Dear Colleagues,

We are a community of writers, teachers, and researchers. (See About. We are passionate about helping writers realize their potential.

We invite you to adopt Writing Commons for your students and classrooms.

Writing Commons provides a thorough introduction to theory, research, and pedagogy in Writing Studies. In addition to the standard topics of traditional writing textbooks in Writing Studies–i.e., Editing, Genre, Information Literacy, Invention, Organization, Research, Revision, Rhetoric, and Style—Writing Commons provides a thorough introduction to Collaboration practices as a 21st Century workforce competency.

Mindset and Writing Studies are rarely addressed.

Most of Writing Commons is course agnostic–i.e., suitable for any course that requires writing, from the fiction workshop to the dissertation drafting course. Writers from kindergarten to doctoral work engage in Collaboration, Editing, Genre, Information Literacy Invention, Mindset, Organization, Research, Rhetoric. and Style

We adopt a Writing-about-Writing epistemological approach. By this we mean we cite the research and theory in Writing Studies and allied fields, and we attempt to historize composition pedagogy. Additionally, for readers who seek a deeper immersion into the study of writing, we introduce Composition Studies, Communication Studies.

Writing Commons reflects the Wisdom of the Commons. We do not provide a monolithic view of the study of writing. Via our peer review process and global reach, we seek to avoid a U.S.-centric view of the discipline. We aim to be a place for debate and study that is informed by caring and commitment to aspiring writers.

Articles at Writing Commons have been peer reviewed by a peer-review system involving Editorial Board and Review Editors. We invite you to help us in our effort to help students and colleagues, internationally (see Contribute).

Navigational Help

To help your students find what they need at Writing Commons, we encourage you to point them to How to Navigate Writing Commons.

Overview of Contents from the Teacher’s Perspective

Collaboration

At Collaboration, we cite workplace competency literature with the goal of helping students better understand that intrapersonal competencies are prized workplace competencies. For an excellent review of literature on collaborative problem solving, we recommend

• Oliveri, M., Lawless, R., & Molloy, H. (2017). A Literature Review on Collaborative Problem Solving for Workforce Readiness. GRE Board Research Report Series and ETS Research Report Series, 1-27. Doi:10.1002/ets12133

After you return papers to students or assign peer reviews, you might consider assigning Critique. The goal of Critique is to help students respond more professional to feedback.

Leadership is helpful to assign if students are assigned leadership roles, such as Project Planner, Chief Researcher, Editor, Designer.

To make Peer Review work in the classroom, we find it helpful to model reviews for the class and share excellent examples of students’ reviews. Because students sometimes lack a vocabulary for peer review, we  provide unprecedented examples of suggested critical commentary.

Genre 

We do hope you will assign the homepage for Genre to your students when they are first starting a project. We believe that page usefully and insightfully defines genre as

• a classification scheme for texts.
• a method of invention.
• a method communities use (even if unconsciously) to sustain values, inculcate users, and communicate.
• a rhetorical tool people use to apply typified actions to recurring situations.

That said, we acknowledge our treatment of genre is a bit spotty. We have the genres assigned in most composition courses covered, yet we are still a bit underdeveloped in business, scientific, and literary contexts. (We hope you’ll help us build those sections; see Contribute).

Information Literacy

In a world where bots are invoking tribalism, prejudice, and fear by posting fake news, information literacy is more important than ever. Beyond the bots, we have the information silos: people are setting their news feeds to filter perspectives they disagree with.

The two foundational documents for our treatment of Information Literacy are 

• Association of College and Research Libraries. “Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education.” Text. Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL), February 9, 2015. http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework.
• Association of College and Research Libraries. “Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education.” Text. Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL), October 10, 2019, http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/visualliteracy.

Invention & Revision

We understand it is more common to view Invention and Revision as very distinct intellectual processes. One of the tenets of expressivism, a composition pedagogy, is that people find fluency and power by separating these intellectual processes. Compositionists like Don Murray, Peter Elbow, and Sondra Perl inspired generations of writing teachers to write without stopping, ignore conventions and focus on the pursuit of meaning.

We do not discount the value of embracing invention. Shutting down the critical self, privileging the believing game over the doubting, is a brilliant pedagogical strategy.

Mindset 

As you well know, students need to be ready to grow. If they assume writing is a fixed trait, especially if they assume they don’t have that fixed trait, then they are likely not to improve no matter how hard you work with them. Thus, Mindset explains to students the importance of embracing a Growth Mindset. Along with a brief summary of research on the importance of a Growth Mindset,  It  focuses on the writer’s dispositions, attitudes, and behaviors that aid writing or hamstring writing development. Mindset explores the importance of a growth mindset, intellectual openness, emotional resilience, work ethic & perseverance.

Mindset explores the role of the your emotions, attitudes, personality, work ethic, and strategic planning on your writing development and writing processes.

As experienced teachers, we know many students dislike writing or even find writing to be aversive. Over the years, we have met many students and professionals who don’t feel creative or prepared to face communication challenges in the workplace. We are also aware that many students have limited exposure to writing longer than paragraph-long essays, writing in the disciplines, or writing for audiences other than the teacher as examiner.

Mindset is course agnostic: it could be used in courses from high school to graduate school to help writers find their fluency and potential.