Writing About Writing: A College Reader - Tapa blanda

Based on Wardle and Downs’ research, the first edition of Writing about Writing marked a milestone in the field of composition. By showing students how to draw on what they know in order to contribute to ongoing conversations about writing and literacy, it helped them transfer their writing-related skills from first-year composition to other courses and contexts. Now used by tens of thousands of students, Writing about Writing presents accessible writing studies research by authors such as Mike Rose, Deborah Brandt, John Swales, and Nancy Sommers, together with popular texts by authors such as Malcolm X and Anne Lamott, and texts from student writers. Throughout the book, friendly explanations and scaffolded activities and questions help students connect to readings and develop knowledge about writing that they can use at work, in their everyday lives, and in college. The new edition builds on this success and refines the approach to make it even more teachable. The second edition includes more help for understanding the rhetorical situation and an exciting new chapter on multimodal composing. The print text is now integrated with e-Pages for Writing about Writing, designed to take advantage of what the Web can do.

The conversation on writing about writing continues on the authors' blog, Write On: Notes on Writing about Writing (a channel on Bedford Bits, the Bedford/St. Martin's blog for teachers of writing).

Elizabeth Wardle is Associate Professor and the Director of Writing Outreach Programs in the Department of Writing and Rhetoric at the University of Central Florida. Her research interests center on genre theory, the transfer of writing-related knowledge, and composition pedagogy. She is currently conducting a study examining the impact of smaller class size on the learning of composition students, as well as a study examining the impact of the writing-about-writing pedagogy on student writing and attitudes about writing. Doug Downs is an assistant professor of rhetoric and composition in the Department of English at Montana State University. His research interests center on research-writing pedagogy both in first-year composition and across the undergraduate curriculum. He continues to work extensively with Elizabeth Wardle on writing-about-writing pedagogies and is currently studying problems of researcher authority in undergraduate research in the humanities.