can be developed and promoted through participation in assigned advocacy, argumentation, and debate. We argue that debate and argumentation are uniquely well suited to be implemented across the curriculum, which means that students…

Empathy and interdisciplinarity are both concepts that are current and relevant--across professions, in research, and in academia. This paper describes a large, interdisciplinary, project-based assignment, the Empathy Project, which allows students to delve into and increase comfort and skill with interdisciplinary thinking and collaborative…

This article reviews the deeply conflicted literature on learning transfer, especially as it applies to rhetorical knowledge and skill. It then describes a study in which six students are followed through their first co-op work term to learn about which resources they draw on as they enter a new environment of professional writing. It suggests…

Throughout the last two decades, scholarship discussing learner development and autonomy has expanded from viewing the learner as one who possesses intrinsic or extrinsic motivation to a performer who to varying degrees invests as an agent in the learning process, particularly when able to pursue her or his passions. With this expansion in mind,…

Today it is necessary to approach environmental topics with students in an interdisciplinary manner to mitigate the environmental damages that the Earth is suffering. In this paper we report an action-research and innovation study aimed at sensitizing students with respect to the care and preservation of the environment through the writing of…

In 2005, the undergraduate advisory committee at the University of Toronto Mississauga found that across all disciplines, writing proficiency was the skill weakness that generated the greatest concern. Students reported that they often found writing tasks intimidating, and suggested that effective feedback and guidance would improve their writing.…