A limited mixed-method study revealed that students could alter written style after direct style instruction, but the effect faded quickly. Instead, students reverted to culturally structured intuition to make conscious, contrary choices. Thus, direct instruction in precise forms of style should probably yield to methods that build culturally…

Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein's writing textbook, "They Say / I Say," has triggered important debates among writing professionals. Not included within these debates, however, is the empirical question of whether the textbook's templates reflect patterns of language use in actual academic discourses. This article uses corpus-based…

Motivated by a fear that she may have plagiarized, the author considers the possibility that plagiarism might be understood as a transgression against reading as well as against writing. Drawing on Philip Eubanks's work in "Metaphor and Writing," the article proposes that one reason for composition studies' ambivalent relationship to…

This essay interrogates the concept of "clarity" that has become an imperative of effective student writing. I show that clarity is neither axiomatic nor transparent, and that the clear/unclear binary that informs the identification of clarity as a goal of effective student writing is itself unstable precisely because of the ideological baggage…

Describes the use in the classroom of students' phone messages and casual notes to illustrate the relationship between composition class and writing in students' daily lives, that writing defines itself according to the purpose and audience of each task, and that they already know a great deal about writing. (SR)

Raises questions about the epistemology inherent in composition studies, especially with regard to the issue of modeling. Investigates the usefulness and implications of modeling theory for contemporary composition study. Provides a context for discovering what it means to construct models of writing processes. (HB)

Examines two "success" stories about student writers. Addresses the conversation about teachers writing and writers teaching. Questions whether the first-success-story-student wrote a story that better served her purpose for learning, and whether the student in story #2 will know what to do with the excess of meaning the class has constructed…

Discusses the rationale for experimenting with diverse discourse alternatives in writing classrooms. Offers examples of the readings that inspire the author and her students, as well as samples of student essays. (SR)

Explores what writing teachers want to know about the ways cultural realities, such as gender, influence literary practices, such as writing autobiographical stories for composition classes. Argues that what they want to know affects how they read gender narratives and that reversing the terms would make a difference in their reading practices.…

Reconsiders the assumptions writing teachers make about students' literacy practices. Chooses students in the "center," neither particularly successful nor recalcitrant failures, to demonstrate a way of reading the rhetorical constructions of students' texts to understand the decisions they make in composing. Sketches implications of…

Common approaches to composition teaching are satirized. (JH)

This essay attempts to demonstrate how transgender theories can inspire pedagogical methods that complement feminist compositionist pedagogical approaches to understanding the narration of gender as a social construct. By examining sample student writing generated by a prompt inspired by transgender theories, the author's analysis suggests how…

Starting a course by asking students to write the worst papers possible alerts them to common faults and weaknesses.

Surveys recent feminist research on gender differences in social and psychological development, and shows how this research and theory may be used in examining student writing, thus suggesting directions that a feminist investigation of composition might take. (SR)

"Guidelines for the Ethical Treatment of Students and Student Writing in Composition Studies" signals our increased awareness of the ethical obligations that attend our scholarship and research. Our adoption of research methods from other fields, particularly the social sciences, has heightened that concern. We must now consider the ethical…