Rhetoric and Composition Commons^™

Teaching Reflective Writing: Thoughts On Developing A Reflective Writing Framework To Support Teacher Candidates, Donna L. Pasternak, Karen K. Rigoni

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

To achieve licensure in the United States, many teacher candidates must demonstrate competency as reflective practitioners. This requires many of them to describe their experiences through reflective writing, a mode of writing that is far from the academic writing that is taught throughout their baccalaureate education. Much reflective writing is being assigned to teacher candidates without it being taught. In an effort to intervene in that pattern, the authors examined multiple sources and developed a framework to teach to their teacher candidates to support them to communicate their practices as effective, reflective practitioners. This paper documents the evolution of creating …

Entering The Conversations, Practices And Opportunities Of Multimodality Texts, Theresa Dark, W. Douglas Baker

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

No abstract provided.

Structure Speaks: User-Centered Design And Professional Development, Nikki Holland, Christian Z. Goering

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

This reflective essay situates a yearlong professional development endeavor led by a site of the National Writing Project within the language of technical communication. Developing rural writing teachers through four distinct design features—needs assessment, frequent contact, website redesign, collaborative planning through Google Docs—this work sought to put participants and providers on equal levels, sharing control of programming when possible. Professional development providers and teacher educators ultimately must model practices they desire to impacting students in the classroom.

Learning To Teach Writing In The Age Of Standardization And Accountability; Toward An Equity Writing Pedagogy, Shannon M. Pella

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

Qualitative data from over three years of a lesson study project were analyzed through a situated learning theory lens in order to describe the connections between teacher learning and the variety of situations, or contexts that shaped the learning. The lesson study professional development model included planning, observation, and student data analysis protocols. The lesson study was situated in various middle school classroom settings, which provided multiple learning contexts. Additionally, teacher learning was shaped by the larger socio-political context often comprised of accountability rhetoric, standardization, and testing pressure. This study described how two teachers negotiated balance, or theoretical equilibrium, across …

Voices From On High: Rhetorical Education In A Jewish Women's Writing Center, Andrea Rosso Efthymiou

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This ethnographic dissertation looks at how the mission statement at one institution of higher education--Yeshiva University (YU)--establishes rhetorical education for its undergraduate students. The research site for this study of rhetorical education and institutional mission is the college writing center at YU's women's campus, Stern College for Women. This study defines rhetorical education as the way an institution authorizes written, spoken, and behavioral communication, with the goal of developing its students as civic beings, through its institutional mission. My findings demonstrate how undergraduate writing tutors disidentify with institutional rhetorical education to subvert, resist, and revise institutional rhetorical education, offering alternatives …

Advocacy Blogging: Writing & Editing For The Public, Leah A. Zuidema

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

Presentation given as part of a faculty workshop at Dordt College in Sioux Center, Iowa, on January 9, 2015, about advocay blogging which is based on a previously published article (available at http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/wte/vol3/iss1/10/).

Scribblescholar Was Here: Confessional Notes Of A Vandal Academic, Clay Shields

Theses and Dissertations--English

As a (former) vandal-punk in the academy, I often fear succumbing to Ivory Tower Stockholm syndrome. The identities I perform, vandal-punk and scholar, ideologically clash to the point that they often feel irreconcilable. By codemeshing the high-low discourses associated with these adopted cultures, I attempt to disrupt any hierarchal privileging of either, instead searching for a way to live with and harness both.

Impact Of A Grade Contract Model In A College Composition Course: A Multiple Case Study, Nayelee Villanueva

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Due to the complex nature of assessment in critical pedagogy practices, continued research is necessary in order to investigate the constantly evolving nature of education and the way we come to know how people learn. To research assessment in the critical classroom requires both instructor and students. This qualitative multiple case study investigated impacts of a grading contract as a form of assessment on student writing in a Basic Writing composition course. This study examined the impacts of a grade contract on students' writing, motivation for writing, revision practices, authorship and expectations of a Basic Writing composition course. Through a …

"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 …

Three Heuristics For Writing And Revising Qualitative Research Articles In English Education, Ann M. Lawrence

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

In this essay, I present three heuristics for writing and revising qualitative research articles in English education: “PAGE” (Purpose, Audience, Genre, Engagement), “Problem Posing, Problem Addressing, Problem Posing,” and “The Three INs” (INtroduction, INsertion, INterpretation). In so doing, I describe the rhetorical functions and conventional structure of all of the major sections of qualitative research articles, and show how the problem for study brings the rhetorical “jobs” of each section into purposive relationship with those of the other sections. Together, the three curricular resources that I offer in this essay prompt writers to connect general rhetorical concerns with specific writing …

A “Great Balancing Act:” Becoming Dexterous And Deft With New Literacies Pedagogy, Jill Mcclay, Shelley Stagg Peterson, Christine Portier

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

In response to recent mandates in literacy curricula, literacy teachers must integrate Web 2.0 and new literacies perspectives into their writing instruction. Such transitions in their pedagogy, however, are often accomplished without adequate support or opportunities for professional development. How do teachers approach the difficult task of changing their perspectives to take new literacies practices into account? This article traces the learning and pedagogical practices of five teachers who worked with the authors in a dual-sited action research study (one in a large urban district, one in a small rural district) for more than two years. We present two themes …

Learning To Develop A Culturally Relevant Approach To 21st Century Writing Instruction, Detra Price-Dennis, Molly Trinh Wiebe, Michelle Fowler-Amato

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

In a position statement, Beliefs about the Teaching of Writing (2004), NCTE outlines eleven broad principles to serve as a guide for teaching language arts. Among the key ideas in this document is the call for language arts teacher educators to consider how literacy courses can create opportunities for pre-service teachers to account for the multifaceted and multimodal world of literacy with students in K-12 settings. The purpose of this qualitative case study is to learn from the experience of one pre-service teacher during his language arts methods course. Drawing on a subset of data from two, our research team …

Co-Planning And Co-Teaching In A Summer Writing Institute: A Formative Experiment, Kelly Chandler-Olcott, Janine Nieroda, Bryan Ripley Crandall

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

This paper reports findings from a two-year formative experiment (Reinking & Bradley, 2008) investigating a summer writing institute for students entering ninth grade at an urban high school. The three-week program was staffed by both university researchers and teachers. In contrast to traditional summer school, it was intended as enrichment, not remediation, for a heterogeneous group of students, and a learning experience, not just a teaching opportunity, for practitioners. The pedagogical goals of the intervention were two-fold: 1) increase students’ writing engagement and skill, and 2) improve teachers’ capacity to teach writing to diverse student populations. Findings focused on co-teaching …

Navigating Collaborative Teaching Waters: Professors Go Back And Pre-Service Teachers Move Forward To Embody The Promise Of Story, Jill Adams, Kathleen Deakin, Gloria Eastman, Jay Arellano, Andrea Nieto, Eliza Spencer, Brianne Barber

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

A group of English education professors and secondary English education collaboratively planned a 3-week class for future high school freshmen in an academic summer camp held on our campus. Reflections of lessons learned from a variety of perspectives are shared.

Introduction: Building Bridges In Writing Teacher Education, Jonathan Bush, Erinn Bentley

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

This introduction discusses the editors' decision to support publications in both APA and MLA formats and also provides contextual introductions for all articles.

The Writing Is The Wall: Expanding The Means Of Communication With Multimodal Approaches To Teaching Composition, Matthew Williams Schering

All Student Theses and Dissertations

As the paradigm of communication shifts into the digital realm, it seems only logical that instructors’ pedagogical approaches to teaching writing should shift as well. Though there is still much merit to teaching tradition approaches to composition, are there more modern methods that could be employed to teach communication in a contemporary setting? This thesis shall examine the role that new media can play in a multimodal composition course, as new media seems to be the most effective way to teach rhetorical communication skills in a modern setting. By looking at new media elements, such as podcasts, wikis, and images, …

Student Engagement And Action In Classroom And Community: Place-Based Education And Social Action For The High-Achieving Student, Rachel M. Jank

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This paper briefly discusses the work done in a college-preparatory, Senior English class to combat the disengagement present in many educational institutions. This disconnect does not allow for learning retention and, therefore, does not allow for students to apply the moment of learning to life outside of the secondary classroom. The work I do is based off of Jessica Singer Early, Bruce Bigelow, Linda Christensen, and many other master teachers who work with the educational designs of Place Consciousness and Social Action within their respective classrooms. The theories of John Dewey and Paulo Freire suggest that a non-traditional style of …

Integrating Reading And Writing For Florida's Esol Program, George Douglas Mcarthur

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

This thesis examines an incongruity that exists within Florida's ESOL program. While the curriculum standards direct teachers to "develop and integrate" skills in speaking, listening, reading and writing, student promotions to higher fluency levels are based solely on reading assessments. Listening assessments are also required to "determine instructional needs," but writing assessments are not required and, in most cases, not given. As a result, reading is prioritized, writing is subordinated, the connection between the two skills is broken, and the mutual benefits of integration are lost.

Studies conducted during the last 50 years have consistently shown that the integration …

Call For Submissions

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

No abstract provided.

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 …

Where Writing Happens: Elevating Student Writing And Developing Voice Through Digital Storytelling, Jane M. Saunders

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

No abstract provided.

A Late Adopter's Chance To Take An Esl Program Multimodal, Erin K. Laverick

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

This article outlines an ESL program's journey in revising its curriculum to include multimodal compositions as a means to help non-native speakers of English improve their language proficiency by offering them greater means to communicate with wide audiences. The article also discusses means to provide faculty with the proper rhetorical and technology training, so they could use multimodalities in their own teaching.

Writing For The Audience That Fires The Imagination: Implications For Teaching Writing, Denise K. Ives, Cara Crandall

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

Great authors embody their audiences through the language of their texts. Good readers learn to recognize and respond to the cues such writers embed in their texts about the kind of audience they are expected to be. They also learn from other authors how to fictionalize in their minds audiences like those they have experience being. In this article through an analysis of two texts, we showcase how two middle school writers through their texts, embody their audiences and cue readers to the roles they are expected to play. We then trace the rhetorical moves made by the writers to …

“This Erstwhile Unreadable Text”: Deep Time, Multidisciplinarity And First-Year Writing Faculty Mentoring And Support, Denise K. Comer

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

Despite the otherwise rich multidisciplinary terrain of writing studies, the strategies most often used with first-year writing teacher teaching mentoring and support tend to remain discordantly anchored to a comparatively narrow version of writing pedagogy. I argue in this article that the geologic concept of deep time offers a way of infusing a multidisciplinary dimension into first-year writing faculty teaching mentoring and support that will enrich the ways faculty and students think, write, and talk about first-year writing. This article discusses deep-time pedagogy, providing specific strategies for infusing multidisciplinary dimensions into first-year writing faculty teaching mentoring and support. Such a …

Re-Thinking Personal Narrative In The Pedagogy Of Writing Teacher Preparation, Mary M. Juzwik, Anne Whitney, April Baker Bell, Amanda Smith

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

How can teacher educators mobilize contemporary understandings of personal narrative -- as socially and dialogically shaped in the context of culture and as instrumental to sociocultural processes of self-authoring -- in the teaching of narrative writing and, more specifically, in the work of teaching teachers to teach narrative writing? Rarely do teachers teach strategies that might result in good narratives. Rarely do narrative texts written in school (or any other kinds of texts written in school, for that matter) actually go anywhere beyond the teacher, thus failing to offer students experience in negotiating meanings with readers, working out the versions …

First-Year Composition And The Common Core: Educating Teachers Of Writing Across The High School-College Continuum, Justin A. Young

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

This article will discuss the implications of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) on the education of writing instructors at the college level. The article suggests that, with the adoption of the CCSS, the most effective models of the training of writing teachers in higher education will now include collaboration with educators at the K-12 level. A model for this kind of collaborative work is described, based on an effort the author is currently leading as the Director of English Composition at my institution. A brief overview of the CCSS, and the shifts in the teaching and learning of English …

Teaching/Writing, Winter/Spring 2014 - Full Issue

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

No abstract provided.

Inviting Citizen Designers To Design Learning Management System (Lms) Interfaces For Student Agency In A Cross-Cultural Digital Contact Zone, Rajendra Kumar Panthee

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Inviting Citizen Designers to Design Learning Management System (LMS) Interfaces for Student Agency in a Digital Cross-Cultural Contact Zone assesses how FYC students from periphery cultural and linguistic backgrounds perceive Blackboard Learn and other learning management system (LMS) interfaces. The report of an empirical study shows that the current LMS design does not provide writing students in general and writing students from periphery cultural and linguistic backgrounds in particular an opportunity of a higher-level interactivity with the LMS. The current design neither includes periphery students' cultural and linguistic norms and values, nor does it allow them to affect the existing …

Call For Submissions

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

No abstract provided.