Education Commons^™

On Parallel Paths: Learning Through Case Studies In The Writing Pedagogy Course, Alyssa Devey, Christina Saidy, Mohammed S. Iddrisu, Seher Shah, Marlene A. Tovar

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

This article reports on a case study project assigned in a writing pedagogy course. The authors, four graduate teaching assistants and their professor, share their case study questions, experiences, and challenges. Via the case study assignment, the TAs identified parallel experiences they shared with their students. Recognizing parallel paths helps first-year TAs reflect on their experiences as teachers and learners, build connections with students, and develop sustainable teaching practices beyond the first year. The authors share strategies for identifying parallel paths and encourage TA educators to incorporate them into the writing pedagogy course.

Making Composition-I Count: “Tilt-Ing” The Course To Better Aim At Student Learning, Anish Dave

Perspectives In Learning

This article is being submitted on behalf of the author for consideration in the TILT special-topics issue. An abstract was not included with the manuscript.

Medieval Methods: Guido D’Arezzo’S Innovative Approaches To Music Education, Lydia C. Kee

Musical Offerings

Music education has been influenced by many people throughout history, but arguably none of them have done so as much as the monk, Guido D’Arezzo. His teaching methods have been embraced and developed by music educators throughout the centuries. For example, it is recorded that Guido was the first to use the five-line staff as we use it today. This was especially groundbreaking in a world of rote memorization. Today it is used globally in music education. The roots of solfege are also found in Guido’s writings; his syllables have been adapted by Zoltan Kodály. Not only that, but John …

Staying Engaged While Staying Home?: Service-Learning, Writing, And Covid-19, Christopher Iverson

The SUNY Journal of the Scholarship of Engagement: JoSE

As an approach to writing instruction that has traditionally required students to engage in in-person community projects, service-learning has also traditionally involved risks. For example, students engaging in service-learning without proper support often do not approach community partners with the appropriate respect, and when university stakeholders fail to make clear what their side can offer in a partnership, they can leave community partners in the lurch when the semester ends and students finish their community-engaged coursework. These risks can be mitigated through education and reflection for instructors and students alike. The COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing social distancing orders, however, left …

Teaching Writing As A Metacognitive Process, Heather Fox

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

In a writing methods course for future K-12 educators, preservice teachers examine the intersections of their experiences as writers, students, and future teachers through three interdependent projects. Completed between Fall 2019 and Spring 2022, this empirical study (n=138) includes Elementary Education, Middle Education, and (Secondary) English Teaching majors and focuses on the first project, Writing Memory, to examine how teaching writing as a metacognitive process facilitates preservice teachers’ understanding of how they and their future students developed, and are continuing to develop, as writers. The project analyzes students’ reflections on how they select and arrange previously written text to …

Fyc’S Unrealized Nnest Egg: Why Non-Native English Speaking Teachers Belong In The First-Year Composition Classroom, Asmita Ghimire, Elizabethada Wright

Academic Labor: Research and Artistry

Overviewing rhetoric and composition's evolution from “English” to “Englishes,” this article shows how the denigration of non-native English-Speaking Teachers (NNEST) of writing on the basis of English difference disregards linguistics’ understandings of the evolutions of language. Additionally, this essay demonstrates that when we consider writing via the lens of the threshold concepts and see writing as an exercise of mind, ideas and thinking, NNEST of writing can be a strength in twenty-first century First Year Composition (FYC) course.

Use Of Heuristic Learning Technology In Higher Education, Mahsuma Narzikulovna Ismoilova, Dilrabo Zhalilovna Halimova

Scientific reports of Bukhara State University

On the basis of the analysis of pedagogical activity, it was revealed the need for intensive use of heuristic teaching methods, it is shown in which cases it is advisable to use heuristic teaching methods in teaching and how these methods can improve the effectiveness of a teacher’s professional activity and the degree of material learning by students.

Vr Tangram Puzzle Game And 360-Degree Panoramic Video, Jingyi Liu

Frameless

For this demo, I have created two projects—VR Tangram puzzle and 360-degree panoramic video—using Unreal Engine. The VR Tangram puzzle game was created using an environment built and modeled by a student peer in the 3D Digital Design program at RIT, Regina Niu. I then scripted the visual with blueprint in Unreal Engine using gravity, grabbing, and absorption. This game is made to show the traditional tangram puzzle game in a new interactive form, with the goals of arousing childhood memories in adults and helping youth have a better understanding of the past culture. The 360-degree panoramic video is a …

Grading For Growth: Introducing New Assessment Approaches In Traditional Grading Models, Beth A. Walsh-Moorman, Katie Ours, Aubrey Deaton, Maura Mcginty-O'Hara

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

This article explores three teachers’ experiences introducing a new assessment approach in an existing school-wide, grading framework. Teachers explore how they were able to manipulate the school framework in a way that allowed (and required) students to revise and rewrite until they had achieved mastery on key writing assignments.

Sustaining Community-Engaged Projects: Making Visible The Invisible Labor Of Composition Faculty, Jessica Rose Corey, Barbara George

Academic Labor: Research and Artistry

Increasingly, service-learning, community-engaged projects, or community-engaged learning are encouraged in higher education as part of HIPs, or High Impact Practices. While the authors' experiences with service-learning or community-engaged learning in our composition courses have been positive, and while student engagement is generally acknowledged as a desirable outcome of any pedagogy, we posit that there are questions about the labor system needed to sustain such practices. We use narratives to reflect upon our experiences holding various identity positions within academia (from graduate student, adjunct, to NTT and TT positions), and research about the work involved with community engaged projects, to interrogate …

Rhetorical Genre Theory And Whiteness, Greg W. Childs

IdeaFest: Interdisciplinary Journal of Creative Works and Research from Cal Poly Humboldt

No abstract provided.

Teaching Rhetorical Segmentation As A Countermeasure To Post-Truth In The Composition Classroom, John Gagnon

The Liminal: Interdisciplinary Journal of Technology in Education

This paper responds to the call for rhetoric and composition instructors to engage with post-truth and fake news in the composition classroom. Pulling from personal experiences with post-truth in the composition classroom, the author leverages recent scholarship to develop a multi-phasic, objective analytical approach – rhetorical segmentation – that students can use to identify the purposes and motivations of a particular text. The approach of rhetorical segmentation relies on three primary steps: measuring rhetorical velocity, evaluating ideological modality, and identifying public harm. By combining these steps in a coherent method of analysis, the author argues that students are better equipped …

Interrogating Fake News In The Composition Classroom: Pedagogical Plans, Shelly A. Galliah

The Liminal: Interdisciplinary Journal of Technology in Education

This brief article argues that the skills developed in the first-year Composition classroom, such as analyzing texts, interrogating arguments, investigating media bias, conducting research, and thinking critically are crucial for helping students recognize the various forms of disinformation and post-truth as well as how to avoid circulating these and further polluting the media and information ecospheres. It also argues that Composition instructors must remain centrist to avoid exacerbating political polarization and alienating students who might be resistant to investigating fake news. This article summarizes some key readings and practical activities that Composition instructors may incorporate into their classrooms.

Learning The Language Of Academic Writing: Using The C3wp As A Scaffold In The Secondary English Classroom, John Lennon

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

Using academic language and employing textual evidence as support is a critical component of academic writing. However, many secondary students struggle to join academic conversations because of the skills associated with this type of writing. Through the implementation of the National Writing Project's College, Career, and Community Writing Program (C3WP) (2018) and focusing on the moves of academic writers presented by Harris (2006) and Graff and Birkenstein (2017), students can find ways to use evidence in a more constructive way in their research and argumentative writing. This essay will analyze student writing samples at various levels of skill development and …

The Threshold Concepts Of Writing Studies In The Writing Methods Course, Kristine Johnson

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

I argue that the threshold concepts of writing studies enable preservice writing teachers to meet several goals for the writing methods course: comprehending composition theory, understanding themselves as writers, and developing effective pedagogical practices. After introducing these concepts, I first outline how they—because they define writing as a subject of study and as an activity—bridge theoretical knowledge, pedagogical application, and personal writing practices. Second, I quote from my own students to illustrate the ways in which threshold concepts help preservice teachers reflect on their own writing practices and become thoughtful, theoretically informed teachers.

"It's My Closest Friend And My Most Hated Enemy": Students Share Perspectives On Procrastination In Writing Classes, Jennifer Gray

The Journal of Student Success in Writing

This article presents the results from an IRB-approved study that researched student perspectives on procrastination. Qualitative and quantitative data from over 200 surveys administered to first-year writers illustrated multiple reasons why students procrastinated, and these reasons are much deeper than a strong desire to do something else. Results indicated that when students perceived a lack of engagement with their topic (whether the engagement was actually there or not), they were more likely to procrastinate. In addition, students who had fewer choices in their writing assignments, such as topic choices or format choices, were more likely to procrastinate and avoid the …

Terms Of Time For Composition: A Materialist Examination Of Contingent Faculty Labor, Jesse Priest

Academic Labor: Research and Artistry

Bruce Horner’s seminal book, Terms of Work for Composition: A Materialist Critique provided Comp-Rhet WPAs with a methodology for infusing our conversations about work and labor with a holistic understanding of how these reflect on the lived experiences of students, teachers and administrators. Drawing on empirical data including surveys of contingent faculty at a large northeastern research university, as well as textual analysis of teaching material and an NCTE position statement, I propose the inclusion of a materialist-oriented conceptualization of time to the discussion began by Horner and others. Using the lens of how time is allocated, I argue for …

Teaching Peer Feedback As Ethical Practice, Derek Miller, Troy Hicks, Susan Golab

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

Even with weeks of building a classroom community and deliberate instructional scaffolding, students may not engage in thoughtful peer review. One teacher discovers how he must place a deep, intentional value on the feedback itself—and the writers who provided it to one another.

Reimagining The Stacks: Classroom Technology And Library Collaboration For Writing In The Disciplines, Jossalyn Larson, Daniel C. Reardon

The Journal of Student Success in Writing

This article details the process by which one university redesigned a first year writing course to better promote discipline-specific and best-practice research techniques. The program offers experiential learning activities through scholarly collaboration, using library staff as mentors, producing an open-access peer-reviewed student journal, and emphasizing face-to-face interaction of peer research communities. It has the potential to establish for students in high school, community colleges and universities that research writing is fundamentally about joining and contributing to a conversation.

Performing Pedagogy: Negotiating The “Appropriate” And The Possible In The Writing Classroom, Lesley Erin Bartlett

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

While the field of Composition and Rhetoric has long held that “good writing” is a construct, we haven’t thoroughly examined how “good teaching” is also a construct. Drawing from work in composition studies, rhetorical theory, and feminist theory, this essay builds on questions of identity, embodiment, and privilege to enrich conversations about writing pedagogy and teacher development and to offer writing teachers an interpretive lens through which to critically examine their pedagogical performances. I begin with the assumption that all acts of writing and teaching are performances, whether they are marked as such or not. Featuring two key rhetorical concepts, …

Visualizing Abolition: Two Graphic Novels And A Critical Approach To Mass Incarceration For The Composition Classroom, Michael Sutcliffe

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

This article outlines two graphic novels and an accompanying activity designed to unpack complicated intersections between racism, poverty, and (d)evolving criminal-legal policy. Over 2 million adults are held in U.S. prison facilities, and several million more are under custodial supervision, and it has become clearly unsustainable. In the last decade, there has been a shift in media conversations about criminality, yet only a few suggest decreasing our reliance upon incarceration. In meaningfully different ways, the two novels trace the development of incarceration from its roots in slavery to its contemporary anti-democratic iteration and offer an underpublicized alternative.

Critical and community …

Revision In The Multiversity: What Composition Can Learn From The Superhero, David Hyman

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

Constant and ongoing revision is the compositional tactic through which many contemporary superhero narratives negotiate the powerful struggle between reiteration of the genre’s past, and creative expression of its future. Instead of a gradual succession of improved renditions of a text, each one effacing and superseding the imperfections of its predecessors, revision is revealed as the production of multiple versions whose differences and diversities are “capable of being in uncertainties”, as Keats describes the creative attitude which he terms Negative Capability: ontologically equal textual variations that wear their inconsistencies openly, and reject the pressure to resolve their multiplicities into the …

"I Second That Emotion": Minding How Plagiarism Feels, Ann E. Biswas

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

It stands to reason that when writing teachers believe their students have plagiarized, they will experience strong emotions that impact their relationships with students, their pedagogy, and their sense of professional identity. Far from being a threat to reason, understanding and acknowledging writing teachers’ emotional responses to plagiarism can lead to a deeper wisdom of its true impact. By examining the literature on emotion from psychology, sociology, education, and writing studies as well as findings from a pilot study of writing teachers’ emotional responses to plagiarism, this article argues that the work involved in managing the emotions of plagiarism reflects …

"You Can't Be Creative Anymore": Students Reflect On The Lingering Effects Of The Five-Paragraph Essay, Jennifer P. Gray

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

The five-paragraph essay continues to make headlines in composition and pedagogy journals and on teacher listservs. This long-cherished genre has been touted for teaching the basics to writers in college, and teachers often claim that it is the best foundation for solid essay writing. In contrast, there are numerous five-paragraph essay critics who claim that the essay is a “school-created thing” that has no real-world value and persists due to an enshrinement in textbooks as preparation for objective standardized testing. Regardless of the debate, one thing remains: there is little research on the essay from the students’ perspective. This essay …

Of Thresholds And Springboards: Teaching Them, Teaching Each Other, Erin Williams, Frank Farmer

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

In the fall of 2010, the authors were given the task of co-teaching the practicum for new graduate teaching assistants at the University of Kansas. One of the authors was, at the time, a doctoral student in rhetoric and composition. The other author was a senior faculty member in the same field. While such pairings are not uncommon, they are rarely addressed in the vast literature on the writing practicum.

In this article—written as a dialogue focusing on the themes of locations and tensions—the authors conclude that such teaching arrangements as theirs offered valuable insights into student resistance, and encouraged …

Writers Who Care: Advocacy Blogging As Teachers - Professors - Parents, Leah A. Zuidema, Sarah Hochstetler, Mark Letcher, Kristen Hawley Turner

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

Because we believe strongly that writers develop through authentic writing instruction - and because we see policies that drive practices away from these goals - we have decided to speak up and to speak out through advocacy blogging. Teachers, Profs, Parents: Writers Who Care (writerswhocare.wordpress.com) was born from our frustration with current mandates that limit teachers and students to reductive writing. We know what good writing instruction looks like, and we want to share that knowledge with an audience beyond academia. In doing so, we hope to redefine what it means to be an academic writer and to encourage others …

Beyond The Pencil: Expanding The Occupational Therapists’ Role In Helping Young Children To Develop Writing Skills, Hope K. Gerde, Tricia D. Foster, Lori E. Skibbe

The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy

Occupational therapists (OTs) play an important role in early childhood classrooms as vital members of the educational team, particularly for young children’s writing development. Children’s emergent writing is a foundational literacy skill, which begins to develop well before they enter elementary school. However, early childhood classrooms are lacking in supports for early writing development. OTs are experts in guiding the development of early writing skills in young children and, therefore, should be considered as critical members of the early literacy curriculum team. This paper identifies the critical role emergent writing plays in early childhood literacy development and how to effectively …

Writing With An English As A Second Language (Esl) Student, Sara Mulcahy

Undergraduate Review

This paper explores the pedagogies and practices of teaching writing to English-as-a-second-language (ESL) students. With growing numbers of ESL students entering colleges and universities, it is important to be aware of the challenges facing ESL students. Equally important is awareness of what methodologies and practices work best when assisting ESL students with their writing. This paper serves as a final report for a service learning project that consisted of one-on-one workshops with a Japanese ESL student. This final report draws on various secondary sources and primary research in order to explore the writing development of this particular ESL student. It …

Blackboard: A Web-Based Resource In The Teaching Of A Multi-Disciplinary/Multi-Institutional Computer Ethics Course, Frances Grodzinsky, Joe Griffin

School of Computer Science & Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper will focus on the use of a commercially available collaborative learning management tool ( C L W . Blackboard and how if has been used to enhance the teaching of professional issues in a large cohort given at the University af Limerick in Ireland and a small writing-based -senior ethics course given at Sacred Heart University. This study details the various facilities offered by Blackboard, some of the ways in which the tools were used to enhance learning and critical thinking and some reflections on the strengths and weaknesses of the tool. A prospective design and implementation of …