There has been a great deal of groundbreaking research done on motivation during the last twenty-five years, and all of it points to the importance of intrinsic motivation. This research has very significant ramifications for teachers of English. In this essay, the author engages the issue of "aversion" that Linda Brodkey raises in her essay…

Researchers collaborated with two high school creative writing teachers to consider how a particular use of technology--PowerPoint poetry interpretations--would function in their creative writing classes. Their findings encouraged them to consider three kinds of "classroom remix" related to the introduction of techno-literacy practices into the…

Since Fall 2004, the Undergraduate Catalog at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville has listed a two-part "Communicating through Writing" (WC) requirement, which includes two first-year composition courses and an upper-division course in one of thirty-five majors. Most students fulfill the former by enrolling in English 101 and 102, a…

The historical transition from the 20th Century to the 21st has sparked a boom in identifying names and classifying characteristics of the young American adults and teens coming of age at that time. Though there is much discrepancy about the starting birth year and the life span parameters of "Generation Y", generalizing descriptions abound in an…

This article examines the "master" and "little" cultural narratives students perform in literacy narratives. Results show that students incorporate the literacy-equals-success master narrative most often, yet they also include in little narratives figures such as the hero, victim, and child prodigy. I consider how these findings can improve…

This article relates a child's development in story writing and the progress that she made in achieving text cohesion, spelling development and ideation through the collaborative process. The case study investigates the integration of major aspects of writing development such as collaboration, the importance of peer interactions through social…

It is difficult to overestimate the differences between Native American studies in Europe and the United States. In Europe there are no dedicated university programs in Native American studies; instead, disciplinary units such as American studies or departments such as English, history, development studies, and anthropology house teaching and…

Concern exists among both academics and employers regarding the quality of graduates' writing. The complaint, as it is most commonly phrased, is that young graduates can no longer "string a simple sentence together". If true, this is a problem: the quality of students' writing seriously affects their chances in the job market. In this…

Although writing is of great importance to effective social work practice, many students entering social work education programs experience serious academic difficulties related to writing effectively and thinking critically. The purpose of this article is to present an introductory social work course that integrates Writing Across the Curriculum…

This paper investigates the current dismissal of feeling from teaching and learning in the college composition classroom. Drawing on the teaching experiences and the concept of lore, it argues that the practices and pedagogies of composition studies continue to produce a division between reason and emotion, denying the body's epistemic potential.…

In this chapter, the author rethinks literacy education and identity in the 21st century by engaging with the concept of multimodal selves. This conceptualization resonates with an understanding of identity as performed (Blackburn, 2005) wherein the ways of enacting oneself with and within a space encompass the intentional and unintentional…

This study investigates the written feedback the author gave during her first year as a university English as a second language writing instructor. The article investigates the form (questions, commands, comments) and the themes (organization, content, grammar) of feedback, the use of mitigation, and the treatment of grammar errors. It shows how…

Educators agree that developing critical thinking skills is a key goal of college education. While the literature on higher-level thinking emphasizes the significance of writing for developing such skills, teachers often receive little guidance about the kinds of writing assignments that can prove most beneficial for helping students to develop…

"Techno-velcro to Techno-memoria" is an intergenerational collection of techno-memories illustrating the impact of techno-literacies on family communication practices. Guests participating in "Techno-velcro to Techno-memoria" add their voices to create a rich resource of techno-rhetorical connections. Our guest-collaborators remember and describe…

The notion of "transporting literacy" across spheres or cultures is a useful way to imagine the transition many of today's adult students make as writers from the literate sphere of the workplace to that of the school--a transition the author refers to in this article as the "reverse commute." By the time such students reach (or rereach) the…