Resources for Instructors
Writing instructors often request support in how to teach a writing course and how to structure classroom activities and formal and informal writing assignments to help their students learn. They also seek examples from more experienced instructors to help make their course more successful. Some also want to learn more about the discipline of rhetoric and composition studies, and about the current best practices in that field. Some instructors, on the other hand, just need practical advice that is immediately applicable to a specific problem.
On this page you will find a wide range of resources, although the emphasis here is on practical and concise information. You can find more extensive and theoretical information in the Resource Library. Title in italics below indicate books available online. All links will open in a new window.
Featured Sites and Articles
Each month the Writing Committee will highlight five essential, useful, interesting or thought-provoking sites and articles for viewers who might feel lost in the sea of resources presented throughout these pages of the Writing Program site.
- Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) (an essential and comprehensive online writing resource that every instructor and student should know about and explore)
- Designing Writing Assignments (an entire book available online and for free to help you design more successfulwriting assignments)
- The Phenomenology of Error (a groundbreaking and contentious article by Joseph M. Williams, originally published in the journal College Composition and Communication in 1981, that argues for a reconsideration of how writing instructors should think about errors in student papers)
- What Bill Clinton Wrote vs. What Bill Clinton Said (a transcript of the speech Clinton wrote for the Democratic National Convention, altered to show the revisions he made while he presented it; this web page is a remarkable example of the way a revision can improve a draft)
- Video: No One Writes Alone: Peer Review in the Classroom, A Guide For Instructors (a brief video produced by MIT to help train instructors how and why to use peer review in their writing classrooms; there is an accompanying video to show to students, too)
Writing Assignments and Handouts
Writing Assignments and Handouts submitted by Mercer instructors
(Password-protected archive: use your Mercer login to access this page)
Teaching Resources
- Teaching Guide: Teaching Writing in First-Year Seminars
- Teaching Guide: Designing Writing Assignments
- Teaching Guide: Teaching Specific Writing Skills
- Teaching Guide: Using Student Peer Review
- Teaching Guide: Using Service Learning in Writing Courses
- Take 20 (a film about current practices, changing conditions, and emerging ideas around the teaching of writing)
- Teaching Ideas and Handouts (Carleton College)
- Syllabus and Assignment Design (Dartmouth College)
- Integrating Reading and Writing (Dartmouth College)
- Teaching the Thesis Statement (Dartmouth College)
- Ten Tips for Designing Writing Assignments
- Formal Writing Assignments
- Informal Writing Assignments
- Creating Effective Writing Assignments
- The “Research Paper” Prompt: A Dialogic Opportunity for Transfer
- Designing Writing Assignments
- Designing Assignments and Presenting Them to Students
- Better Student Essays through Staging and Scaffolding Assignments
- “Writing Assignments Across the Curriculum: A National Study of College Writing” (College Composition and Communication)
- What is “College-Level” Writing?
- Alternatives to Grading Student Writing
- Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 1
- Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 2
- Where to Put the Manicules: A Theory of Expert Reading
- Frequently Asked Questions about Discussion
- Integrative Learning
- Case Study Writing Scenarios
- A Brief History of the Syllabus
- Writing Intensive Program Pedagogy at UGA
- How Learning Works: Seven Principles for Smart Teaching
- Applying the Principles from How Learning Works
- Faculty Discuss How Learning Works With Author
- The Conscious Competence Ladder
- If They Say Academic Writing Is Too Hard, I Say Read Graff and Birkenstein
Writing Mechanics
- Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL)
- Mercer University First Year Seminar Handbook
- Towson University Online Writing Support
- NCTE Guideline on Some Questions and Answers about Grammar
- Grammar Alive! A Guide for Teachers
- Guide to Grammar and Writing
- Guide to Grammar and Style
- English Grammar Grammar: Lessons, Exercises, and Rules for Everyday Use
- Facts on the Teaching of Grammar
- Grammar Engagement: Background and Theory
- Grammar Engagement: Best Practices in Teaching Grammar
- “The Phenomenology of Error”
- Is English Deteriorating?
- Grammar: A Matter of Fashion
- “The laws of English punctuation”
- “The Queen’s English Society deplores your impurities"
- Grammar: Irrefutable, Irreconcilable Premises
- Punctuation Made Simple
- A 10-point Comma Quiz
Plagiarism
- Mercer University Honor Council
- Teaching Guide: Dealing with Plagiarism (Colorado State University)
- Defining and Avoiding Plagiarism: The WPA Statement on Best Practices
- Plagiarism and the Web
- The Bedford/St. Martin's Workshop on Plagiarism
- Theft, Fraud, and the Loss of Voice (From Transition to College Writing by Keith Hjortshoj)
- “Toward a Rational Response to Plagiarism” (Chronicle of Higher Education)
- Results of the Plagiarism Detection System Test 2010
Teaching the Writing Process
- Writing Guides (Colorado State University)
- Writing as a Process (Duke University)
- Five Ways of Looking at a Thesis
- Video: No One Writes Alone: Peer Review in the Classroom, A Guide For Instructors
- Peer Tutoring
- Teaching Intellectual Teamwork in WAC Courses through Peer Review
- Using Peer Review Feedback in Your Courses
- Teaching Guide: Using Student Peer Review
- Teaching the Writing Process (Dartmouth College)
- Writing Commons
- Conducting Writing Workshops (Dartmouth College)
- Diagnosing and Responding to Student Writing (Dartmouth College)
- Crappy First Drafts of Great Books
- Revision: History, Theory, and Practice
- Glossary of Prewriting Terms
Writing Assessment and Rubrics
- AAC&U: VALUE: Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education: Rubric for Written Communication
- AAC&U: Emerging Evidence on Using Rubrics
- AAC&U: How Reliable Are the VALUE Rubrics?
- Rubrics for Assessment
- Writing Assessment and Evaluation Rubrics
- Rubric Examples
- Rubrics: General Resources
- Big Rubrics and Weird Genres: The Futility of Using Generic Assessment Tools Across Diverse Instructional Contexts
- Teaching Guide: Error Pattern Analysis
- Teaching Guide: Teaching In The Margins - Commenting On Student Writing
- The Complexities of Responding to Student Writing; or, Looking for Shortcuts via the Road of Excess
- Minimal Marking
- Video: Beyond the Red Ink: Teachers’ Comments through Students’ Eyes
- AAC&U: Measuring Student Progress with E-Portfolios
- “Could you put in lots of holes?”: Modes of Response to Writing
Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC)
- An Introduction to Writing Across the Curriculum
- Reference Guide to Writing Across the Curriculum
- The WAC Bibliography
- Writing Across the Curriculum
- Thinking and Writing in College A Naturalistic Study of Students in Four Disciplines
- WAC Glossary of Terms
- Helping Students Write Better in All Courses
- Tips for Incorporating Writing Into An Introductory Statistics Course
- Articles on Writing Across the Curriculum
Writing in the Disciplines (WID)
- What is Writing in the Disciplines?
- Writing to Learn in All Fields: Applying Your Learning
- Ways of Knowing, Doing, and Writing in the Disciplines
- Writing in the Majors Initiative: Assessment of Writing
- “It's a Shame to Put Such Wonderful Thoughts in Such Poor Language”: A Chemist's Perspective on Writing in the Discipline
Teaching Researched Writing
- Mercer Library Research Assignment Suggestions
- The Process of Research Writing
- The Working Thesis Exercise
- Working with Sources (Duke University)
- The Informed Writer: Using Sources in the Disciplines
- The Citation Project
- Writing from Sources, Writing from Sentences
- “I need three peer reviewed articles” or the Freshman Research Paper
- Why Isn't There Just One Citation Style?
Teaching Informal Writing and Writing to Learn (WTL) Assignments
- Writing to Learn
- Defining Informal and Formal Writing
- Informal Writing Assignments (Writing to Learn): Overview
- Writing for Learning—Not Just for Demonstrating Learning
- Writing to Learn
- Benefits of Low Stakes Writing (Writing to Learn)
- Composition Theory and Writing to Learn - How Writing Enhances Cognitive Development in the Classroom
- Examples of Writing to Learn Activities
- Writing-to-Learn Activities
- Write-to-Learn Activities
- 20 Writing Activities to Enhance Learning
- Writing Activities to Get Students Thinking and Learning
- Writing to Learn and Learning to Write
- Using Writing as an Alternative to Lecturing
- Using Microthemes to Improve Students' Writing Skills
- Sequenced Microthemes: A Great Deal of Thinking for Your Students, and Relatively Little Grading for You
- Video: Designing Engaging Writing Assignments-Writing to Learn
- Video: Designing Engaging Writing Assignments
- Writing as Situated Thinking in General Education
- Practical Advice for Supporting Learning through the Use of Summary/Reaction Journals
- Roots in the Sawdust: Writing to Learn Across the Disciplines
- How Writing Shapes Thinking: A Study of Teaching and Learning
Teaching Writing Genres
- Genres of Writing (Duke University)
- Rhetorical Genre Studies Approaches to Teaching Writing
- Genre: An Introduction to History, Theory, Research, and Pedagogy
- Genre in a Changing World
- Toward A Taxonomy of "Small" Genres and Writing Techniques for Writing Across the Curriculum
- The Small Genres
- A Genre Approach to Writing Assignments
- Introducing Students to Disciplinary Genres: The Role of the General Composition Course
Handouts and Sample Assignments
- UNC-CH Writing Center Handouts (Archive of excellent handouts on all aspects of writing and writing instruction)
- University Writing Center of Appalachian State University Handouts
- Assignment Examples (Auburn University)
