Peer feedback is essential for learning in project-based disciplines. However, students often need guidance when acting as either a feedback provider or a feedback receiver, both to gain from peer feedback and to criticize their peers' work. This paper explores how to more effectively scaffold this exchange such that peers more deeply engage in…

Designed for college freshman composition classes, this guide describes a writing assignment for teaching students to write a formal review of a favorite children's book. The book analysis worksheet serves as a springboard for questions and a vehicle for teaching persuasive discourse, the business of publishing, the organization of libraries, the…

Before students are able to write fairly original, successful, critical essays on literature, they need to become experienced members of the audience for whom they will write, sharing fully the social context of critical writing by becoming part of an interactive, interpretive community. This reader-response technique appears to be the best…

A course at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis offers students the opportunity to learn argumentative writing, while becoming aware of scholarly discourse in the arts, humanities, and sciences. Students realize that what once passed for a simple argument in everyday life becomes more sophisticated as they learn about research…