What Is College Level Writing

"A sequel to What Is "College-Level" Writing? (2006), the essays in this collection focus on matters that English teachers concern themselves with every day: assignments, readings, and real student writing."

An interactive, multimedia text that introduces students to reading and writing at the college level.

div Composition research consistently demonstrates that the social context of writing determines the majority of conventions any writer must observe. Still, most universities organize the required first-year composition course as if there were an intuitive set of general writing "skills" usable across academic and work-world settings. In College Writing and Beyond: A New Framework for University Writing Instruction, Anne Beaufort reports on a longitudinal study comparing one student’s experience in FYC, in history, in engineering,;

Writing academic essays in college often seems mysterious to students who do not yet understand the process of developing an idea into a finished piece of reasoned prose. Writing Your Way Through College demystifies that process and enables teachers to help students "invent the university" as they reinvent themselves as proficient writers and rhetorical problem solvers. Writing Your Way Through College offers instructors a set of careful lessons that draw on current disciplinary knowledge in composition and rhetoric. Sheryl Fontaine and Cherryl Smith provide a classroom-centered text that guides students through progressively more complex, evidence-based writing. Writing Your Way Through College offers students and teachers: practical lessons on writing and learning a set of assignments that build incrementally a support system for new instructors accessible information about college writing a flexible approach to the classroom. In a concise, readable format, Writing Your Way Through College offers insights into how individuals negotiate language communities so that students can better master the conventions and rhetorical characteristics of academic writing. A creative and effective template for the teaching of writing, Writing Your Way Through College belongs on every shelf and in every classroom.

An important challenge to what currently masquerades as conventional wisdom regarding the teaching of writing. There seems to be widespread agreement that—when it comes to the writing skills of college students—we are in the midst of a crisis. In Why They Can't Write, John Warner, who taught writing at the college level for two decades, argues that the problem isn't caused by a lack of rigor, or smartphones, or some generational character defect. Instead, he asserts, we're teaching writing wrong. Warner blames this on decades of educational reform rooted in standardization, assessments, and accountability. We have done no more, Warner argues, than conditioned students to perform "writing-related simulations," which pass temporary muster but do little to help students develop their writing abilities. This style of teaching has made students passive and disengaged. Worse yet, it hasn't prepared them for writing in the college classroom. Rather than making choices and thinking critically, as writers must, undergraduates simply follow the rules—such as the five-paragraph essay—designed to help them pass these high-stakes assessments. In Why They Can't Write, Warner has crafted both a diagnosis for what ails us and a blueprint for fixing a broken system. Combining current knowledge of what works in teaching and learning with the most enduring philosophies of classical education, this book challenges readers to develop the skills, attitudes, knowledge, and habits of mind of strong writers.

High school students, two-year college students, and university students all need to know how to write a well-reasoned, coherent research paper—and for decades Kate Turabian’s Student’s Guide to Writing College Papers has helped them to develop this critical skill. In the new fourth edition of Turabian’s popular guide, the team behind Chicago’s widely respected The Craft of Research has reconceived and renewed this classic for today’s generation. Designed for less advanced writers than Turabian’s Manual of Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, Seventh Edition, Gregory G. Colomb and Joseph M. Williams here introduce students to the art of defining a topic, doing high-quality research with limited resources, and writing an engaging and solid college paper. The Student’s Guide is organized into three sections that lead students through the process of developing and revising a paper. Part 1, "Writing Your Paper," guides students through the research process with discussions of choosing and developing a topic, validating sources, planning arguments, writing drafts, avoiding plagiarism, and presenting evidence in tables and figures. Part 2, "Citing Sources," begins with a succinct introduction to why citation is important and includes sections on the three major styles students might encounter in their work—Chicago, MLA, and APA—all with full coverage of electronic source citation. Part 3, "Style," covers all matters of style important to writers of college papers, from punctuation to spelling to presenting titles, names, and numbers. With the authority and clarity long associated with the name Turabian, the fourth edition of Student’s Guide to Writing College Papers is both a solid introduction to the research process and a convenient handbook to the best practices of writing college papers. Classroom tested and filled with relevant examples and tips, this is a reference that students, and their teachers, will turn to again and again.

This book gives students an answer to the question, “What does my professor want from this essay?” In lively, direct language, it explains the process of creating “a clearly-written argument, based on evidence, about the meaning, power, or structure of a literary work.” Using a single poem by William Carlos Williams as the basis for the process of writing a paper about a piece of literature, it walks students through the processes of reading, brainstorming, researching secondary sources, gathering evidence, and composing and editing the paper. Writing Essays About Literature is designed to strengthen argumentation skills and deepen understanding of the relationships between the reader, the author, the text, and critical interpretations. Its lessons about clarity, precision, and the importance of providing evidence will have wide relevance for student writers.