In the accounting communication class, which includes both writing and making presentations, the article-based memo has always been the first assignment, in which students learn business formats and writing style, use of headings, audience analysis, and adapting material for different audiences. As part of a large project to revise the accounting…

The "Literacy Cafe," a celebration of genre study and student writing, offers students (and visitors!) a positive environment in which to engage in reading and discussion of writing without self-consciousness or fear of criticism. It works because students learn to recognize writing as a learning tool and a relevant, authentic skill in the real…

Researchers and instructors have been interested in the investigation and teaching of formulaic sequences for the past four decades. In academic writing, for example, these expressions are extremely frequent in the production of published authors in academic disciplines but rarely used by university students. The present study focused on the…

In this essay, the author suggests that performance studies--a large and varied body of work that takes the fluidity of self and the relationship between word and action as its central concepts--offers theories and methodologies for writing teachers to use to help students construct discoursal identities. Although the performative screen offers…

Argues that the perennial problem of boring student writing is solved when assignments provide writers with target readers, enabling students to find their appropriate voice. Discusses a sample assignment in which students explain how to do something they do well to readers who don't know how to do it. (JG)

Circa 1984 early practitioners in the composition field imagined a potential blossoming of early efforts in computers and writing that subsequent developments in the field have lost sight of. The expense of developing personal programs, the emergence of word processing software that incorporated many of the mechanical aspects of spelling and style…

Suggests how autobiography defines itself as a system of voices, with the author in a dialogic relationship with the elusive nature of language. Argues that autobiography is a sophisticated form of composing, appropriate for the advanced composition class. Suggests that autobiography can create a memorable educational experience. (RS)

Describes cultural studies as a framework for analysis and critique, not a political agenda. Shows how the author has used cultural studies as a way to get his students to write intelligent, reflective papers about topics that interest them. (SR)

Argues that composition teachers should assign essay topics on writing because, by writing about writing, students can synthesize and master the material covered in class. (SR)

Presents a collaborative essay by a writing teacher and a writing student in which they try to make sense out of a situation in which the student was fired from her off-campus job for what she had written in the context of a writing assignment in the university setting. (PRA)

Maintains that cliches can improve students' writing style. Describes six techniques for polishing cliches into something original. (SR)

Outlines a process by which senior high school students study Jonathan Swift's'"A Modest Proposal" and then write their own satirical essays by modeling the tone and style of Swift's essay. (SR)

Presents five brief descriptions from two-year college teachers of writing activities that they have found to work well in their classrooms. (SR)

For several years a number of instructors at the University of Cincinnati have experimented with the concept of problem-based learning (PBL) in their composition courses. The concept, rooted as it is in Socratic method and the hands-on problem-solving advocated by John Dewey, is not new, and though some of its applications may call for adjustments…

The media role model was recently developed to frame how science faculty members can teach their students to write more effectively to lay audiences (14). An Opinion Editorial (Op-Ed) was introduced as a novel assignment for final-year physiology and pharmacology undergraduates. This second phase of this study, reported here, demonstrated the…