The sixteen essays in this anthology describe the practice of teaching about place, with the goal of inspiring educators as well as other readers to discover the value of close investigation of their own places. The contributors discuss places from the desert river canyons of the American West, to the bayous of Texas, to wildlife refuges on the Atlantic Coast, to New England’s forests and river, and back to the wildland-urban interface in suburban Southern California. <br> These essays reveal broader lessons about the possibilities and limitations that come with teaching about place and inhabiting our own places outside the classroom. Contributors include: Ann Zwinger, Bradley John Monsma, SueEllen Campbell, Terrell Dixon, and John Elder.<br> <br>

Bruce McComiskey is a strong advocate of social approaches to teaching writing. However, he opposes composition teaching that relies on cultural theory for content, because it too often prejudges the ethical character of institutions and reverts unnecessarily to product-centered practices in the classroom. He opposes what he calls the "read-this-essay-and-do-what-the-author-did method of writing instruction: read Roland Barthes's essay 'Toys' and write a similar essay; read John Fiske's essay on TV and critique a show."

McComiskey argues for teaching writing as situated in discourse itself, in the constant flow of texts produced within social relationships and institutions. He urges writing teachers not to neglect the linguistic and rhetorical levels of composing, but rather to strengthen them with attention to the social contexts and ideological investments that pervade both the processes and products of writing.

A work with a sophisticated theory base, and full of examples from McComiskey's own classrooms, Teaching Composition as a Social Process will be valued by experienced and beginning composition teachers alike.

In this classic text, Joseph Harris traces the evolution of college writing instruction since the Dartmouth Seminar of 1966. A Teaching Subject offers a brilliant interpretive history of the first decades during which writing studies came to be imagined as a discipline separable from its partners in English studies. Postscripts to each chapter in this new edition bring the history of composition up to the present.

Reviewing the development of the field through five key ideas, Harris unfolds a set of issues and tensions that continue to shape the teaching of writing today. Ultimately, he builds a case, now deeply influential in its own right, that composition defines itself through its interest and investment in the literacy work that students and teachers do together. Unique among English studies fields, composition is, Harris contends, a teaching subject.

Harris, Miles and Paine ask:  What happens when the texts that students write become the focus of a writing course? In response, a distinguished group of scholar/teachers suggests that teaching with students texts is not simply a classroom technique, but a way of working with writing that defines composition as a field.

In Teaching with Student Texts, authors discuss ways of revaluing student writing as intellectual work, of circulating student texts in the classroom and beyond, and of changing our classroom practices by bringing student writings to the table. Together, these essays articulate a variety of ways that student texts can take a central place in classroom work and can, in the process, redefine the ways our field talks about writing.

Expressing ourselves well in written communication is important to many areas of our lives, and essential in the working world. Many courses that seek to prepare students for professional writing, however, overlook the fact that most real-world writing is produced by and for people working within groups. Teaching Writing That Works offers composition instructors an alternative to the conventional composition course in which one individual (a student) writes in isolation for another isolated individual (the teacher). The result of Rabkin and Smith's innovative, non-hierarchical approach to composition learning is Practical English, a course developed at the University of Michigan. In this successful and popular course, the choice and execution of writing tasks are the responsibility of students working together in groups rather than working alone as individuals. The crucial rhetorical issues of audience and purpose are focused by having students use their writing to do real work, both within the classroom and beyond it. The writing that evolves from this collaboration is then edited and evaluated by the group. In this emphasis on students' authority over and responsibility for the learning process, Teaching Writing That Works reflects current pedagogical concerns and philosophy. The busy teacher looking for fresh approaches for the composition classroom but with no time to develop a whole new course from the bottom up will appreciate the book's full descriptions of the Michigan course. The authors provide an outline of the curriculum and thorough explanations of teaching techniques for the course, as well as a detailed discussion of the workshop practicum and its application. Much of the practical advice and theoretical discussion can be imported into existing courses as self-contained units. Selections from students' comments on the course enhance the text and offer glimpses into the reasons for the course's popularity among students—and teachers.

To many academics, composition still represents typewritten texts on 8.5” x 11” pages that follow rote argumentative guidelines. In Toward a Composition Made Whole, Jody Shipka views composition as an act of communication that can be expressed through any number of media and as a path to meaning-making. Her study offers an in-depth examination of multimodality via the processes, values, structures, and semiotic practices people employ everyday to compose and communicate their thoughts.
      Shipka counters current associations that equate multimodality only with computer, digitized, or screen-mediated texts, which are often self-limiting. She stretches the boundaries of composition to include a hybridization of aural, visual, and written forms. Shipka analyzes the work of current scholars in multimodality and combines this with recent writing theory to create her own teaching framework. Among her methods, Shipka employs process-oriented reflection and a statement of goals and choices to prepare students to compose using various media in ways that spur their rhetorical and material awareness. They are encouraged to produce unusual text forms while also learning to understand the composition process as a whole. Shipka presents several case studies of students working in multimodal composition and explains the strategies, tools, and spaces they employ. She then offers methods to critically assess multimodal writing projects.
      Toward a Composition Made Whole challenges theorists and compositionists to further investigate communication practices and broaden the scope of writing to include all composing methods. While Shipka views writing as crucial to discourse, she challenges us to always consider the various purposes that writing serves.

The nature of Gertrude Buck, professor of English at Vassar College from 1897 until her death in 1922, is well-known to anyone interested in the history of composition.  Her writing is less well-known, much of it now out of print.  JoAnn Campbell gathers together for the first time the major work of this innovative thinker and educator, including her most important articles on rhetorical theory; The Social Criticism of Literature, a forerunner of reader-response literary theory; selections from her textbooks on argumentative and expository writing; poetry; fiction; her play Mother-Love, and unpublished reports and correspondence from the English department at Vassar.

In her introduction, Campbell describes the masculine rhetorical tradition within which Buck wrote and taught.  Her theories of language and composition quietly challenged the dominant rhetorics issuing from Harvard and Amherst.  An unusually productive scholar, Buck wrote textbooks for her female students that affirmed women’s intellectual abilities and trained them to participate in political debate.  In the Vassar English Department she found a community of women among whom she could practice and develop her theories regarding rhetoric, pedagogy, and the role of the individual in society.

While local conditions remain at the forefront of writing program administration, transnational activities are slowly and thoroughly shifting the questions we ask about writing curricula, the space and place in which writing happens, and the cultural and linguistic issues at the heart of the relationships forged in literacy work. Transnational Writing Program Administration challenges taken-for-granted assumptions regarding program identity, curriculum and pedagogical effectiveness, logistics and quality assurance, faculty and student demographics, innovative partnerships and research, and the infrastructure needed to support writing instruction in higher education.

Well-known scholars and new voices in the field extend the theoretical underpinnings of writing program administration to consider programs, activities, and institutions involving students and faculty from two or more countries working together and highlight the situated practices of such efforts. The collection brings translingual graduate students at the forefront of writing studies together with established administrators, teachers, and researchers and intends to enrich the efforts of WPAs by examining the practices and theories that impact our ability to conceive of writing program administration as transnational.

This collection will enable writing program administrators to take the emerging locations of writing instruction seriously, to address the role of language difference in writing, and to engage critically with the key notions and approaches to writing program administration that reveal its transnationality.

Treatment of Error in Second Language Student Writing is the book many writing teachers have long been looking for: a highly accessible and principled approach to the theory and practice of error treatment that can guide pedagogical decision-making.
Unlike a teachers' manual or a handbook that purports to give all the answers needed, Ferris's research-based volume offers a solid scholarly foundation for the practical ideas presented together with an abundance of illustrative sample texts. This book will be a rich resource in language teaching methodology courses, but experienced teachers too will no doubt benefit from the depth and breadth of Ferris's coverage of various error response techniques as well as of the research that motivates those techniques.
Ferris offers a realistic, well-reasoned account of what second language (L2) writing teacher--or teachers with L2 students in their classes--need to know about error and how to put what they know to use. She persuasively addresses the fundamental error treatment questions that plague novice and expert writing specialists alike: What types of errors should teachers respond to? When should we respond to them? What are the most efficacious ways of responding to them? And ultimately, what role should error treatment play in the teaching of the process of writing?

Treatment of Error offers a realistic, well-reasoned account of what teachers of multilingual writers need to know about error and how to put what they know to use. As in the first edition, Ferris again persuasively addresses the fundamental error treatment questions that plague novice and expert writing specialists alike: What types of errors should teachers respond to? When should we respond to them? What are the most efficacious ways of responding to them? And ultimately, what role should error treatment play in the teaching of the process of writing?

The second edition improves upon the first by exploring changes in the field since 2002, such as the growing diversity in what is called “L2 writers,” the blurring boundaries between “native” and “non-native” speakers of English, the influence of genre studies and corpus linguistics on the teaching of writing, and the need the move beyond “error” to “second language development” in terms of approaching students and their texts. It also explores what teacher preparation programs need to do to train teachers to treat student error.

The second edition features
 *  an updating of the literature in all chapters
 *  a new chapter on academic language development
 *  a postscript on how to integrate error treatment/language development suggestions in Chapters 4-6 into a writing class syllabus
 * the addition of discussion/analysis questions at the end of each chapter, plus suggested readings, to make the book more useful in pedagogy or teacher development workshops

Tutoring Second Language Writers, a complete update of Bruce and Rafoth’s 2009 ESL Writers, is a guide for writing center tutors that addresses the growing need for tutors who are better prepared to work with the increasingly international population of students seeking guidance at the writing center.

Drawing upon philosopher John Dewey’s belief in reflective thinking as a way to help build new knowledge, the book is divided into four parts. Part 1: Actions and Identities is about creating a proactive stance toward language difference, thinking critically about labels, and the mixed feelings students may have about learning English. Part 2: Research Opportunities demonstrates writing center research projects and illustrates methods tutors can use to investigate their questions about writing center work. Part 3: Words and Passages offers four personal stories of inquiry and discovery, and Part 4: Academic Expectations describes some of the challenges tutors face when they try to help writers meet readers’ specific expectations.

Advancing the conversations tutors have with one another and their directors about tutoring second language writers and writing, Tutoring Second Language Writers engages readers with current ideas and issues that highlight the excitement and challenge of working with those who speak English as a second or additional language.

Contributors include Jocelyn Amevuvor, Rebecca Day Babcock, Valerie M. Balester, Shanti Bruce, Frankie Condon, Michelle Cox, Jennifer Craig, Kevin Dvorak, Paula Gillespie, Glenn Hutchinson, Pei-Hsun Emma Liu, Bobbi Olson, Pimyupa W. Praphan, Ben Rafoth, Jose L. Reyes Medina, Guiboke Seong, and Elizabeth (Adelay) Witherite.