Suggests that William Perry's and Jean Piaget's theories explain the persuasive essay topic choices of freshman composition students. Notes that intellectual development stages identified by Perry reflect students' changing world views, and that Piaget found a tendency toward hypothetic-deductive thought among adolescents. Asserts that both…

Explains an approach to help freshmen writing students work at defining essay sophistication through the use of reading and listening materials not found in the students' readers. (MG)

Presents an extended analogy between different styles of gardening (neat, even rows of vegetables versus scattering of flowers) and different styles of writing (academic versus personal essay). Shows that genre boundaries are as questionable as gender boundaries and that all writing is a means of creating self, not for expressing a self that…

Describes a free writing exercise designed to help first-year college students confront perceptions they have of themselves as learners. (RS)

Discusses and tries to define the basic differences between high school and college-level writing. Examines key assumptions of the Summer Writing Program at Carleton College along with the criteria used for determining whether students should receive writing course credit. Reveals contradictions in stated criteria and praxis. (HB)

Describes how a writing teacher uses an exit essay in which students describe the strengths and weaknesses of their writing to examine how the course has shaped (or not shaped) student attitudes toward writing. (SR)

Investigates reasons to utilize student journal writing in composition classrooms. Presents current research in psychology and epistemology providing insight into the value of journal writing. Shows through numerous student journal excerpts how journal writing helps students progress in their intellectual development. (HB)

Presents an interview with Mike Rose. Explains the source of Rose's interest in the cognitive dimension of writing and how it affects his teaching particularly and classroom instruction generally. Discusses writer's block in terms of cognition. (NH)

Describes how the author, in his second semester freshman composition class devoted to teaching research skills, teaches students the subtleties of what to paraphrase and what to quote directly. (SR)

Ponders whether multimedia composition can help first-year composition students learn how authors sort memories to make narrations powerful. Describes students' experiences in a composition course when they were asked to digitize sound and graphics to add meaning to written texts--to make their narrations more powerful and concrete. Suggests an…

Describes a vocabulary activity the author uses in first-year composition classes which is effective, interesting, and fun for students who write an ongoing serialized short story with required vocabulary words chosen weekly from assigned student readings. (SR)

Focuses on a survey of 10 questions that the author gave to all tenured and tenure-track faculty members in English at the University of Louisville. Notes that the questions focused on the perceived positive and negative results of a major cultural change (faculty teaching first-year composition) for the department, the composition program, the…

Offers a response to Kristi Yager's critical interpretation of the author's book about his teaching of freshman composition. Argues that his classroom practices, as he would represent them, do not constitute "shaming," which he regards as necessarily negative. (TB)

Addresses how first-year students understand the influence of computers by cultural assumptions about technology. Presents three meaning perspectives on technology that students expressed based on formative experiences they have had with it. Discusses implications for how computers and composition scholars incorporate computer technology into…

Explores the place of faculty and faculty values in the process of assessing the work of higher education. Searches to find better ways to put the intellectual work of faculty and students at the center of the educational concerns and at the center of assessment models. Suggests that faculty should devote themselves to teaching the first-year…