Composition Classroom Research Articles

Using culturally sustaining and revitalizing pedagogy in the composition classroom to engage students in critiquing supremacy culture

Using culturally sustaining and revitalizing pedagogy in the composition classroom to engage students in critiquing supremacy culture

Teaching Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God in First-Year Composition

My teaching note explores how to teach Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God in first-year composition classrooms. I discuss the demographics of my classroom in a rural public university, and my students' reactions to reading the novel. This article highlights the successes and challenges of my classroom discussions and activities relating to reader comprehension and code switching. In addition, I explore ways to implement antiracist and feminist pedagogies while keeping students out of the "panic zone."

Instructional Note: How to Create and Communicate Weekly Check-Ins to Promote Community and Belonging

This Instructional Note elaborates on how weekly anonymous wellness check-in surveys can be designed and implemented in English courses to support students’ purposeful awareness of their well-being and to create a sense of supportive community in the composition classroom.

Writer as Character: Creating “One-Pager” Tabletop Roleplaying Games in the First Year Composition Classroom

This proposed session/paper reflects on an assignment in a first-year writing course where students create a “one pager” tabletop roleplaying game based on writing a research paper. This assignment is designed to both support skill transfer through defamiliarizing the process of research writing through translation to the roleplaying game, and to define the persona (or player-character) of the writer, exploring the materiality of the writerly identity. This assignment is rooted in a composition pedagogy that centers the identity of the author as a complex piece of the writing puzzle, building on feminist and queer pedagogies (Jung 2005; Hawisher 2003; Alexander and Rhodes 2011) and interrogating Aristotelian conceptions of ethos and identity. Building on both persona and frame theories of tabletop roleplaying games (see Waskul and Lust 2004; Fine 1983; MacKay 2001; Grouling Cover 2010), this assignment asks that students not only conceptualize the writing process but the writer themself, as a character that exists in the created game–a persona existing in the “gameplay” frame. After creating their own games, students play the games created by the peers and subsequently reflect on the “character” they were invited to play, thinking about how their own complex, intersectional, and performed identity shapes their writing. This assignment lays bare both the intersections between person, writer, and text, and the processes and skills required to craft a research paper. This session will include the assignment sheet, samples of student work, and reporting on the experience, as well as a thorough grounding in the composition and TTRPG theories that undergird the work.

Embracing AI in English Composition: Insights and Innovations in Hybrid Pedagogical Practices

In the rapidly evolving landscape of English composition education, the integration of AI writing tools like ChatGPT and Claude 2.0 has marked a significant shift in pedagogical practices. A mixed-method study conducted in Fall 2023 across three sections, including one English Composition I and two English Composition II courses, provides insightful revelations. The study, comprising 28 student respondents, delved into the impact of AI tools through surveys, analysis of writing artifacts, and a best practices guide developed by an honors student. Initially, the study observed a notable anxiety and mistrust among students regarding the use of AI in writing. However, this apprehension gradually subsided as students increasingly integrated these tools into their writing processes, indicating a shift from skepticism to practical application. The analysis of writing artifacts, particularly early drafts, revealed distinct patterns of AI tool usage, differentiating between students utilizing the tools effectively and those attempting to shortcut the writing process. The final papers, while not overtly indicating AI usage, demonstrated nuanced integration of AI in iterative and recursive tasks like refining arguments and developing ideas at the paragraph level. This suggests a trend towards a hybrid model of writing instruction, where traditional methods are complemented by strategic use of emergent technologies. The study underscores the importance of revised instructional strategies that blend conventional writing techniques with guidance on effective and ethical AI tool usage. It highlights the potential of AI tools in supporting the writing process while also cautioning against over-reliance. The findings of this study offer valuable insights for educators and institutions aiming to develop a balanced and effective hybrid writing instruction model, catering to the needs of contemporary English composition classrooms while maintaining academic integrity.

Using ChatGPT in the Composition Classroom: Remembering the Importance of Human Connection to Audience

Using ChatGPT in the Composition Classroom: Remembering the Importance of Human Connection to Audience

Decentering the History of the Writing Center: A Case for the Mesopotamian Edubba as an Early Writing Center

This paper tells the story of the edubba, the Mesopotamian scribal school. First, the edubba’s pedagogy demonstrates that the first formalized center for teaching writing was more akin to the modern writing center than to the composition classroom. Second, unlike many modern writing centers, the edubba was multilingual. It is easy to look at the past and congratulate ourselves on how much better we’ve made the future, but the edubba has something to teach us beyond the fact that it preceded the composition classroom. A circle has no beginning, and both the writing center and the writing classroom are part of one circle—equally important to the students they serve.

Making Good on Our Promises to Language Justice: Spheres of Coalitional Possibilities across the Discipline

In this article, we argue for a coalitional orientation for writing programs and centers to advance language justice and make good on the promises delineated over fifty years ago in the Conference of College Composition and Communication’s publication of the Students’ Right to Their Own Language. Specifically, we argue that writing centers are ripe sites of teaching and learning—not merely auxiliary support for the composition classroom. Indeed, as we demonstrate, many writing centers actively push for language justice by, for example, publishing language diversity/inclusion statements and championing concrete, pedagogically just practices. Accordingly, we urge the discipline of composition and writing centers to work together as coalitional partners to advance language justice across the discipline and, ultimately, beyond.

Labor-Based and/or Rubric-Based? Examining the Effects of a Hybrid Grading System in the Composition Classroom

Abstract: Both labor-based and rubric-based grading systems attempt to mitigate subjectivity in the assessment of writing, and while each method has their advantages, they also come with a slew of weaknesses. Scholars such as Asao B. Inoue, Laura Gibbs, and Denise Krane support labor-based grading because this method reinforces process pedagogy, which, Chris M. Anson comment, helps "students engage in their writing to develop self-efficacy, confidence, and strategies for meeting the challenges of multiple writing situations" (226). On the other end of the spectrum is rubric-based grading, which presents students with a set of clear rules that guide their writing process. Whatever the case, both labor-based and rubric-based grading methods fail to account for classroom ecology.

Beyond (Favor) Access: Constellating Communities through Collective Access

Drawing on disability studies analysis of institutional narratives of disability by composition and rhetoric scholars, this article theorizes “favor access.” Favor access gestures toward inclusion, but is steeped in the capitalist, colonialist logic of academic institutions in service of ultimately extractive, dehumanizing agendas. Instead of favor access, the article points to collective access as articulated by disability justice activists. As opposed to favor access, collective access rejects institutional logics and values community and collaboration rather than academia’s emphasis on individualism and competition. This article considers sites where collective access is happening in composition classrooms and in the field of composition and rhetoric.

Time Travel in the Composition Classroom: A Critical Thinking Assignment

The pedagogical challenge of any opinion essay is that students tend to think critically only about the past and present in connection to a problem. Their ideas about the problem concerning the future often contain no critical thinking: they focus on the simplistic notion that a problem will continue to be a problem and worsen. True, students cannot know the future, but they can speculate about it in a careful and responsible way. By guiding students with a series of questions to look more deeply at the future in relation to a particular problem, students will gain a deeper understanding of a problem. These questions have been developed over the course of five years of teaching an assignment I named “Opinion Essay from the Future.” This assignment fosters students’ critical thinking about the future and can illuminate a problem in the present and the near and distant future. Students need to use logic in their speculating, but speculating in and of itself is also a creative act. The paper concludes that writing about a problem in the future makes students, in many ways, similar to science fiction writers. When encouraged strategically, their imaginings about a problem recontextualize it, letting them see the problem through a wider lens that will show them that looking ahead makes the here and now clearer.

Working With (Not Against) the Technology: GPT3 and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in College Composition

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) for improvement of writing is commonplace with word-processing software and cloudbased writing assistants such as Grammarly and Microsoft Word. However, more and more options are cropping up that move beyond assistance with grammar, spelling, and punctuation to complete essay generation. The free availability of AI essay generators has led to lamenting the coming death of college writing. But AI has been used in the previously noted examples for decades without such a reaction. In fact, the idea that the use of essay generating software is synonymous with academic dishonesty is as passé as worries about allowing students to use calculators or chalkboards. Both are tools that emerged by affording students a different type of learning which was not rote memorization. The questions now become how AI tools can and should be used to teach English composition and to what extent. In the conceptual age where AI is used to augment all other facets of human creativity, providing students with the tools they will need for effective communication becomes inevitable. These new AI tools may allow students to master grammar and syntax more quickly in order to move on to important research questions that will contribute to knowledge in their given fields. This study investigates the current and potential uses of AWE, AAG and AI essay generators in a first-semester English composition classroom. Students in the study were provided with the same assignments and learning outcomes as are standard in English, composition courses but were encouraged to use AI applications when prompted to discover the usefulness and limitations of such technology. Results from the study confirm that use of such tools does not automatically lead to plagiarism or academic dishonesty. On the contrary, higher-order thinking skills and metacognition are required to use AI tools appropriately to learn writing skills. Furthermore, the tools themselves became the topic covered in the class for the study and led to further social and ethical implications

Why Robert Scholes's Utopian Vision Did Not Become Reality, and How to Make It Happen

Why Robert Scholes's Utopian Vision Did Not Become Reality, and How to Make It Happen

The Drama with Madonna: A Hidden Archive Glimpse at bell hooks in the Composition Classroom

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THE ABC’s OF STUDENT DISPOSITIONS TOWARDS WRITTEN FEEDBACK IN ESL CLASSROOMS IN ACCRA METROPOLIS, GHANA

Educators and researchers interested in the development of second language learners’ writing skills place premium on how feedback is provided and the crucial role student attitudes play in determining the efficacy of feedback in the execution of L2 writing instruction. In line with this standpoint, the current study investigates the affective, behavioral, and cognitive dimensions of student dispositions towards written feedback in English composition classrooms in senior high schools in the Accra Metropolis in Ghana. The study was based on Eagly and Chaiken’s (1998) ABC model of attitude. Following a sequential explanatory design, 12 students each from the 5 major programs in each school were sampled from 2 each of Categories A, B, and C schools to respond to questionnaires. Afterward, 36 of these students were purposively sampled to take part in interviews. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences was used to analyze the quantitative data generating means and standard deviations. Also, the interview data were thematically analyzed. The findings show that students generally have positive cognitive, affective, and behavioral attitudes towards teacher direct and unfocused feedback but have negative attitudes towards peer feedback and teacher indirect and focused feedback. From these findings, it is suggested that English language teachers in Ghanaian ESL classrooms should carefully consider the attitudes of their students in determining the use of written feedback in order to optimize the impact of the feedback on the development of the writing proficiencies of the students.&lt;p&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt; Article visualizations:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0269/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

Cross-Cultural Perceptions of Literacies in Literacy Narratives

Although literacy narratives have been a popular assignment in college composition classrooms, the role of context and interaction in students’ writing and understanding of literacy is one of the least explored areas. This article reports the findings of a qualitative case study conducted in a regular first year composition class (English 101) of a public research university in the Southwest. The data is comprised of fifteen literacy narratives accompanied by reflective letters written by a group of English monolingual and bi- and multilingual students; transcripts of nine personal interviews; and twelve one-on-one conferences that were coded and analyzed using a combination of inductive, deductive, and literal or verbatim coding methods mostly informed by grounded theory. The findings show that a literacy narrative assignment in college writing can foster a complex understanding of literacies among student writers. When we adopt a translingual orientation to literacy, encourage cross-cultural conversations through various collaborative activities and diverse readings, and emphasize the role of little narratives to resist the master narrative of literacy, both English monolingual and bi- and multilingual students mutually enrich their understanding of literacies. In this process, the writing classroom becomes borderland and the instructor and students become border crossers.

Rethinking Translingualism in College Composition Classrooms: A Digital Ethnographic Study of Multilingual Students’ Written Communication Across Contexts

It is important to understand multilingual students’ lived experiences and sense-making in their everyday written communication before rethinking the implementation of translingual writing in college composition classrooms. Unpacking multilinguals’ written communication across social and academic contexts, this exploratory qualitative study integrates digital ethnographic and interview methods to examine the first-semester communication experiences of 10 undergraduate students. The findings indicate that while participants engaged in translingual written communication as part of their lived experiences in social contexts, they were reluctant to draw upon their home language in academic settings. Based on the findings, I discuss the pedagogical implications of supporting multilingual students in college composition classrooms. I argue that instructors must reposition themselves as co-learners together with their multilingual students to enact a translingual stance in academic settings and reimagine meaningful written communication beyond English-only. This study sheds light on rethinking the pedagogical practices around implementing translingualism in college composition.

Film in the Composition Classroom

AbstractInstructors of writing-intensive disciplines infrequently integrate cinematic media in composition curricula. Furthermore, when instructors use films in composition courses, they often treat films merely as supplemental texts tangentially relevant to course topics and prioritize teaching content rather than media or filmmaking. This pedagogical approach overlooks an opportunity to ask students to consider how the audiovisual rhetorical efforts can meaningfully harmonize or create dissonance with the content. In this research study, the author argues that students are active media consumers engaging frequently with media as a form of composition. He navigates the limitations of Gregory Ulmer and Lev Manovitch, whose early work stressing the primacy of media literacies in composition classrooms is nonetheless seminal to the author's larger claims of film's educational import. The author relates the results of the IRB-approved research of his composition students, who offer feedback about the use of film in the class. The author calls for greater attention to film instruction and curricula development for collegiate composition classrooms, urging educators to move beyond film's supplemental use and toward more educationally fruitful practices, including teaching active watching and basic film analysis. Film is a critical form of cultural communication and media, and the author contends that it is a pivotal part of the landscape of twenty-first century literacy engagements.

Practices for Addressing Affective Difficulty in the Writing Classroom

Abstract Any attempt to control the content and conversations of first-year composition classrooms has become increasingly complicated by social media and technology. Building on the types of textual difficulty explored by scholars like Mariolina Rizzi Salvatori and Patricia Donahue, Jeffrey Berman, and Alan Purves, this article considers the challenges presented to contemporary college-level readers by affectively difficult texts such as David Lynch's 1986 film Blue Velvet. The article also explores the potential responses students express to difficult texts and encourages flexibility in the assumptions made about these reactions. By working through the importance of these questions, the author ultimately examines the potential benefits and best strategies of using difficult fictional texts in the writing classroom to help students investigate the nuances of verbal and written conversations such as those created by the #MeToo movement.

Flip This Class: Maximizing Student Learning in Information Literacy Skills in the Composition Classroom through Instructor and Librarian Collaboration

Library research instruction is most effective in First-Year Writing (FYW) when the instructor and participating librarians collaborate. In this case study from Eastern Washington University, an instructor-librarian collaborative partnership was taken to a deep, sophisticated level. The instructor and librarians utilized a flipped classroom model to introduce students to the academic research process within a writing context. The results of an assessment of student learning from this class (pre-survey versus post-survey) indicated that a collaborative flipped classroom maximized student learning in information literacy skills.