Resources

Argumentation in Higher Education offers professors, lecturers and researchers informative guidance for teaching effective argumentation skills to their undergraduate and graduate students. This professional guide aims to make the complex topic of argumentation open and transparent. Grounded in empirical research and theory, but with student voices heard strongly throughout, this book fills the gap of argumentation instruction for the undergraduate and graduate level. Written to enlighten even the most experienced professor, this text contributes to a better understanding of the demands of speaking, writing, and visual argumentation in higher education, and will undoubtedly inform and enhance course design. The book argues for a more explicit treatment of argument (the product) and argumentation (the process) in higher education, so that the ground rules of the academic discipline in question are made clear. Each chapter concludes with practical exercises for staff development use. Topics discussed include: The importance of argument The current state of argumentation in higher education Generic skills in argumentation The balance between generic and discipline specific skills Information communication technologies and visual argumentation How can we best teach argumentation so that students feel fully empowered in their academic composition? Professors (new and experienced), lecturers, researchers, professional developers and writing coaches worldwide grappling with this question will find this accessible text to be an extremely valuable resource. Richard Andrews is Professor in English at the Institute of Education, University of London. (From the Publisher)

In its creative integration of the disciplines of writing, rhetoric, and theology, Writing Theology Well provides a standard text for theological educators engaged in the teaching and mentoring of writing across the theological curriculum. As a theological rhetoric, it will also encourage excellence in theological writing in the public domain by helping to equip students for their wider vocations as writers, preachers, and communicators in a variety of ministerial and professional contexts. (From the Publisher)

Journal Issue. This issue considers the sustainability of English studies and of the humanities as a whole in the context of shrinking budgets and job opportunities and of shifting resources. Exploring topics from academic freedom and globalization to digitization, diversity, and the value of a humanities-based education, “To Delight and Instruct” reexamines the work of the English professor and calls for a reassessment of the priorities and means that undergird it. Contributors examine the faculty’s fundamental responsibilities to classroom teaching, the university, and the community. Attending to the relationship between changing technologies and literacy in a global environment, the issue not only argues for a reassertion and reimagining of the humanities in the contemporary university but, perhaps as important, helps articulate a way forward.

Written by the team at Bard College's Institute for Writing and Thinking, this book is designed to provide practical guidance regarding the challenges and potential of writing-based teaching, and suggestions for how to adapt the practices to particular classroom situations. The contributors share candid, first-hand accounts of what it is like to make writing central to teaching in secondary schools and colleges. As teachers of literature, composition, poetry, mathematics, anthropology, and education, they offer philosophical and theoretical reflections, practical guidance, and personal stories about how to help students become better, more-fluent writers, close readers, and reflective thinkers. This book will be of interest to writing center directors, for what it says about how to do collaborative learning and revision and seeing writing as a way to build community, and to writing teachers for how it demystifies freewriting, focused freewriting, and dialectical notebooks. Any individual, program, or institution seriously interested in understanding and practicing the writing process would benefit from using this text. One of the most important ideas in this collection is that we, as writing teachers, need to develop habits of action and habits of mind that students can take with them. (From the Publisher)

Challenges an autonomous model of literacy instruction in favor of one that recognizes and builds on students' facility in navigating other rhetorical contexts. (From the Publisher)

** By the authors of the acclaimed Introduction to Rubrics ** Major growth of interest in keeping journals or diaries for personal reflection and growth; and as a teaching tool ** Will appeal to college faculty, administrators and teachers One of the most powerful ways to learn, reflect and make sense of our lives is through journal keeping. This book presents the potential uses and benefits of journals for personal and professional development-particularly for those in academic life; and demonstrates journals' potential to foster college students' learning, fluency and voice, and creative thinking. In professional life, a journal helps to organize, prioritize and address the many expectations of a faculty member's or administrator's roles. Journals are effective for developing time management skills, building problem-solving skills, fostering insight, and decreasing stress. Both writing and rereading journal entries allow the journal keeper to document thinking; to track changes and review observations; and to examine assumptions and so gain fresh perspectives and insights over past events. The authors present the background to help readers make an informed decision about the value of journals and to determine whether journals will fit appropriately with their teaching objectives or help manage their personal and professional lives. They offer insights and advice on selecting the format or formats and techniques most appropriate for the reader's purposes. (From the Publisher)

Now in its fourth edition, this widely acclaimed sourcebook remains one of the most up-to-date and inclusive works on teaching writing today. In this edition, the editors have added twelve new essays and deleted several from the previous edition, making the content as timely as possible. Emphasizing the importance of adapting good pedagogy to multiple environments and audiences, this unique collection features some of the most intellectually exciting and pedagogically sound articles in the field. The Writing Teacher's Sourcebook, 4/e, is the definitive resource for beginning and experienced teachers alike. (From the Publisher)

This volume allows both those teachers immersed in WAC programs and those still contemplating increasing the use of writing in their courses to peer into classrooms of those that have participated in such programs for years. Walvoord et al. report the long-term impact upon faculty of writing-across-the-curriculum programs, collecting interviews, questionnaires, classroom observations, student evaluations, and course documents from more than 700 faculty, one to fifteen years after their first WAC experiences. (From the Publisher)

Offering insights into the effective use of writing to teach students to think like professionals in various fields, this book is the result of a 7-year naturalistic study. The book documents how a writing specialist paired with an experienced professor in another discipline (business, history, psychology, and biology) to study: (1) teachers' expectations about "good" writing and thinking in each discipline; (2) the kinds of difficulties students encountered in trying to meet those expectations; and (3) how teachers' methods and students' strategies helped or hindered progress. Chapters in the book are: "Preview of the Book" (Barbara E. Walvoord and Lucille Parkinson McCarthy); "Research Theory and Methods" (Lucille Parkinson McCarthy and Barbara E. Walvoord); "Managerial Decision Making: Sherman's Business Course" (Barbara E. Walvoord and A. Kimbrough Sherman); "Arguing and Debating: Breihan's History Course" (Barbara E. Walvoord and John R. Breihan); "Using Social Science to Help Oneself and Others: Robison's Human Sexuality Course" (Barbara E. Walvoord and Susan Miller Robison); "Conducting and Reporting Original Scientific Research: Anderson's Biology Class" (Virginia Johnson Anderson and Barbara E. Walvoord); and "Conclusion" (From the Publisher)