Against a Racial Real backdrop, I argue for consciously adopting a sociocultural approach to style in linguistically and racially diverse Basic Writing classrooms. To make this argument, I focus on a multilingual writer named Tejada, who reveals how she had internalized a racialized stereotypical discourse about herself as a minority--a discourse…

While primary and secondary teachers are legally required to adhere to inclusion guidelines for students experiencing disabilities, instructors in higher education have had more leeway to operate under a more traditional paradigm which can marginalize rather than include students in the classroom. Furthermore, students experience exclusion for…

This article describes a synergistic two-semester writing sequence for biochemistry courses. In the first semester, students select a putative protein and are tasked with researching their protein largely through bioinformatics resources. In the second semester, students develop original ideas and present them in the form of a research grant…

This paper seeks to elaborate on the notion of "grammatical metaphor" intended by M. A. K. Halliday (1983) in his Functional Systemic Linguistics (FSL). "Metaphor" in linguistic parlance is "a process of mapping between two different conceptual domains--the source domain and the target domain". Halliday draws on this…

The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of how active learning took place in a class containing specific readings,cooperative and collaborative group work, and a writing assignment for college students at a Northern Virginia Community College campus (NVCC). Requisite knowledge, skills, learner characteristics, brain-based learning, and…

This article presents an argument for the "re-turn" of essayist literacy in multimedia and multiliteracy contexts. For its democratic, pedagogical, and intellectual potential, essayist literacy is too important to be removed from composition curriculum, but it needs to be re-imagined within a diversity of essay traditions, including the…

This article argues that the goal of an educator is to help students realize they can be effective writers by giving them the ability to demonstrate their skills. Scene writing can make writing seem less like a chore and more like an opportunity to express ideas. As students write scenes that include both dialogue and action, they gain a deeper…

Like sports, school is a type of performance, and the process of learning and demonstrating knowledge requires mental skills that parallel those of an athlete, such as focus, analysis, memory, and confidence. Marisa Sandoval Lamb, an English teacher and competitive runner explains the parallels that exist between academic and athletic performance…

Adopting a genre lens informed by Systemic Functional Linguistics (cf. Halliday & Matthiessen, [Halliday, M. A. K., 2004]; Martin & Rose, [Martin, J. R., 2008]), this paper explores the text-structural and lexico-grammatical choices that second language (L2) writers of German make in personal letter writing. Close analysis of two student…

Partnerships between writing across the curriculum (WAC) and civic engagement (CE) programs are not given much attention but these partnerships improve each program significantly. CE programs can borrow models from WAC for professional development and obtain support for specific kinds of writing assignments; WAC programs can find among CE…

In this paper, we discuss active learning in College Algebra at Georgia Gwinnett College. This approach has been used in more than 20 sections of College Algebra taught by the authors in the past four semesters. Students work in small, structured groups on guided inquiry activities after watching 15-20 minutes of videos before class. We discuss a…

The psychometric measures of accuracy, reliability and validity of peer assessment are critical qualities for its use as a supplement to instructor grading. In this study, we seek to determine which factors related to peer review are the most influential on these psychometric measures, with a primary focus on the accuracy of peer assessment or how…

Various instructional approaches have been laid out for conceptualizing argumentation talk and writing in English classrooms. One prominent, and historically durable, approach is formalist--teachers slot the teaching of argument into a form-based approach, usually using the 5-paragraph theme. This model too often fails to persuade students of the…

Our research includes undergraduate students who major in primary school education. Their academic background is prevailingly in the humanities. This poses specific demands on their mathematics instruction at university. To attract them to their mathematics course and raise its effectiveness, we use a series of activities. Writing assignments…

Peer review is an established strategy for improving the quality of students' writing. This study moves beyond the focus on outcomes to assess the peer-review process. In particular, this study focuses on the timing of the peer review, a highly structured feedback form, and student writers' revisions after engaging in peer review. This study draws…