An informal study attempted to determine if audio-taped comments on student papers in freshman composition were as efficient and effective as those actually written on student papers. An instructor began the experiment in the third week of the semester--after he had already returned one batch of papers with written comments on them. Students…

As Martha Nussbaum argues, narratives, and especially novels, provide a way of reflecting on what it means to live well morally, and the emotional responses that stories evoke are crucial to the ability to formulate complex moral judgments. An important aspect of the moral nature of literature is the reader's "empathetic imagination," or…

Kenneth Burke has continued to exert a profound influence on recent theories of composition and rhetoric, specifically on how writing might be taught in the classroom. Two recent composition textbooks, "Process, Form, and Substance: A Rhetoric for Advanced Writers" by Richard Coe and "Writing Is Critical Action" by Tilly…

Because most undergraduate students have two main interests--personal relationships and getting jobs--first year composition students respond positively to a series of career-based assignments which are both personal and pragmatic. "What Color is Your Parachute? A Practical Manual for Job Hunters and Career Changers," by Richard Nelson…

Students at Westchester Community College (WCC) are a diverse and often disenfranchised group. To help these students find their own voices, lyric poems are read now and then in a freshman writing course. Initially, lyric poems are read and discussed during the first week of class. Without the fear of reading something incomprehensible, students…

Writing is an effective tool for investigating the problem of ethnic stereotyping, that is, grouping people from diverse cultures into broad unrepresentative categories. A first-year composition class addressed ethnic stereotyping using media critique. Class activities divided the process of deconstructing cultural stereotypes into three steps:…

Holocaust denial, like hate speech in general, is reaching far larger audiences on the World Wide Web that it was ever able to do in the past. The Internet is the most free press imaginable, and Holocaust deniers can publish their works as widely as they like and construct their message in any way they choose--they have great latitude when…

First-year students taking developmental courses need the kind of guidance a freshman seminar can provide when the advice is directly relevant to their progress. An alternative to assigning a heterogeneous group of students to an academic advisor is to offer a course which enriches the key elements of a freshman seminar while applying the standard…

Numerous critics have repeatedly called for the use of curricular materials drawn from the learner's everyday world, and for many of today's students, one valuable source is the lyrics of contemporary rap music. In first-year writing courses at Michigan State University, the words to one rap song, "You Must Learn" by the group Boogie…

A pilot project in portfolio assessment was carried out at Northwest Missouri State University by the English department for the general proficiency assessment which the administration had requested. The portfolio was designed around the central feature of the second semester composition course: the research essay. Besides the research essay, the…

A semester-long, introductory, freshman composition class (24 students) engaged in fieldwork, interviews, workshopping, a literature review, an ethnography, and a final paper allowing the student to critique their experiences with the ethnographic process. The first 2 weeks were spent familiarizing students with the ethnographic process. Through…

Recent years have witnessed a great upsurge in interest in a core curriculum. However, there has been some disagreement as to what should be included or how it should be defined. Allan Bloom has argued most strongly that the "Great Books" should form the basis of the core curriculum. Not only is the term itself ambiguous, but the…

A quasi-experimental study determined the effectiveness of teacher conferences as a modeling technique in freshman composition, as measured by the quantity and quality of selected characteristics in peer response group discourse. Subjects, 22 students in the "experimental" section and 24 students in another section of second semester…

Understanding the connections between students' levels of intellectual development, their view of the nature of knowledge, and their developing argumentative writing skills is central to helping students learn to write good argumentation. The first researcher to develop a model of intellectual development among college students was William Perry…

In questionnaires given at the end of a freshmen writing course at the Utica College of Syracuse University, students characterized much of the writing they did for their portfolios as "fun" or "enjoyable." What they meant by this is not entirely clear, but it seems that since they chose what types of papers they would include…