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First the Bad News, Then the Good News:
Where Writing Research Has Taken Vs
and Where We Need to Take It Now
Wendy BishopFor the last twenty years, it has been a strong tenant of composition writing
classrooms that instruction should start where the student is-that it should engage
students and encourage them to view themselves as literate citizens while
developing their literacy skills. While a great deal of composition research was
completed to understand how writers compose, how writing students respond to
teacher-commentary on their work, and so on, far less research has provided
context-based insights into the general classroom experiences of first-year
writing students, asking:
Whether and how theory has been put into practice.
If students feel engaged in or even well served by contemporary writing curricula.
If and how they view themselves as developing writers and literate citizens.

When researchers have asked such questions, they've uncovered perplexing
issues. For instance, Jennie Nelson found students evaluating assignments far
more pragmatically than their professors might have assumed they were doing;
Susan Wyche-Smith found writing classrooms playing a minor role in
complicated student lives; and Susan Miller and five student-researchers

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Publication Information: Book Title: Reforming College Composition: Writing the Wrongs. Contributors: Ray Wallace - editor, Alan Jackson - editor, Susan Lewis Wallace - editor. Publisher: Greenwood Press. Place of Publication: Westport, CT. Publication Year: 2000. Page Number: 3.
    
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