Changing a curriculum is already stressful enough without finding new ways to create anxiety, discontent, and rancor. To provide a truly integrated liberal education, the author contends that educators must not only change their curricula--the courses they offer--but they must change what they do in the classroom, the kinds of papers and…

Provides responses by various scholars to two articles on teaching conflict and struggle and its relevance to the field of basic writing published in the December 1992 issue of "College English." (HB)

Offers pointers for establishing a college-sponsored essay contest for public school students in grades five through twelve and enumerates the benefits of such a program. (NKA)

In this memo, the Faculty Senate of the American University accuses the English Department faculty of teaching freshman composition courses that fail to prepare students for dealing with reading and writing assignments in other academic disciplines. (DD)

Ways that colleges and universities provide opportunities for students to improve their writing are discussed in two essays and program descriptions. In "Reinventing the Rhetorical Tradition: Finding Ways to Revalue Writing," Patrick Hartwell and Greg Waters briefly describe activities at colleges that center around the rhetorical…

The battle over whether literature or composition should dominate English instruction is the consequence of a perception that composition instructors who do not use literature as their primary source material have nothing substantial to offer in its place. A survey of 19 colleges and universities in New York revealed that institutions with a…

Facing the problem of a wide discrepancy in grading standards for student essays, the English department at a Texas community college developed a standardized method of grading students' expository and persuasive essays. The department established a committee of 10 full-time instructors whose objective was to standardize grading for all required…

Experience using a freshman writing magazine in basic Rhetoric classes at other colleges prompted the creation of a similar one at DeKalb College in Georgia. Building a coalition of supportive colleagues; composing a statement of purpose; and sending letters with the pertinent information to freshmen writers, colleagues, and high school English…

Standardized tests of writing ability have individual and shared limitations and deficiencies that should be acknowledged by test designers and users. Most institutions use the portions of standardized tests that test ability to proofread and edit, but they do not use the optional essay sections that actually require students to write. To assure…