This article draws on Toulmin’s model of argumentation to propose a way of engaging with controversial topics in ways that require not only the assertion of a point of view, but attentive listening to contrasting beliefs. Given the paucity of models of respectful listening in public discourse, school becomes a place where teachers can provide opportunities for contentious discussions to be conducted through civic discourse. The article begins with an outline of Toulmin’s model, with an emphasis on warranting examples so that they serve as evidence for a claim, and engages with opposing viewpoints for a reasoned rebuttal and synthesis. The article then suggests that the topic of school dress codes would be a fruitful topic of student inquiry and argumentation, given the ideological basis of a dress code and the many differences of opinion surrounding them. Such instruction is illustrated through a method that relies on inductive reasoning and discussion as the basis for generating ideas in argumentative writing. The article concludes with a view of writing pedagogy that promotes responsible argumentation in light of critical responses that lead to a synthesis and extension of learning.

Given the rise in business and technical writing (BTW) courses in writing programs and English departments, there is a need to develop not only a pedagogy for BTW but one that considers BTW’s institutional context. Context is a problematic focus for pedagogy, as we have seen in recent scholarship on student writing, theory of genre, and transferability of skills to other academic disciplines. That scholarship views the uncertain and unclear contexts of academic composition courses and their genres as preventing the full student understanding of genre that is needed for students to develop transferable writing skills. The continuation of that scholarship into BTW regards the instruction of BTW, as inside academia rather than within the workplace, as suffering from similar concerns with context. Rather than viewing BTW as downstream from or supplemental to composition instruction, this article argues that we should examine the genres of BTW as unique in their contingency to the writing process and yet just as able to pursue the goals of composition instruction and liberal arts education as first-year composition (FYC) courses. By focusing on the reader of BTW genres as determinant in the contingency of the writing situation, we see BTW as less problematic than FYC in its support of key composition goals such as the creation of original arguments and effective management of supporting materials. The awareness of readership and argumentation allows for a pedagogy supportive of contingent and part-time faculty as well as full-time composition faculty regardless of their respective professional experience.

Bullshit, as defined by Frankfurt (2005, p. 10), is language that is “disconnected from a concern for the truth.” Much scholarship shows that bullshit is a prominent feature in organizations that is difficult, if not impossible, to get rid of (e.g., McCarthy et al., 2020; Penny, 2010). Bullshit, by definition and by cultural practice, seems antithetical to business writing orthodoxy. As Thill and Bovée (2020) suggest in a representative textbook, communication should be clear and ethical. However, Spicer (2020) codifies bullshit as a social practice whose outcomes are not always dire. Well-crafted bullshit benefits its users, allowing them to “fit into a speech community, get things done in day-to-day interaction and bolster their image and identity” (Spicer, 2020, p. 20). Contrasting with business writing’s abstinence-only bullshit stance, this suggests that successful writers must adapt to their organization’s speech act practices. In this article, we argue that students must be taught about bullshit. After describing bullshit and its role in organizations, we show how business writing could incorporate a critically informed approach to bullshit in undergraduate courses, internship preparation courses, and other curricular instances in which students work directly with organizations. While bullshitting should not be outright encouraged, continued ignorance will do nothing to solve its associated problems. Promoting bullshit literacy, however, could both minimize bullshit’s harms and maximize its benefits. We close by describing how this approach could foster critical thinking skills, promote more seamless adaptation to organizational cultures and communication practices, and perhaps even improve mental health outcomes.

Concerns about teaching structured authoring, which is the use of software in technical writing to allow automatic textual reuse and reassembly, have been woven into the debate about what role technologies should play in preparing technical writing students for ‘real world’ needs since the late 1990s (see Brumberger & Laurer, 2015; Carnegie & Crane, 2019; Kimball, 2015; Rainey et al., 2018). Vee (2017) and others have argued that fundamental aspects of writing software code, many of which parallel structured authoring, are now required literacies. Indeed, as Gentle (2017) demonstrates, the difference between those writing code and those writing structured authoring continues to shrink. Helping to develop technical writers to understand this overlap remains a significant challenge. This article suggests that this challenge might be met by using an open-source interactive fiction authoring platform called Twine, which provides many of the building blocks of structured authoring while teaching fundamental aspects of coding. However, this approach is not without its perils. Through analyzing the findings of a two-year study, this article identifies potential avenues for success as well as potential pitfalls to be mindfully considered.

While social work educators have explored strategies to improve literacy development among their students, many educators continue to strive for a better integration of effective reading and writing skills. This article presents the findings of a survey that used qualitative research methods to assess the outcomes of a doctorate in social work program that employed a specialist in composition. Doctorate in social work students reported on the skill of ‘close reading’ as it related to their own writing, practice, university teaching, and field supervision. Data analysis reveals that these students had not previously learned the close reading skills necessary for strong writing skills. This article extends support for a full integration of close reading as a way to improve writing, clinical mental health practice, and critical thinking skills.

The current study examined the relationships among self-regulated learning, metacognitive awareness, and EFL learners’ performance in argumentative writing. We collected data through two questionnaires (i.e., Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ); Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI)), and an argumentative writing task administered to 250 Iranian graduate students of TEFL in 11 universities across Iran. Using LISREL version 8.8, we ran structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze the hypothesized relationships. The results revealed that although the SEM enjoyed a good fit on the hypothesized relationships among selfregulated learning, metacognitive awareness, and argumentative writing, the significant influence of metacognitive awareness and self-regulated learning on students’ argumentative writing performance could not be postulated. Finally, the pedagogical implications for writing instruction and research are discussed.

This paper aims to provide a linguistic analysis of prosodic patterns (especially the complex of suprasegmental phonological features which includes intonation, pauses and stress) underlying use of commas in texts written by Brazilian students. The analysed material consists of texts produced in the last year of primary education at a public school in an inner city of São Paulo State, Brazil. The object of analysis is composed of two kinds of comma use which occur in a simple scheme: unconventional uses and conventional uses of commas, both uses being defined from grammatical rules taught at school. The analysis leads to a theoretical discussion about the importance of orality in the way people approach writing and the relationship between orality and writing in text production practices at school. It is argued that accounting for the relationship between orality and literacy may reveal linguistic phenomena and important symbolic processes which are identifiable in the writing of young students who are going through the learning process of writing texts at school.

This article, integrating different lines of sociocultural and critical research, sets out to analyze argumentative writing in a 6th grade Cypriot Greek elementary classroom. Attention is directed to specific strategies used, such as repetition and paraphrase of each other’s words and of text meanings. These strategies are revisited as voicing tools, arising out of students’ engagement with a nexus of reading and writing events and with the ideological positions constituted through them. The analysis traces the bi-directional processes at work in this polyvocal community. Classroom activities, rather than seen as neutral, are redefined as constituents of a deeply dialogic universe, which privileges specific texts and voices and projects various identity positions onto speakers and writers. At the same time, this universe gives rise to specific scaffolds which help students in the appropriation of advanced generic resources. Students’ argumentative texts are shown to arise out of the integration of various dialogically-emergent strategies. Analysis illustrates how students, while drawing from prior texts, and acknowledging genre-related scaffolds, rework and contest social meanings and generic resources as part of their attempt to assert their voice vis-à-vis those populating their classroom community.

This article aims to engage specialists in writing pedagogy, assessment, genre study, and educational technologies in a constructive dialog and joint exploration of automated writing analysis as a potent instantiation of computer-enhanced assessment for learning. It recounts the values of writing pedagogy and, from this perspective, examines legitimate concerns with automated writing analysis. Emphasis is placed on the need to substantiate the construct-driven debate with systematic empirical evidence that would corroborate or refute interpretations, uses, and consequences of automated scoring and feedback tools intended for specific contexts. Such evidence can be obtained by adopting a validity argument framework. To demonstrate an application of this framework, the article presents a novel genre-based approach to automated analysis configured to support research writing and provides examples of validity evidence for using it with novice scholarly writers.

Students’ limited information literacy skills raise concerns among writing instructors and librarians alike. In order to improve students’ information literacy skills, a librarian and writing instructors at a two-year open-access college collaborated to design information literacy instruction and collected student work to evaluate its effectiveness with regard to students’ ability to find and evaluate sources. Our experience from our collaborative approach indicates that by using specifically designed instructional activities such as concept maps and research logs, students’ ability to think critically about their information literacy skills can be improved.

This article picks up, literally, where another one leaves off: “Assessing Scholarly Multimedia: A Rhetorical Genre-Studies Approach” in Technical Communication Quarterly (Ball, 2012a). In that article, I describe how I have brought my editorial-mentoring work with Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy, which exclusively publishes “born digital” media-rich scholarship, into undergraduate and graduate writing classes. This article describes how the process of editorial peer review translates into students’ peer review workshops in those same writing classes.

Writing pedagogy and civic literacy can form an interactive, interdisciplinary partnership beneficial to students. Students learn to compare the classical rhetorical genres of epideictic, forensic, and deliberative rhetoric to modern ceremonial, judicial, and legislative rhetorical genres. Elements essential to writing pedagogy – ethos, logos, pathos, claims, warrants, and enthymemes – become meaningful as students engage in civic-themed reading and writing assignments designed for first-year composition. Writing pedagogy enriched with a civic literacy motif encourages students to practice writing to authentic audiences for genuine civic purposes.