Notes that when composition instruction engages students in collaborative inquiry and problem solving, it engages students in rehearsing the active processes of writing arguments, and moves from teacher-led work to group work to independent production. Describes several classroom strategies and procedures that will enable them to be productive…

Considers how to teach children to become proficient readers and writers in combination with teaching them to appreciate the "art form" of language. Argues that it is unrealistic to expect teachers with pressing responsibilities to regard children's literature as sacred texts--art forms that are too fragile to be transgressed upon by instructional…

Describes a project where the author worked with students twice a week to observe and document types of collaboration that took place during writing workshops. Presents evidence to identify types of collaboration. Discusses these observations and delineates classroom components that allow these interactions to take place. Considers types of…

Notes the challenges faced as teachers, concerning policy, curriculum, or control, require that educators address three issues: their multiple identities in and out of schools, their will to act on their convictions, and their abilities to respect diversity. (SG)

Focuses on ways the dominance of large-school culture within more recent WPA (Writing Program Administrator) record has resulted in over-valorizing of power as a tool for the WPA. Argues that this over-valuation has led to inexact description of the concept of WPA power in the record and, as importantly, has overshadowed other political…

This paper describes how meaning potentials were constructed in the literacy event known as Morning Message, an activity in which a 4th grade teacher and students jointly constructed a written text around the experiences of one student. Emphasis is on how meaning was orchestrated and scaffolded by the teacher's conversational moves and on how…

Discusses how not only do students of technical writing courses need to learn how to prepare documents for translation properly, but students of translation need to learn technical and academic writing. Gives the example of a course taught at the Technical University of Budapest, Hungary. (SG)

Explores some historical reasons why, academic freedom and tenure notwithstanding, retaliation against Writing Program Administrators (WPA) remains rather invisible as well as rather commonplace. Suggests that there is a good deal of historical connection between many WPAs' and writing teachers' present job circumstances and the circumstances that…

Describes some of what educators have learned about the complex task they ask students to tackle when they put them in peer groups to talk with each other about their writing. Analyses the work of one peer revision group and illustrates the complicated work that students can engage in as they struggle to justify their writerly decisions to their…

Argues that writing for the media is utilitarian (not formal) writing, and that slang is acceptable when it conveys meaning. Argues that student journalists need to learn how to analyze slang so they know when to use it and when to avoid it. Offers advice for teachers, and includes two exercises for students on slang. (SR)

Considers how rhetoric, cognitive awareness, and competing cultures of community college composition students challenge instructors. Discusses issues such as: updating the definition of "student"; historically dynamic biculturalism; collaboration versus negotiated meaning; destabilizing knowledge; inventing the student; and mastering the…

Presents 17 syllabi, submitted by different instructors, for introductory courses taught to graduate students in the teaching of rhetoric and composition. Contains critical statements attached to each syllabi explaining the goals and approaches of the course. (TB)

Offers a self-critique of the authors' earlier work "Audience Addressed/Audience Invoked: The Role of Audience in Composition Theory and Pedagogy." Proposes an alternative to the agonistic approach to establishing the new at the expense of exposing the faults of the old. Aims to learn from the cultural, disciplinary, and institutional forces at…

Presents a teacher's good-bye address to his students in an advanced composition class. Uses several metaphors for his job as coach to a group of writers. (TB)

Presents an interview with Wendy Bishop, known for her ground-breaking work in the teaching of creative writing, and Gerald Locklin, known for his many published poems in small underground presses. (TB)