This dissertation is a bounded case study that examines the attitudes and perceptions of Teaching Assistants (TAs) in Composition about their TA preparation in an independent writing program at a large public research university in California. Specifically, this study focuses on TAs who were pursuing Ph.D.s in either English Literature or…

Writing is an essential skill that students need in order to become successful in school and beyond. Within a school district in the southwestern United States, student writing scores were not at proficient levels, and students were not prepared for graduation or employment. The purpose of this quasi-experimental research study was to compare the…

The goal of the study is to develop an equity-minded theory of college writing readiness. An estimated third of incoming students are academically underprepared for college writing. The majority of these students will not earn a baccalaureate. Because rigorous pre-college preparation is a chief indicator of postsecondary achievement, improving…

This article examines the relationship between literacy and play in six- and seven-year-olds' engagement with non-fiction writing. I draw from a year-long ethnographic study (Erickson, 1986) of a US classroom's "writing time", intentionally structured on children's own interests and enquiries. Rather than strict adherence to monolithic…

Bruce Pirie offers the following criticism about formula essays: "What does a five-paragraph essay teach about writing? It teaches that there are rules, and that those rules take the shape of a preordained form, like a cookie-cutter, into which we can pour ideas and expect them to come out well shaped." He goes on to discredit such essays as being…

This practical book provides explicit directions for teaching sentence-level skills to students who have difficulties in this area. The author explains the key role of sentence combining in the writing process and presents effective techniques for instruction and assessment. Numerous sample lessons, practice activities, planning tips, and…

In this study, I examine the instruction of four preservice English teachers (PSTs) for cognitively demanding literature-based writing tasks in order to investigate the types of tasks that PSTs identify as cognitively demanding, how PSTs' instruction for such tasks maintains or degrades the task's intellectual rigor, and possible…

Little participant-based research has been done in the field of creative nonfiction pedagogy for adults. "Teaching Creative Nonfiction" addresses this lack of scholarship by starting to paint the landscape of the influences, pedagogy and attitudes of instructors of adults in undergraduate, graduate and community-based classes. This study…

This article explores the relationship between teacher authority and flaming in asynchronous online communication. Teachers who rely on what I call stabilization and universal applicability--two concepts emerging from a liberal democratic theory--may actually be preventing a full and robust understanding of the complexities of 21st-century…

Inside a ninth-grade classroom, we witness one teacher's very intentional instructional attempts that resulted in her students being able to convey well-crafted reasoning and text-supported evidence to mount persuasive arguments. Through personal examples and Internet resources, the teacher concretized pathos, logos, and ethos. The teacher and…

Objects are rich sources of inquiry; they invite individuals to observe closely, pose questions, forge connections, and anchor ideas in the concrete. By examining a son's craft project, a family photograph, and an image of tectonic plates, the authors demonstrate how objects can elicit rhetorical invention. While this venture started as a writing…

Writing collaboratively is now widely practiced in many fields. Particularly in this advancing technological age, people find that it is not only practiced but also commonplace. However, the practice of writing collaboratively has not been widely researched, presented, or taught, and practitioners are often left to learn what works purely through…

The writing center where the authors were trained and currently work emphasizes the model of non-directive, writer-based peer tutoring in which, as Jeff Brooks puts it, tutors "make the student the primary agent in the writing center session." As undergraduate peer tutors, they recognize that some students come into their writing center with goals…

In this article we consider the ways in which college writers make use of prior knowledge as they take up new writing tasks. Drawing on two studies of transfer, both connected to a Teaching for Transfer composition curriculum for first-year students, we articulate a theory of prior knowledge and document how the use of prior knowledge can detract…

This article explores the development of the Summer Tools, Information, Motivation, and Education (SummerTIME) Writing Program, the only program of its kind in Los Angeles that conducts self-assessment. The author describes the geographical and political boundaries separating inner-city Los Angeles high school graduates from higher education,…