College students who have had Advanced Placement (AP) English in high school often present motivational or other problems for instructors of first-year college composition. These students often resist instruction or have difficulty working successfully in writing groups with peers. However, often these students' work is not outstanding or even…

To understand literature, it is necessary for a reader to make connections between the text of the literary work and the text of the reader's life. Student autobiographical writing before reading can be used to enhance students' ability to make such connections. Autobiographical writing helps students apply relevant life experience that might not…

After several years in academic public relations, a professional writer returned to teaching composition. After her first attendance at the annual meeting of the Conference on College Composition and Communication, she experienced a turning point in her view of "the essay." Following the conference, she changed her assignments from…

The Third College at the University of California, San Diego developed a peer observation program in which first-year composition instructors (mostly graduate teaching assistants) observe each other once per quarter. The peer observation program is not part of the process by which the writing program directors evaluate the instructors, but…

For some instructors, the use of students' own experiences has proven to be an extremely useful starting point in the college composition classroom. In a first semester freshman composition course, students wrote autobiographies in which they examined different perspectives of the many communities in which they lived. Students then used the…

A study examined whether students who underwent training and gained experience in the use of computer word processing techniques would score significantly higher on a writing test than students who received no such training. Students in two randomly selected English Composition II classes at Gloucester County College (New Jersey) were randomly…

A study compared the effectiveness of 2 approaches for teaching students exam-writing skills. One approach--the study tips/models approach typical of existing textbook materials and study guides--used written study tips, along with sample exam questions and responses, to give students knowledge about what to do, and provide a model they could…

In an effort to evaluate comprehension skills with a "real world" task, students were asked to summarize and respond to an excerpt from a college freshman textbook. The written responses of a group of both high school students (n=100) and college students (n=51) were analyzed through a checklist developed to assess students'…

Combining freshman composition and introduction to literature courses can make students active participants in what they read. In one course, students were instructed to read a literary work for a class. When the class met, the students were to write the name of the assigned story, the author, and anything they wanted to write about the story.…

A study investigated the impact of task definition on students' revising strategies to determine whether college freshman writers could revise globally if instructed to do so and if those global revisions would result in improved texts. Data were elicited from 38 students enrolled in two entry-level college writing courses. Participants, randomly…

This project/study introduced the use of computers in one freshman composition course to determine whether the instructor and the students could accomplish more in a computer-based rather than a traditionally structured course. The assumption was that students would produce better essays on the word-processor and printer, and that the instructor…

It does not take a computer expert to teach students how to use word processing software to prewrite, write, revise, and edit a professional-looking paper. Just a small amount of expertise allows students to work independently as long as they have access to a computer and the necessary software. The computer also facilitates interactive learning…

Decentering, as defined by Jean Piaget, occurs when the mind considers and coordinates experience from more than one perspective. Focusing on decentering in two parts of the writing process--discovery and audience awareness--a study examined the relationship between the personal and impersonal decentering abilities of college freshmen and their…

Freshman composition students were given six assignments designed to help them examine, analyze, and put their memories into context so that the students could use their memories to begin exploring and creating their own "truths" through language. Two essential types of memory were identified: (1) natural memory, memorizing word for word, which…

Questions raised by the misinterpretations evidenced in the final examination essays of a freshman English class should lead teachers to a new understanding of how the phrasing of writing assignments influences what students write. Some of the questions included: (1) How detailed must an assignment be to communicate its goals? (2) What type of…