For many writing teachers, helping students discover, explore, refine and, most importantly, inhabit their "voices" is both the teachers' greatest challenge and pleasure. Voice, they tell them, is what their writing "sounds" like when someone reads it; it is their personality on the page; it is the writer "speaking" to the reader. But what happens…

Each semester the author asks her first-year composition students to write a profile essay. The assignment, based on one in "St Martin's Guide to Writing," requires that students develop a thesis ("dominant impression" or "angle") about a place that they visit. The author is convinced that this essay is one of the most valuable and challenging…

Given the current emphasis on disciplinary discourses, it's not surprising that so little recent attention has been devoted to identifying conventions that are universal in academic discourse. In this essay, the author argues that there are shared features that unite academic writing, and that by introducing these features to first-year students…

Discusses briefly some ways professional writers create fine titles, using allusions, puns, rhyme, alliteration, and paradox. (SR)

Over the years of teaching, the author has been more and more interested in making course content and goals relevant to the real, lived experiences of students. Based on this interest and spurred by an article on community-based research in "Teaching English in the Two-Year College" (TETYC) in September of 2005 as well as a move in composition to…

Offers a method to help writing students generate ideas and collect their thoughts: (1) giving students 10 minutes to freewrite about being stranded on a desert island; (2) writing one page on a thesis statement; and (3) having students "talk through" their papers in small groups. (PA)

This essay frames the connections between punk principles and writing theory in order to re-form what the author emphasizes in his own composition classroom, in particular the do-it-yourself ethic, a sense of passion and fearlessness, the agency to attack institutions, and the seeking of pleasure. (Contains 1 note.)

Teachers of writing know that published writers write sentence fragments, use passive voice, begin sentences with "and" and end them with prepositions, use the first-person pronoun "I," contract their words, and splice their sentences with commas. Even so, most instructors advise students against these elements of style. As a result, school…

Maintains that advertisements are useful in the writing classroom as nonthreatening "real" writing to promote student discussion, to demonstrate tone and voice, to demonstrate writing strategies, and to promote critical reading. (SR)

Suggests that despite culturally induced aversions, aromas do have a role to play in writing instruction. Suggest there are many examples in literature of authors' treatment of the olfactory sense. Argues that emphasizing smell as a writing stimulant and encouraging olfactory analyses of literary works can serve as valid ways of introducing…

Describes a first-day assignment for writing courses called a "writing autobiography" in which the student is asked to identify and assess their own strengths and weaknesses as writers. Argues for the value of having students consider their processes as writers. (HB)

Describes the writing process of a teacher/writer in the creation of a 5-novel series portraying relations between men and women over a 175-year period in which women struggle to control their own lives. (PRA)

Today, students other than biology, computer science, or physics majors are enrolling in technical writing. English and communication students, seeking lucrative careers as professional writers or editors, are increasingly signing up for the course. Lacking extensive scientific backgrounds, these students may have a difficult time writing about…

By focusing on local problems or issues, student writers can craft research essays that exemplify civic engagement, a practice that reaffirms composition's tacit tradition from classical rhetoric and the educational philosophy of John Dewey. Volunteer experiences or local problems that affect students directly allow writers to actively research…

Offers a supplementary approach to teaching literacy narratives that builds on the work of M. Soliday and others but is centered in student production. Outlines specific strategies for teaching the literacy narrative in the first-year composition classroom. Discusses possible benefits of teaching the student production of literacy narratives.…