The initial composition course in the community college has the potential to be a transformative space for the identity formation of adult learners towards the linguistic signifier of "scholar." Freshman students of variable ages enter a new culture which demands the negotiation of an alternative academic language, an adaptation to the…

This article outlines a three-part pedagogy capable of responding to the risks, rewards, and headaches associated with public rhetoric and writing. To demonstrate the purchase of this pedagogy, I revisit one of the oldest and most misunderstood public rhetoric and writing assignments: the letter-to-the-editor assignment.

This paper documents the perceptions and experiences of faculty members in the midst of statewide reform efforts in Virginia and North Carolina to integrate developmental reading and writing courses. Using interview and focus group data from 161 faculty and administrators in both states (combined) as well as three detailed case studies of faculty…

This article introduces a new course in the Virginia Community College System English Curriculum, "English 114: Scientific Writing." The article briefly reviews the concept of "science rhetoric," then discusses the intended audience and purpose of the course, and explains the basic goals of the course in relation to the…

In the U.S., international enrollment trends have increased the pedagogical imperative to address multilingual graduate student writers' linguistic needs/growth in the process of their developing disciplinary expertise. In the context of this internationalization effort, what can two disciplines--Applied Linguistics and Composition--constructively…

Recent considerations of threshold concepts in the rhetoric and writing studies discipline fail to consider the role that reading plays in the learning of student writers. This article reports results from a three-part, two-year, empirical study of seventy-five learners enrolled across four sections of a writing-intensive course. The course…

In this essay, we explain the development, implementation, and preliminary findings of an innovative writing program that drew upon a peer collaborative model and a community literacy perspective. Developed as an after school program, this project represented a community-university partnership designed to provide an enjoyable forum for teaching…

After reading "Blending Genre, Altering Style: Writing Multigenre Papers" (Romano, 2000), two elementary teachers in Virginia became intrigued with Romano's notion of the multigenre paper as more than just a writing assignment but, rather, a multilayered, multivoiced literary experience. The multigenre paper allows young writers to use…

Having established the "Writing Lab" at James Madison University in 1974, the author has watched the evolution and proliferation of Writing Centers in colleges and universities over the past 32 years. Common to support services at the beginning of her career as a writing specialist and in the present Writing Center are two primary areas…