A Rhetoric for Writing Teachers

Book excerpt: From answering the question "Why teach writing?" to offering guidance in managing group work and responding to assignments, A Rhetoric for Writing Teachers provides a comprehensive introduction to the teaching of writing. Now in a fourth edition, this remarkably successful book features a new chapter by Daniel Anderson on teaching with computers and adds updated material on invention, intellectual development, and responding to students' writing. Describing in straightforward terms the cross-disciplinary scholarship that underlies composition teaching, it opens with chapters on prewriting techniques, organizing material, paragraphing, sentence structure, words, and revising that show teachers how to lead students through composing. Sections on writing workshops, collaborative learning, and instructional technology reflect current views of writing as a social interaction. Chapters on rhetoric, cognition, and linguistics explain theoretical principles that support classroom practices and make teachers' performances more effective. Treating both the theory and practice of writing, this classic book encourages teachers to adopt the methods that best meet their students' needs and to develop a style of teaching based on informed decisions. It provides an extensive updated bibliography--including useful Web sites as well as important books and articles--and an updated table of important dates in the history of composition. A Rhetoric for Writing Teachers, 4/e, offers both prospective and seasoned writing teachers convenient access to influential scholarship in the field and inspires them to examine what it means to teach well.