Describes how the Freshman English curriculum at Ramapo College was altered to include works by non-Western authors. Focuses on problems teachers faced in choosing texts and becoming familiar with new bodies of literature in a short period of time. Reports that students enjoyed their experiences in reading and writing about non-Western literature.…

Explores Michel Foucault's view of discourse and relates it to the college freshman writing experience. Describes discourse as the aim to expose a fundamental contradiction between the nature of knowledge and the notion of unchanging structures. Compares two student passages to illustrate empowerment within discourse. (KEH)

Describes the liberal arts curriculum at Albany College of Pharmacy, New York. Reports that the curriculum reflects the college's philosophy that students must learn to think by writing. Notes that teaching writing as a skill, a process, and a liberal art is a recent addition to the humanities core courses. (RS)

Describes a composition teacher's experiences in maintaining a flexible approach to classroom pedagogy. Argues that pedagogical theories are a helpful foundation on which to build a teaching strategy, but that they can only provide a framework over which the teacher must stretch the fabric of personal style. (RS)

Describes a research paper assignment which asks students to choose a significant contribution in any discipline, to detail what that contribution has been, to discover any controversy surrounding the contribution, and to assess the status of the contribution today. (MM)

Warns against the new model emerging for first-year writing programs that puts dogma before diversity, politics before craft, ideology before critical thinking, and the social goals of the teacher before the educational needs of the student. Discusses how this model came about, the threat it poses to first-year courses, and new possibilities for…

Looks at how the theories of William Perry and Jean Piaget explain choices students made in writing persuasive essays. Examines the implications of their theories for teaching persuasion to eighteen-year olds. (SR)

Outlines a writing assignment for first-year composition students in which they choose a popular song and explicate its meaning both through prose and in a classroom presentation. Explains how to prepare students for public speaking regarding their essays. Discusses problems and argues for the assignment's usefulness. (HB)

Lists the characteristics that college instructors expect in first-year writing. Suggests ways that a writing instructor can resist such simplistic expectations. Provides five basic strategies for subverting these expectations. (HB)

Offers seven brief descriptions of class projects and assignments used successfully in writing classes of all sorts, from first-year composition classes to business communication to computerized writing labs. (SR)

Describes a system of contract grading in an introductory college composition which the author devised and has used for two years, in which all students sign a contract that delineates requirements for a course grade of "B." Discusses these requirements, how students can raise their grade, and student responses. Notes that a continued dialog about…

Notes that the debate about required composition courses like Basic Writing has taken a new urgency, given recent decisions and inclinations to eliminate such courses at four-year colleges in City University of New York and elsewhere. Revisits that debate (some of which occurred in this same journal in the 1990s) and argues for movement beyond a…

Describes a "distant service learning" unit in a first-year composition course in which students wrote for a nonprofit organization in the classroom. Discusses program activities in relation to the first-year composition curriculum, program activities and the nonprofit organization, classroom implementation and assessment (including scoring guide…

Examines the restructuring of first-year composition at Iowa State University. Discusses the exodus of tenure-track faculty from first-year composition in the late 1970's and early 1980's; why upper administration is now mandating tenure-track faculty's return; why the department of English is cooperating; and potential risks in cooperating or not…

Considers what high school activities helped prepare students to write papers in college. Discusses how students' responses help teachers to see what students found useful (or not) in their high school preparation. Concludes that students addressed four aspects of their high school writing experience that affected their level of preparation:…