Demythologizing Language Difference In The Academy

In this volume, Mark Waldo argues that writing across the curriculum (WAC) programs should be housed in writing centers and explains an innovative approach to enhancing their effectiveness: focus WAC on the writing agendas of the disciplines. He asserts that WAC operation should reflect an academy characterized by multiple language communities--each with contextualized values, purposes, and forms for writing, and no single community's values superior to another's. Starting off with an examination of the core issue, that WAC should be promoting learning to write in the disciplines instead of writing to learn, Waldo proposes: *housing WAC in comprehensive writing centers independent of any other department; *using dialogue and inquiry rather than prescriptive techniques in the WAC program's interaction with faculty in other disciplines; and *phasing out writing assessment that depends on one test measuring the writing abilities of students from all disciplines. In the process of making his case, Waldo discusses tutor training, faculty consultancy, and multilayered assessment programs. In addition to presenting the theoretical and practical advantages of discipline-based WAC programs, he also offers clear and compelling evidence from his own institution that supports the success of this approach to writing instruction. Demythologizing Language Difference in the Academy: Establishing Discipline-Based Writing Programs will be of interest to writing program and WAC administrators; writing center administrators; graduate students studying composition; and educators and graduate students involved in WAC initiatives, research, and study.

In this volume, Mark Waldo argues that writing across the curriculum (WAC) programs should be housed in writing centers and explains an innovative approach to enhancing their effectiveness: focus WAC on the writing agendas of the disciplines. He asserts that WAC operation should reflect an academy characterized by multiple language communities--each with contextualized values, purposes, and forms for writing, and no single community's values superior to another's. Starting off with an examination of the core issue, that WAC should be promoting learning to write in the disciplines instead of writing to learn, Waldo proposes: *housing WAC in comprehensive writing centers independent of any other department; *using dialogue and inquiry rather than prescriptive techniques in the WAC program's interaction with faculty in other disciplines; and *phasing out writing assessment that depends on one test measuring the writing abilities of students from all disciplines. In the process of making his case, Waldo discusses tutor training, faculty consultancy, and multilayered assessment programs. In addition to presenting the theoretical and practical advantages of discipline-based WAC programs, he also offers clear and compelling evidence from his own institution that supports the success of this approach to writing instruction. Demythologizing Language Difference in the Academy: Establishing Discipline-Based Writing Programs will be of interest to writing program and WAC administrators; writing center administrators; graduate students studying composition; and educators and graduate students involved in WAC initiatives, research, and study.

For decades theorists have opined that the lines between creative writing and composition need to be lifted, yet little has been written about the pedagogical methods that allow a cohesive approach between the disciplines. This book brings together contemporary authors and well-respected creative writing instructors and theorists to explore ways creativity in composition may be encouraged in student writers. The question in this anthology is not ‘Can writing be taught?’ but ‘How can we inspire students to embrace the creative process no matter what they write?’ This book offers multiple strategies to merge the best practices of teaching writing, regardless of the genre.

This popular, comprehensive theory-to-practice text is designed to help teachers understand the task of writing, L2 writers, the different pedagogical models used in current composition teaching, and reading–writing connections. Moving from general themes to specific pedagogical concerns, it includes practice-oriented chapters on the role of genre, task construction, course and lesson design, writing assessment, feedback, error treatment, and classroom language (grammar, vocabulary, style) instruction. Although all topics are firmly grounded in relevant research, a distinguishing feature of the text is the array of hands-on, practical examples, materials, and tasks that pre- and in-service teachers can use to develop the complex skills involved in teaching second language writing. Each chapter includes Questions for Reflection, Further Reading and Resources, Reflection and Review, and Application Activities. An ideal text for L2 teacher preparation courses, courses that include both L1 and L2 students, and workshops for instructors of L2 writers in academic (secondary and postsecondary) settings, the accessible synthesis of theory and research enables readers to see the relevance of the field’s knowledge base to their own present or future classroom settings and student writers.

Laura Wilder fills a gap in the scholarship on writing in the disciplines and writing across the curriculum with this thorough study of the intersections between scholarly literary criticism and undergraduate writing in introductory literature courses. Rhetorical Strategies and Genre Conventions in Literary Studies is the first examination of rhetorical practice in the research and teaching of literary study and a detailed assessment of the ethics and efficacy of explicit instruction in the rhetorical strategies and genre conventions of the discipline. Using rhetorical analysis, ethnographic observation, and individual interviews, Wilder demonstrates how rhetorical conventions play a central, although largely tacit, role in the teaching of literature and the evaluation of student writing. Wilder follows a group of literature majors and details their experiences. Some students received experimental, explicit instruction in the special topoi, while others received more traditional, implicit instruction. Arguing explicit instruction in disciplinary conventions has the potential to help underprepared students, Wilder explores how this kind of instruction may be incorporated into literature courses without being overly reductive. Taking into consideration student perspectives, Wilder makes a bold case for expanding the focus of research in writing in the disciplines and writing across the curriculum in order to grasp the full complexity of disciplinary discourse.

This reference guide traces the writing across the curriculum movement from its origins in British secondary education through its flourishing in American higher education and extension to American primary and secondary education.

In Assignments across the Curriculum, Dan Melzer analyzes the rhetorical features and genres of writing assignments through the writing-to-learn and writing-in-the-disciplines perspectives. Presenting the results of his study of 2,101 writing assignments from undergraduate courses in the natural sciences, social sciences, business, and humanities in 100 postsecondary institutions in the United States, Assignments across the Curriculum is unique in its cross-institutional breadth and its focus on writing assignments. The results provide a panoramic view of college writing in the United States. Melzer's framework begins with the rhetorical situations of the assignments—the purposes and audiences—and broadens to include the assignments' genres and discourse community contexts. Among his conclusions is that courses connected to a writing-across-the-curriculum (WAC) initiative ask students to write more often, in a greater variety of genres, and for a greater variety of purposes and audiences than non-WAC courses do, making a compelling case for the influence of the WAC movement. Melzer's work also reveals patterns in the rhetorical situations, genres, and discourse communities of college writing in the United States. These larger patterns are of interest to WAC practitioners working with faculty across disciplines, to writing center coordinators and tutors working with students who bring assignments from a variety of fields, to composition program administrators, to first-year writing instructors interested in preparing students for college writing, and to high school teachers attempting to bridge the gap between high school and college writing.

Modern academia is increasingly competitive yet the writing style of social scientists is routinely poor and continues to deteriorate. Are social science postgraduates being taught to write poorly? What conditions adversely affect the way they write? And which linguistic features contribute towards this bad writing? Michael Billig's witty and entertaining book analyses these questions in a quest to pinpoint exactly what is going wrong with the way social scientists write. Using examples from diverse fields such as linguistics, sociology and experimental social psychology, Billig shows how technical terminology is regularly less precise than simpler language. He demonstrates that there are linguistic problems with the noun-based terminology that social scientists habitually use - 'reification' or 'nominalization' rather than the corresponding verbs 'reify' or 'nominalize'. According to Billig, social scientists not only use their terminology to exaggerate and to conceal, but also to promote themselves and their work.