The most serious approaches to teaching basic writing in the last 20 years have been framed by the competing metaphors of growth and metaphors of initiation. The growth model pulled attention away from the forms of academic discourse and toward what students could and could not do as writers, and encouraged teachers to respect and work with the…

In the form of a story, this paper reveals the life and lifework of a committed Latino professor of English who was born in Brooklyn in the Bedford-Stuyvesant projects. First recounting the early years of a bright boy, the paper then proceeds to tell about the young man as a dropout, as a soldier in Vietnam, as a student in college, and then as a…

Using cooperative learning techniques in writing classes requires the instructor to plan carefully and respond spontaneously to the assignment as students work through it. Steps using the techniques successfully include: (1) developing academic objectives for each step in the writing process (i.e., prewriting, drafting, revising, and proofreading…