drafting and revising

“So What?” Speed Dating: Articulating an Argument’s Significance

Activities, critical thought and analysis, drafting and revising, Feedback, reflection, rhetorical appeals and argument /

Shannon Mooney Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description This activity is intended to help students practice articulating the larger stakes, or the “so what,” of an argumentative or analytical assignment. The activity works best after students have developed complete drafts, and it can be easily adapted for any paper that requires students to present and […]

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Writing Technical Content for Online Spaces

digital literacy, drafting and revising, professional writing, technical writing, Volume 6, Volume 6, writing technologies /

Yvonne Cleary Volume 6 Chapter Description This chapter introduces readers to the rhetorical situation of topic-based writing in the context of digital technical communication, which has replaced manuals for many types of products and services. In contemporary work contexts, technical communicators are likely to work in teams, and to write topics, or short chunks of

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Technical, Scientific, and Business Presentations: Strategies for Success

drafting and revising, prewriting and invention, professional writing, technical writing, Volume 6 /

Darina M. Slattery Volume 6 Chapter Description This chapter outlines the key phases of presentation development and delivery, and how best to go about them, with reference to theory and practice from the disciplines of technical communication and information design. While the purpose of this chapter is to prepare students for workplace presentations, some of the examples will

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Engaging Audiences Beyond the University: Writing in and Reflecting on Non-Academic Rhetorical Situations

Assignments, critical thought and analysis, drafting and revising, Public Writing, research, rhetoric, rhetorical situation, secondary source research /

Rebecca Chenoweth Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description This assignment invites students to identify academic knowledge that they value, and to share this knowledge with a new audience that is impacted by and/or can impact the topic. They are then tasked with analyzing their own writing in this “non-academic” rhetorical situation. Both components of this

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Peer Review and the Writer’s Worksheet

drafting and revising, Feedback, peer review /

Anthony Edgington Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description There may be no writing classroom activity that garners such intense reactions as peer review. For some, peer review is seen as a positive, enthusiastic experience, one where students gain feedback on their essays that lead to robust revisions and extended development of the student as writer.

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Towards Self-assessing Writing beyond Writing Center Consultations

Activities, critical thought and analysis, drafting and revising, Feedback, metacognition, reflection, writing center and other resources /

Saurabh Anand Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description This activity sheet’s idea and its relevance in the writing center consultation mushroomed from my English composition teaching days to my (multilingual) students. In between drafts, I often invited my students to reflect on the writing they produced to intentionally let them self-access to intentionally let them

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Using a Growth Mindset and Revision Plan to Interpret and Apply Instructor Comments

Assignments, drafting and revising, Feedback, metacognition, Process, reflection /

Roger Powell Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description The purpose of this revision plan assignment is to help students in first-year composition courses effectively process teacher comments on their writing and make a plan to use them to revise their writing. The assignment rests on the notion that if students approach comments on their writing

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Using Reflection and Metacognition to Develop Your Half Essay

critical thought and analysis, drafting and revising, Racial Literacy, reflection, Writing Transfer /

Lindsay Knisely Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description I created an exercise for first-year writing students titled “Using Reflection and Metacognition to Develop Your Half Essay” because I wanted my students to use reflection recursively, as a tool to strengthen the analysis in their essays while they were still engaged in writing the essays themselves.

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Concise Writing Strategies

Activities, drafting and revising, grammar and mechanics, Style /

Elizabeth Blomstedt Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description Students often rely on writing strategies that make their writing wordy and bloated—sometimes subconsciously, sometimes to make their writing sound more sophisticated, and sometimes to meet word count. Presenting students with concrete strategies for making their writing more direct, clear, and concise increases student awareness of their

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