Directly engaging students with rhetorical reading and writing can increase self-awareness about writing, improve reading abilities and confidence, and raise awareness of research writing as conversation. In this article, the authors describe several assignments and activities that engage students with the rhetorical situation toward the aim of…

To challenge resistance to required literature courses, instructors quiz students regularly on the readings; they also require examinations that ask students to define key terms, to answer background questions focused on authors and dates, to identify key passages by author/title/speaker, and to explain the thematic significance of each quotation.…

The variety of activities and techniques suggested for improving the writing skill shows that EFL/ESL learners need scaffolding to gain mastery over it. The present study employed the reader-response approach to provide the assistance EFL learners require for writing argumentative essays. Five upper-intermediate EFL learners in a private class…

Literature circles are student-led, small-group discussions that promote active learning and engagement with literary texts. The objective of this study was to assess the impact of literature circles on student engagement and learning outcomes in a pedology course. For various reading assignments throughout the semester, students either…

English Language Arts has historically been tied to the civic purposes of schools, and this qualitative study of a social design-based project (Gutierrez & Vossoughi, 2010) examines the intersection of language and literacy learning and youth civic engagement, a problem space I call "Civics English." In this dissertation, I describe…

Faculty at Bethany College, Kansas found that when engaging with controversial topics like social justice, students needed lower-stakes spaces to think--and history and writing, together, provided these needed spaces. When taught in combination, these two subject areas prompted engagement and self-reflection, and the interdisciplinary synergy…

The international accrediting organization for public service pedagogy, the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration, has established and adopted "universal competencies" that Master of Public Administration degree programs are expected to develop to establish a "global standard in public service…

Learning basic cell biology in an essential module can be daunting to second-year undergraduates, given the depth of information that is provided in major molecular and cell biology textbooks. Moreover, lectures on cellular pathways are organised into sections, such that at the end of lectures, students might not see how various processes are…

City as Text™ (CAT) is one of the earliest structural forms of experiential learning created and practiced in the United States. This monograph explores the centrality of writing in the process of active learning, focusing primarily on the Faculty Institutes and Honors Semesters that foster CAT experiences. All manifestations of this pedagogical…

This research tested and evaluated how one method--Competency Points (CPs)--increased student success by enhancing engagement and motivation in community college English composition students. In 2005 I introduced Competency Points in my English Composition 1 classes, and began tracking how engaged and motivated students were to succeed as revealed…

The author replicated and extended a study by Flowerday, Schraw, & Stevens (2004) that examined the effects of choice, topic interest, and situational interest on reading engagement, attitude, and learning in college-age students. The study was replicated using fourth and fifth graders as subjects. The study was extended to examine the effects of…

A reading-writing initiative began in 2011-12 at the University of Toronto as a partnership between an East Asian Studies (EAS) department and an English Language Learning (ELL) Program. In this institution, students are expected to enter into scholarly discussions in their first year essays, yet many (both native English speakers and non-native…

The differences in the ability to write critical and analytical essays among students with individual annotation styles were investigated. Critical and analytical writing was determined by the writer's ability to respond to a text with logical and critical analysis and attention to its thematic argument. Annotation styles were determined by ways…

This poetry assignment for college freshmen involved preparing a paper. Reading of an Unterecker essay on poetry, extensive reading in a chosen poet, study of criticism, and organization of the paper are discussed. Excerpts from the results are included. Results are discussed in relation to the appreciation of poetry and composition skills. (AF)

When students take their first upper division mathematics course after an introduction to proof course, they are often overwhelmed by the prospect of writing in a mathematics course. In mathematics, unlike other disciplines, students are very seldom asked to respond via writing to a reading assignment, to write an essay about a topic they have…