Many faculty struggle with designing and teaching online courses. Classic standardized course review models, such as the ones developed by Quality Matters (QM), are valuable tools, yet they often enforce rigid standards and lead to time-intensive course reviews. This paper offers a new solution as two faculty ask, "What would happen if an…

This article highlights recently resettled refugee teenagers' visions for their futures and their aims to improve the lives of their loved ones and transform society. Data collected in an afterschool writing workshop called Writing Our Identities for Successful Endeavors was analyzed using temporal facets of agency as a main lens to examine…

Writing teachers often express they have insufficient time to provide adequate feedback during writing workshop conferences. Existing research has identified the importance of providing feedback to students and acknowledges the difficulty in finding the vast amount of time this requires. Educators have considered using digital tools as a means of…

Afterschool educators sometimes encourage program participants to write heartfelt stories that make them feel better about the work they are doing. They want to feel they are making a difference, that they are empowering young people to speak truth to power and win. In some cases, they might be. But they must respect each young person's journey…

The author of this article describes an upper-level economics course where students learn to write economic news articles, which improves communication and audience-targeting skills. The course was created in partnership with a media outlet and designed around authentic assessments to provide students with a genuine experience based on academic…

Context: Writing is an agentive act. Despite drastic improvements over the past few decades in writing instruction and the push for sharing with authentic audiences, the majority of writing students do is still for the teacher. These practices are at odds with those who advocate for classrooms that are culturally relevant, culturally responsive,…

Brief multiple-choice question workshops are a prevalent part of the faculty development landscape. But do they work? Studies have documented that faculty member-written multiple-choice questions (fMCQs) are frequently flawed and do not live up to quality standards. Poor fMCQs have real consequences for students beyond annoyance. Fourteen studies…

A literacy intervention aiming to scaffold university students' writing of argumentative essays in history was implemented in a first-year Global Histories course at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar, where most students had English as an additional language. The intervention focused on argumentative writing because of the importance of this…

Encouraging students to 'believe that they can achieve' is a central element to teaching. The belief that it is one's efforts and techniques, rather than one's innate abilities which lead to success has a positive impact on learning behaviours. As such, Yvonne Skipper strives to promote this malleable view of intelligence (or growth mindset) in…

In 2009, The Common Core Standards shifted the English language arts focus from narrative to expository text, arguing that most texts read in college and workforce training programs are informational. By the time students are in twelfth grade, they are expected to read informational text 70% of the time. This can be challenging for English…

This paper describes the implementation of a new and innovative learning activity created to enhance the learning experience of psychology undergraduate dissertation students. The writing retreat is a student-based learning activity which aims to address students' needs over the final stages of the dissertation module. Involving active-learning,…

Which are the new directions in learning and teaching Modern Languages and English through literature? How can we use songs to talk about poetry in the language classroom, and how can creative writing workshops help with language teaching beyond the classroom? These are just a few questions addressed in this volume. Researchers and practitioners…

This qualitative research project aims to determine the impact that Task-Based Instruction had on fifteen Intermediate English language students´ writing skills in online classes at a private institute in Cartagena. A journal, a questionnaire, and a checklist were used as instruments to collect information during the diagnostic stage. During the…

This article presents the findings of a university reading and writing workshop on fairy-tale reimaginations. Fairy-tale reimaginations, understood as rewriting fairy tales using alternative narrative techniques, can be introduced into a literacy classroom where learners read reimagined fairy tales that stimulate their critical response and…

Writing is a challenge, no matter the subject or grade level. Most students have not had their writing graded against a rubric that contains very specific language and content. Many are paralyzed by the scope of the course, and the idea of answering a free response question is very intimidating. This lesson plan introduces a writing boot camp…