Writing transfer research often illuminates the writing abilities, attitudes, and assumptions college writers bring to a writing assignment, but faculty members across the disciplines may not have the tools for understanding what the students in their particular classes bring to their particular writing assignments. In this proposed model, students respond to a series of reflective prompts before, during, and after completion of a major upper-division writing assignment. Faculty members then reflect on how these responses might change the way they assign writing and teach course content. The disciplinary and course-based threshold concepts emerging from this process suggest a dynamic and situated approach that both facilitates faculty understanding of transfer and offers a method for responding to it.

This essay challenges writing teachers to consider anew the assigning of politicized or controversial topics in the composition classroom. The author describes his use of writing assignments related to the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars/Occupations from 2003 to 2006. Although some writing teachers embraced war-related topics in their classrooms during this time period, others seemed to avoid them out of fear of reading cliché-ridden “blinding binaries” arguments or of facing a hostile student environment. The author argues that the time was right to engage students in critical inquiry into the many war-related topics so as to pursue the truth-seeking mission of higher education. Necessarily, as the questions and issues related to the wars evolved, so too did assessment strategies. The assignments and student writing during this time period also show the value of this writing as a form of social action for students in their communities.

Argues that zines (short for "fanzines": small, cheaply produced sheets on a wide range of topics) interest many college students and offer composition classes a number of opportunities. Discusses obtaining zines, using them in the composition classroom, how students respond to zines, producing zines, and how it all comes together.