The College Writing Toolkit: Tried and Tested Ideas for Teaching College Writing / Edition 1

by Pauline Burton, Martha C Pennington

Overview

Every writing teacher needs a toolkit of good lesson plans and inspiring assignments. The College Writing Toolkit is just such a practical resource, offering practical tools for both new and experienced teachers seeking to expand their professional repertoire. The College Writing Toolkit provides a collection of “tried and tested” methods and techniques for eliciting and working on students’ writing in a college or university environment. Contributors from all over the world reflect on best practices for teaching writing and for generating writing assignments that help college or university students to learn and to express themselves with confidence, clarity, and originality and in a range of genres.

Each contribution is written in a format specifying the theoretical and conceptual framework of the pedagogical activity, its purpose, audience, and intended outcomes. Contributors also describe the situations in which the activity has been tried, what the results have been, and how the activity has been modified accordingly. An important aspect of the descriptions is the contributors’ reflections on the value of the activity and their recommendations for applying it for best results in the same and different types of contexts, such as for different types of institutions and audiences of students. Those who incorporate the practices of The College Writing Toolkit in their own teaching can therefore benefit from another practitioner’s understanding and experience gained from refining an activity over time to enhance its effectiveness.

College and university writing teachers can use and creatively adapt these activities to help their students improve their writing process, use writing as a mode of thought and reflection, master writing genres, and write effectively in their course assignments. The College Writing Toolkit is a resource for both novice and experienced writing teachers looking to try something different or new in their classes with a knowledge of a previous context in which it has been successful. By using the practical tools in The College Writing Toolkit, college/university writing teachers can expand their repertoire while gaining experience that connects them to the practices of others in the field in the ongoing expansion and refinement of the tools of the writing trade.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781845534530
Publisher:	Equinox Publishing
Publication date:	06/30/2011
Series:	Frameworks for Writing
Pages:	386
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Martha C. Pennington is Professor of Writing and Linguistics at Georgia Southern University and the editor of the journal Writing & Pedagogy. She is the author of The Computer and the Non-Native Writer (Hampton Press) and Writing in an Electronic Medium: Research with Language Learners (Athelstan). She has won awards for educational leadership from the UK as a National Teaching Fellow and from the TOEFL group of the Educational Testing Service (Princeton, New Jersey). Pauline Burton is a Senior Lecturer at the Community College of City University, Hong Kong. She co-edited Bilingual Women: Anthropological Approaches to Second Language Use (Berg) and complements her academic profile with a background in creative writing, acting, and radio performance.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. Tools of the Trade: The College Writing Teacher in a New Age
Pauline Burton and Martha C. Pennington

Part 1. Writing from Personal Experience
2. The Personal Essay as a Tool to Teach Academic Writing
Olivia Archibald, St. Martin's University (USA)
3. Snapshots of Our Literacies
Michelle Cox, Bridgewater State College (USA)
Katherine E. Tirabassi, Keene State College (USA)
4. Empowering Basic Writers Through "This I Believe" Essays
Molly Hurley Moran, University of Georgia (USA)
5. Local Heroes, Local Voices
Pauline Burton
6. A Funny Thing Happened To Me: Introducing Oneself Through Humor
Martha C. Pennington

Part 2. Argumentation and Writing from Sources
7. The "Delayed Thesis" Essay: Enhancing Rhetorical Sensitivity by Exploring Doubts and Refutations
Sara Pace, Lamar University (USA)
8. Literature-with-Exposition: A Critical Thinking and Writing Assignment
Gita DasBender, Seton Hall University (USA)
9. Paraphrase Integration Task: Increasing Authenticity of Practice
in Using Academic Sources Zuzana Toma, University of Utah (USA)
10. Teaching Critique Writing: A Scaffolded Approach
Nahla Nola Bacha, Lebanese American University (Lebanon)

Part 3. Writing for Specific Contexts
11. Academic Discourse Community Mini-Ethnography
Dan Melzer (California State University, Sacramento (USA)
12. Using Writing Across the Curriculum Exercises to Teach Critical Thinking and Writing
Robert Smart, Quinnipiac University (USA)
Suzanne Hudd, Quinnipiac University (USA)
Andrew Delohery, Quinnipiac University (USA)
13. Writing the "Professional": A Model for Teaching Project Management in a Writing Course
Sky Marsen (Victoria University of Wellington (NZ)
14. Writing for an Authentic Audience
Kate Kessler, James Madison University (USA)

Part 4. Interactive and Self Assessment of Writing
15. The Write Path: Guiding Writers to Self-Reliance
Lisa Nazarenko, University of Vienna (Austria)
Gillian Schwarz, University of Vienna (Austria)
16. Conference-based Writing Assessment and Grading
Robert T. Koch, Jr., University of North Alabama (USA)

Part 5. Working With Technology in the Writing Class
17. Scavenger Hunt: A Model for Digital Composing Processes
Sally Chandler, Kean University (USA)
Mark Sutton, Kean University (USA)
18. Virtual Mediation: Audio-Enhanced Feedback for Student Writing
Carter Winkle, Barry University (USA)
19. Academic Writing in the Foreign Language Class: Wikis and Chats at Work
Ana Oskoz, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (USA)
Idoia Elola, Texas Tech University (USA)