An essay's motive or research problem consists of the rhetorical moves illuminating why that essay matters--what puzzling elements of a primary source it resolves, which contradictions in the data it explains, or what gaps in the literature it fills. This article invites college instructors to dedicate some of their classroom time to teaching…

Describes a method of helping students to invent characters in the context of a creative writing workshop for undergraduates. Considers how students draw composition characters for which they can write a profile using the surrealist technique of "exquisite corpses." Uses student work to illustrate how such characters feed into the story…

Advances the idea of using the workshop format for basic writers' development as writers. Finds that workshops generate conversations and discussions that encourage social, political, and economic awareness to help basic writers discover who and where they are in society. (PA)

Offers advice on surviving while trying to make a career as a writer after having been a writing teacher. Outlines the typical writing process students are expected to follow. Questions whether writer's workshop demands the impossible of students. Finds that the best writing process is to write every day at a time that works for the particular…

With selections from both teachers and students from writers conferences, festivals, and workshops, this anthology brings together a group of "seasoned and fresh writers" for readers/students to savor. The anthology points out that each summer writers conferences are held at Mount Holyoke, Bread Loaf, Sewanee, Iowa City, Port Townsend,…

This paper describes, reflects on, and analyzes the process of engaging student writers in a creative-critical writing workshop in which they not only work toward presenting a portfolio of original work, but are engaged in performance, dramatic intervention, and creative challenges to texts. The paper explains how students are invited to meet…

Finds differences in writing practices (among employees participating in writing workshops) based on educational level. Finds that a large percentage of workers with graduate training write long reports, write to other experts in their field, and spend time revising. (SR)

According to this book, writing is a process of "uneducation," rather than education. The book cites the secret of creativity as subtracting rules for writing, not adding them. Most people are baffled at how to teach this, since teaching and "uneducation" appear contradictory--but experience in Zen meditation, which is…

Suggests that the best writing curriculum for second language students is one that balances content and form, that calls for an attention to writing process and to written product, and that draws on knowledge from both teacher and student. Describes the "focus on form" approach the author uses in her mainstream basic writing class, as well as some…

This book offers guidance for poets at every stage of development. It is a book about a person's shaping his or her memory and passions, pleasures, obsessions, dreams, secrets, and sorrows into poems. The book contains chapters on the language and music of poetry, the art of revision, traditional and experimental techniques, and how to get poetry…

One professor's motives in organizing writing workshops with panels of faculty members talking in their fields about writing issues were both political and philosophical. As director of the writing center at the Claremont Graduate School, in 1993 she feared that with latest round of budget cuts the writing center was in danger of elimination.…

The "writing workshop" approach to teaching creative writing, virtually unchallenged throughout the United States, has recently come under fire. Two schools of thought, while agreeing that the traditional workshop needs a thorough overhaul, differ in approaches to that overhaul. One approach, using the theories of Harold Bloom, argues…

At Southerland Institute (a pseudonym), in spite of the teacher's strong statements in favor of encouraging students to think for themselves and to work together, the writing program Southerland's teachers outline is formulaic with its required modes, prescribed five-paragraph-like essay form, and bell-curve grading practices. A new rhetorician…

After a brief review of the history of college writing instruction, this book examines the undergraduate creative writing workshop. The book attempts to reweave the currently separate strands of college-level creative writing instruction and composition instruction in the belief that developments in these perhaps artificially separated areas can…

A study examined whether modeling desired teaching strategies would produce future teachers who could confidently go into a new classroom and set up a writing program. Four weeks of class time in a teacher education class at Northeastern University in Oklahoma were used to teach the writing process through the use of a writer's workshop. Results…