Downs & Wardle (Week 8) Archives

Revisioning First-Year Composition: Teaching Writing, Not JUST How to Write

FYC boxes students’ writing skills into skills that are applied to any situation outside of writing studies. Is there a correct way to teach writing?

Encouraging future success by pursuing applicable knowledge, and stressing that composition courses are an entryway to writing, not a certification.

Downs and Wardle advocate for the Writing about Writing approach in FYC, emphasizing writing studies over general writing skills.

Annoyance with freshmen is their (unfortunate) rite of passage—but let’s not take it out on their first-year writing courses too.

This week we have two articles, both with Elizabeth Wardle. For better or worse, we take a closer look at first-year composition courses.

Misconceptions of academic completion within the first year of a writing students’ studies can influence fallacies of expectations

Writing instructors shouldn’t be responsible for teaching across multiple disciplines. Would an Intro to Writing Studies course be successful?

How do we get students from viewing writing as a “mysterious talent” to a “researchable activity”? Downs and Wardle help us out with this.

Within this blog, you can find me reflecting back to college composition classes and adding a personal input on this topics.

How unproductive to leave FYC to one or two semesters and to professors who is overwhelmed with several disagreeing voices