Practicing Writing

Practicing Writing examines a pivotal era in the history of the most ubiquitous-and possibly most problematic-course in North American colleges and universities: the requireAd first-year writing course generally known as "freshman English." Thomas Masters's focus is the mid-twentieth century, beginning with the returning waves of World War II veterans attending college on the GI Bill. He then traces the education reforms that took place in the late 1950s after the launch of Sputnik and the establishment of composition as a separate discipline in 1963. This study draws upon archives at three midwestern schools that reflect a range of higher education options: Wheaton, a small, sectarian liberal arts college; Northwestern, a large private university; and Illinois, a large public university.Practicing Writing gives voice to those whose work is often taken for granted or forgotten in other studies of the subject: freshman English students and their instructors. Masters examines students' papers, professors' letters, and course descriptions, and draws upon interviews conducted with teachers to present the practitioners' points of view.Unlike other studies of the subject, which have tended to focus more on the philosophy, theory, and ideology of teaching composition and rhetoric, Masters reveals freshman English to be a practice-based phenomenon with a durable ideological apparatus. By reexamining texts that had previously been considered insignificant, he reveals the substance of first-year composition courses and the reasons for their durability.

This book describes data structures and data structure design techniques for functional languages.

Includes mini-lessons with reproducible bookmarks, checklists, strategy cards, trifolds.

Writing as Material Practice grapples with the issue of writing as a form of material culture in its ancient and more recent manifestations, and in the contexts of production and consumption. Fifteen case studies explore the artefactual nature of writing — the ways in which materials, techniques, colour, scale, orientation and visibility inform the creation of inscribed objects and spaces, as well as structure subsequent engagement, perception and meaning making. Covering a temporal span of some 5000 years, from c.3200 BCE to the present day, and ranging in spatial context from the Americas to the Near East, the chapters in this volume bring a variety of perspectives which contribute to both specific and broader questions of writing materialities. The authors also aim to place past graphical systems in their social contexts so they can be understood in relation to the people who created and attributed meaning to writing and associated symbolic modes through a diverse array of individual and wider social practices.

Flash Kids educational products focus on fast, fun family learning. Developed for children in grades K-8, Flash Kids products take a lighthearted approach to serious educational content. In an age of rigorous standardized testing and increased emphasis on performance, these products encourage parents and children to enjoy the simple delight of learning new things together. Most importantly, Flash Kids products give families an easy, affordable way to bridge the gap between school and home. This book teaches cursive in a cool way. Each letter corresponds to a realistic animal illustration and an interesting scientific fact about the picture. This unique feature helps grab kids attention, while the clear diagrams and ample pages encourage practice.

“Unique and thorough, Warner’s handbook could turn any determined reader into a regular Malcolm Gladwell.” —Booklist For anyone aiming to improve their skill as a writer, a revolutionary new approach to establishing robust writing practices inside and outside the classroom, from the author of Why They Can’t Write After a decade of teaching writing using the same methods he’d experienced as a student many years before, writer, editor, and educator John Warner realized he could do better. Drawing on his classroom experience and the most persuasive research in contemporary composition studies, he devised an innovative new framework: a step-by-step method that moves the student through a series of writing problems, an organic, bottom-up writing process that exposes and acculturates them to the ways writers work in the world. The time is right for this new and groundbreaking approach. The most popular books on composition take a formalistic view, utilizing “templates” in order to mimic the sorts of rhetorical moves academics make. While this is a valuable element of a writing education, there is room for something that speaks more broadly. The Writer’s Practice invites students and novice writers into an intellectually engaging, active learning process that prepares them for a wider range of academic and real-world writing and allows them to become invested and engaged in their own work.

For more than thirty years Natalie Goldberg has been challenging and cheering on writers with her books and workshops. In her groundbreaking first book, she brings together Zen meditation and writing in a new way. Writing practice, as she calls it, is no different from other forms of Zen practice—"it is backed by two thousand years of studying the mind." This thirtieth-anniversary edition includes new forewords by Julia Cameron and Bill Addison. It also includes a new preface in which Goldberg reflects on the enduring quality of the teachings here. She writes, "What have I learned about writing over these thirty years? I’ve written fourteen books, and it’s the practice here in Bones that is the foundation, sustaining and building my writing voice, that keeps me honest, teaches me how to endure the hard times and how to drop below discursive thinking, to taste the real meat of our minds and the life around us."