One composition instructor's purpose is to address, or perhaps, re-dress, the balance of the relationship between teacher and student using a dialogic framework that provides for reciprocity. Her aim is to provoke, to seduce (persuade through passion), and to awaken their incipient sense of wonder at the world and the language that creates this…

This paper discusses the different types of presentations employed in various forms of impromptu and limited preparation speaking assignments in public speaking, interpersonal communication, and argumentation instruction. It also highlights the benefits associated with each activity, for example, improved thinking skills. The paper's presentations…

Courtroom scenes in literature seem to have a special magic with students (probably because of all the trials seen on television, fiction or non-fiction). Students in a composition and literature course at the University of Nebraska, after reading Thomas Hardy's "Tess of the D'Urbervilles," wrote "closing arguments" for either…

After an introduction by James L. Marra explaining the Intellectual Heritage Program at the College of Art and Sciences at Temple University (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), this paper presents four brief faculty essays describing various techniques that the writers use in their classes in the program. The techniques discussed in the paper are…

Designed for a teacher of social studies at the secondary level (grades 7-12) this curriculum project introduces students to different aspects of Indian culture. Along with introductory elements, the project offers suggestions for assignments and projects for students to complete. The curriculum project begins with brief sections on…

A naturalistic study of 21 college students (at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania) writing research papers provides detailed analyses of the roles that notetaking, planning, goal-setting, and revising play in students' approaches and examines whether these "high investment" reading and writing processes lead to higher quality…

An exercise in ghostwriting--a process where the reader completes a section of the text in the reader's head based on clues in the text--was used in freshman composition and upper-level composition classes to get students to concentrate on their reading processes. In this assignment, a short story was chosen from which different portions of the…

Focusing on the importance of helping students to be aware of diverse viewpoints and customs, and to understand their own cultural heritage, this paper discusses how multicultural awareness is addressed in an introductory literature class and a composition class. The paper's first section introduces the basic elements in multicultural education,…

A study tested the hypothesis that students who were required to read a book of their choice for 15 minutes per night would have a more positive attitude toward reading than similar students who did not have that assignment. The Estes Attitude Scale for reading was given to two classes (high group and low group) of sixth graders in central…

With rare exceptions, the assignment of a research paper elicits groans from students and sighs from their teachers, or worse. While the research paper became a fixture in composition textbooks and classrooms by the 1940s, its origins can be traced to fundamental changes in the American academy after the Civil War. The language of the term paper…

Nine years ago, many parents protesting the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (commonly referred to as the Hatch Amendment) accused the schools of invading student privacy in sex and drug education classes, in counseling sessions, and in English classes. Some parents testifying at hearings conducted by the United States Department of Education…

Students often arrive at universities ill-prepared for the reflective practice needed to derive maximum benefits from a Freshman Seminar. At the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, portfolio projects are semester-long assignments in which the portfolio serves as a capstone activity to help freshmen more thoroughly analyze their first year…

Because reference librarians at San Antonio College (Texas) often found themselves facing the difficult situation of assisting students who were struggling with ill-conceived, faculty-designed library assignments, they developed a 2-hour workshop for faculty on the construction of course-related assignments. This collection of workshop-related…

A close reading of two nineteenth-century composition textbook prefaces reveals that teachers of that period attempted to rename and refocus the content and practice of composition to meet the imagined needs of real students, who were also frustrated and struggling. From the perspective of a twentieth-century composition teacher, William Swinton's…

Composition classrooms are the place to talk specifically about the rhetoricity of writing in academic disciplines. Students can use personal experiences to understand what it means to see themselves as aggressive or passive participants of various institutions. Too often students do not understand themselves as having any authority, but are…