Contends that readings on social class in the United States are rarely given in college (with textbooks being "particularly weak" in this area). Lists and annotates 11 articles and books that may be given to remedy that situation. (PA)

Reviews briefly the literature associated with the Conference on College Composition and Communication's "Students' Right to Their Own Language" statement. Explores the status of standard English at community colleges in Michigan, as expressed in first-year composition course objectives and descriptions. Considers the history of the…

Discusses implications of "readarounds" with the author's first-year English composition students. Notes that readarounds consist of student drafts circulated around an entire class, evaluated according to three or four criteria, and praised via the lavish use of highlighters. Concludes readarounds teach students to make valid suggestions on peer…

Considers how although students' frustration level may rise with the inclusion of computer technology in writing classes, so too do the number of "wow moments" - those times when students finally achieve something for which they have long struggled. Examines the efficacy of including technology in first-year writing courses. Finds that a sizable…

Describes a year-long core humanities course at Washington State University in which freshman composition is linked to a world civilizations context. Explains how the linked course aims to prepare students for the writing and thinking tasks they need for other courses in college and after they graduate. (MG)

Describes a freshman composition class in which students write essays about pollution. Explains that students classified and divided problems, cited examples, explored pollution's processes, used narrative, and offered comparisons. Describes how students prepared cause-and-effect oral presentations and then wrote persuasive letters. Concludes that…

Argues that peer writing tutors must have a theory of reading that recognizes the dangers of readers' appropriating the writer's text by projecting or imposing their own ideological programs onto the text. (RS)

Discusses three perspectives on audience awareness as used in the classroom; rhetorical, informational, and social. Finds that the social perspective, with its emphasis on the transactional nature of writing, is the most productive way of dealing with audience in the composition classroom. (RS)

Argues that textbooks give little specific advice on the role of figures in discourse, while theorists extol their virtues, leaving instructors torn. Claims that, by examining students' writing, teachers can discover how students employ figures and how figures can be taught. Illustrates with examples of students' writing. (RS)

Presents a technique called the rhetorical precis, a highly structured four sentence paragraph that records the essential rhetorical elements of a unit of spoken or written discourse. Argues that this form reinforces learning, reading, questioning, and evaluating course material. (RS)

Calls for consideration of the purposes for using student portfolios in writing classrooms. Argues that teachers refrain from using portfolios for assessing students and instead use them to assess teachers. Outlines how a portfolio approach centered on interpretive communities was used in the composition program and in academic departments at the…

States that freshman composition should make freshmen more able to communicate in academic discourse and that each professor teaches the students with emphasis on personal beliefs. Examines the dilemma of freshman composition as a service course. Calls for more and better use of the personal narrative as an alternative way of approaching the so…

Describes how one English teacher developed an approach to teaching writing that was based on asking students to write memoirs or personal narratives. Presents an amalgam of letters written to a newspaper and to three co-authors of an article published in "The Chronicle of Higher Education" regarding the use of personal writing in freshman…

Discusses the career and achievement of the late compositionist, James A. Berlin. (HB)

Reveals freshman composition students' stated desire for greater peer review. Describes an assignment in which writing classes construct their own peer review procedures. Identifies review methods selected by students. Argues that the technique allows teachers to locate a midpoint between abandoning and dominating composition students. (SG)