July 2011 Archives

One thing nearly everyone asked for in the textbook revision is an introductory chapter that sets up what academic writing is and why anyone would bother to do it.

What do you tell your students about that? Do you have them read anything? Can you point us to resources you've found helpful in explaining how college writing differs from high school writing (or differs from writing in other contexts students might already be familiar with)?

Some instructors have students write a literature review rather than a comparative analysis paper. Should the textbook include material about how to write a literature review?

We thought you might like to see what your colleagues had to say in the small group meetings about the Writ 1120 text. We have many pages of notes, so we tried winnowing down to some of the most common suggestions. They were:

• Add an introductory chapter that helps give students context


• Improve visual appeal: more summary boxes, annotations, less text per page.


• Include more examples of student work, annotating some or all of them.


• Use different examples of published writing (delete Y2K, for example).


• Add "analysis" to CSC - CSAC.


• Make a distinction between paraphrasing and summarizing.


• Add material on quoting effectively.


• Add material on critical reading, annotating texts, how to read academic writing.


• Strengthen material on introductions and conclusions.


• Add and strengthen material on argument.


• De-link chapters and assignments. Focus chapters on concepts and skills, not papers.


• Include periodic review of previous concepts; show more explicitly how each assignment builds on previous skills.

If you'd like to see all of the notes, we're happy to share them. Does this cover the major things you'd like changed? What else do you think is crucial?