This article argues that teachers and WPAs can "hack" standard curricular spaces and institute more inclusive writing pedagogies. One form of hacking can occur through the design of Writing Studio, a one-hour peer workshop that provides a necessary off-shoot from normative composition instruction. Writing Studio disables composition as…

This article describes the development and iterations of the English 0111 Composition Workshop-the Texas Success Initiative (TSI), at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). The TSI is a program that determines college-readiness standards in reading, writing, and math. The initial structure of English 0111 was similar to the structure used in…

Research exploring the efficacy of Service-Learning hasn't fully investigated potential implications for online modalities and transfer of learning. Therefore, during Fall 2016 and Spring 2017 semesters I taught two second-semester composition courses built around essays that required students to engage with communities outside the classroom.…

For the past ten years, the author has been teaching a dual credit college first-year writing course to seniors in high school. In this article, the author presents a framework for writing instruction and evaluation that centers on students responding to current topics and issues through digital writing for an authentic audience.

In order to comfortably and effectively function in U.S. classrooms, both international students and domestic students benefit from the development of interactive and intercultural communication skills. At Purdue University, a large, public, R1 institution with a substantial international population, the internationalization of the student body is…

Aaron Kashtan taught three sections of ENGL 1102, the second course in a mandatory first-year writing sequence with a heavy multimodal focus, during his first semester as a Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Literature, Media and Communication at Georgia Tech. The specific subject matter for these sections was handwriting…

This article argues for classical education's trivium--grammar, logic, and rhetoric--and its step-by-step building of knowledge as a heuristic for general education courses. Specifically, courses must intertwine the four rhetorical acts of reading, writing, speaking, and listening to achieve a trivium-based heuristic. Current curricula, however,…

This essay describes an innovative composition pedagogy that creatively integrates emerging computer technologies into first-year college composition courses to prepare students for writing in multimodal environments.

In this study, we examine the use of community-engaged writing pedagogy and the authentic, contextualized writing projects it creates to determine if students better understand the concept of audience and incorporate that foundational knowledge into their writing process. Thematic analysis of student reflections and interviews found students view…

In an effort to better understand how students' length of exposure to American secondary schools relates to academic performance in core, first-year college courses, this study surveyed and analyzed the demography, study habits, and grades of 267 freshman composition (ENG 101) students at a large, urban community college. Results indicated that…

As the number of international students enrolled in North American universities continues to rise it is important that all instructors gain a more complete understanding of some of the issues that students face when they come to university. This article focuses on only one area, how students cope when learning how to write an academic essay, and…

This paper presents assessment data from a first-year writing library partnership to examine the relationship between student source use and written synthesis. It finds that first-year students could locate peer-reviewed, scholarly sources but that these sources were poorly integrated in their arguments--if they were used at all. In contrast, it…

This research is an examination of the success rates of students in different course modalities (face-to-face, online only, and hybrid) to understand if there is a correlation between the type of interaction (synchronous or asynchronous) and student success in college composition courses. For the purpose of this study, student success is measured…

Composition Studies teacher-scholars who are committed to working with multicultural student populations are trained to value writing from marginalized groups, recognize the intelligence that lies within "non-standard" forms, and encourage student writers to find and use their own voices. Too often, however, our thinking and writing…

Intended as a convenient and cost-efficient way for students to earn their first college credits while still in high school, dual-credit, or concurrent enrollment, is transforming many first-year writing (FYW) programs. Many institutions emphasize that dual-credit courses are the same as traditional college courses, yet "[dual-credit] tends…