Looking for Trouble: Finding Your Way into a Writing Assignment

Catherine Savini

Volume 2

Chapter Description

How can we help students become invested in their writing? How can we help students write interesting papers that we look forward to reading? Students can learn to write interesting papers that develop complex ideas if they begin by “looking for trouble.” This chapter provides students with a step-by-step process for finding their way into assignments by focusing on tensions within texts or between themselves and texts, articulating problems, and raising questions. Given that all good academic writing, regardless of discipline, wrestles with meaningful problems and pursues fruitful questions, you can help students use this approach whenever they are given a writing assignment.

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Writing Spaces is published in partnership with Parlor Press and WAC Clearinghouse.