Argues the benefits of introducing S. I. Hayakawa's "abstraction ladder" to students. Discusses its implications for developing good writing and thinking skills and ways to use it with students. (RAE)

Presents an exercise in descriptive writing that shows how to take a subjective statement and support or deny it using a common body of factual observations. (PA)

Suggests writing instructors reconsider the way they represent to students the nature and function of thesis statements, particularly in their first-year rhetorics. Notes that the conventions of disputation and argument are increasingly challenged by the growing value various disciplines are placing on uncertainty, mediation, and exploration in…

Discusses David Kolb's four learning styles as they relate to adult learners. The four styles are the converger; the diverger; the assimilator; and the accommodator. Looks at the learning styles as they pertain to a first-year composition course. (JOW)

Notes that personal writing continues to proliferate, especially in freshman composition and basic writing courses. Argues that overemphasis on personal writing, on finding a "voice," may become exclusionary rather than liberating. Argues that it is crucial to teach students how to read, react to, and write about anything beyond the…

Relates autobiographically the author's experiences learning to write as an inventor, in the process exemplifying personal writing as a mode to be fostered in composition courses. Argues for a presentation of writing as a constant discovery and construction of knowledge rather than an accumulation of facts. (HB)

Describes the reaction of first-year composition students to a classroom performance of John Cage's 4'33" [his most (in)famous piece] and discusses the role of silence in the composing process. (NH)

Describes a three-part exercise used in a first semester freshman composition class, intended to show students the world of details in even the most ordinary, everyday objects by having students write about a plastic coffee mug. (SR)

Shows how academic discourse can be taught as a site of conflict to be examined by first-year writing students. Shows that the articulation of personal experiences and beliefs by students can be the starting point for significant learning. Concludes that educators should consider their audience of first-year students and engage them in the…

English teachers, as well as teachers within other disciplines, often boil down abstract principles to easily explainable bullet points. Students often pick up and retain these points but fail to grasp the broader contexts that make them relevant. It is therefore sometimes helpful to revisit some of the more common of these "rules of thumb" to…

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.)

Describing the Harlem Riot of 1935, black author and poet Claude McKay wrote, "On Tuesday the crowds went crazy like the remnants of a defeated, abandoned, and hungry army. Their rioting was the gesture of despair of a bewildered, baffled, and disillusioned people". By nearly all accounts, the riot marks the historical end of the Harlem…

Much of Debra Matthews' teaching experience has been with apprehensive writers, and while teaching freshman English to primarily nontraditional students, she found that the students were often nervous about the writing process. The students acknowledged that they felt threatened by the evaluation process, and some were intimidated by the writing…

In 2004, the Department of Writing Studies at Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island, the U.S., began an assessment of student outcomes for two first-year writing courses (Fall 04 to Fall 05) to evaluate performance on previously established criteria. A study of the students' Portfolio Assessment Sheets concluded that one pervasive…

Of interest to instructors of first-year writing, this paper delineates the challenges faced by professors of first-year writing who lack formal graduate training in composition and rhetoric, and it explores the strategy that enables them to become excellent teachers despite such challenges. The authors present three personal anecdotes that are…