Assignments across the curriculum : a national study of college writing / Dan Melzer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Melzer, Dan, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English language--Rhetoric--Study and teaching.

English language.

Report writing--Study and teaching.

Report writing.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (157 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Boulder, Colorado : Utah State University Press, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

"In Assignments across the Curriculum, Dan Melzer analyzes the rhetorical features and genres of writing assignments through the writing-to-learn and writing-in-the-disciplines perspectives. Presenting the results of his study of 2,101 writing assignments from undergraduate courses in the natural sciences, social sciences, business, and humanities in 100 postsecondary institutions in the United States, Assignments across the Curriculum is unique in its cross-institutional breadth and its focus on writing assignments. The results provide a panoramic view of college writing in the United States. Melzer's framework begins with the rhetorical situations of the assignments--the purposes and audiences--and broadens to include the assignments' genres and discourse community contexts. Among his conclusions is that courses connected to a writing-across-the-curriculum (WAC) initiative ask students to write more often, in a greater variety of genres, and for a greater variety of purposes and audiences than non-WAC courses do, making a compelling case for the influence of the WAC movement. Melzer's work also reveals patterns in the rhetorical situations, genres, and discourse communities of college writing in the United States. These larger patterns are of interest to WAC practitioners working with faculty across disciplines, to writing center coordinators and tutors working with students who bring assignments from a variety of fields, to composition program administrators, to first-year writing instructors interested in preparing students for college writing, and to high school teachers attempting to bridge the gap between high school and college writing"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Contents; 1. A Panoramic View of College Writing; 2. Limited Purposes, Narrow Audiences: The Rhetorical Situations of College Writing; 3. Social Action, Social Inaction: The Genres of College Writing; 4. Each Course Is a Community: The Discourse Communities of College Writing; 5. The Power of Writing across the Curriculum: Writing Assignments in WAC Courses; 6. Implications for Teachers, Tutors, and WAC Practitioners; Appendix A: Institutions Surveyed; Appendix B: Sample Coded Assignments; References; Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780874219401

087421940X

OCLC:

883568831