Positive Expectations: A Reflective Tale on the Teaching of Writing

A case study on the teaching of writing, this paper discusses what motivates students in a freshman writing course to complete increasingly difficult writing assignments. The study provides a glimpse into how one class of freshman students developed positive expectations for writing a paper about a difficult poem by helping each other map strategies for…

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Social Learning via Improved Daily Writing Assignments, Implementation of Study Groups, and Well-Structured Daily Class Discussions

As recent scholarship emphasizes the value of social learning, this article describes a course redesign that sought to encourage such social learning. This multi-year course redesign includes altering a daily writing assignment to make it more specific and to make it a contribution to the learning of a study group. Data was collected and evaluated…

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