This article discusses how writing assignments focused on sports controversies provide students with opportunities to read, write, research, and debate in ways that feel authentic and meaningful. Athletes dominate the headlines about everything from dog fighting to domestic violence. Sports controversies are appropriate material for teaching…

This article shows how students confront offensive language head-on by researching its history and reconsidering its use in contemporary conversation. It describes an assignment in which students study the histories and social reception of words (in some cases considered obscenities) used to insult people of various social categories. Students…