Longman / Prentice Hall

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Writing Conventions
Min-Zhan Lu, University of Louisville
Bruce Horner, University of Louisville

ISBN-10: 0321143108
ISBN-13: 9780321143105

Publisher: Longman
Copyright: 2008
Format: Paper; 464 pp
Published: 12/27/2007

Suggested retail price: $40.00
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Writing Conventions teaches the fundamentals of writing by inviting students to reflect on their own experiences as writers and to explore new strategies for a variety of academic writing projects.

 

Writing Conventions offers a roadmap for instructors who wish to teach through inquiry rather than rote. It begins with the assumption that many students, especially under-prepared first-year students, are limited by a perception that there is one “right” way to write in college. These students are frustrated and intimidated when confronted with writing assignments that expect them already to have mastered critical reading and thinking skills like textual analysis, synthesis, and argumentation. Writing Conventions responds to these frustrations directly. It speaks to students in their own terms and invites them to reflect on and draw from their own experiences as writers as they try out new strategies. This approach helps students develop flexibility as writers by acknowledging that each new writing situation calls for different strategies, challenging the idea that there is only one route to take through any writing project.  

 

Each chapter begins with a set of questions and explores the meanings of a term linked to a specific step in the writing process: How should I begin? How do I get unstuck? (Process); Why can’t I see what others see in the text? (Reading); What form should my writing take? (Genre); What’s the right word? (Vocabulary); Who am I writing to? (Audience); What am I supposed to be doing?  What’s the point?  (Purpose); Why can’t I see the mistakes my teacher does in my writing? (Error).  Each chapter then leads students through a reflective exploration of what prompts these concerns in different occasions, the uses and limitations of conventional ways to address them, and alternative strategies writers might take in specific academic contexts.

  • Unique student-centered approach, drawing on the authors’ teaching and research experience with student writers and their writing/composing processes; speaks to students directly and encourages them to ask how and why they might approach a writing task a certain way.
  • Focus on academic writing in various disciplines: Through its close attention to language and audience, Writing Conventions gives students tools and strategies for approaching writing tasks commonly assigned in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences.
  • Designed to be easy to use for new and novice teachers; the approach and pedagogy of the text is “built-in” in a way that can be taken right into the classroom and used effectively.
  • Flexible organization: seven main chapters explore core concepts in writing and rhetoric in a concise, nonlinear manner.
  • Writing Projects: Each chapter includes an integrated series of tasks for students to complete as part of the chapter’s Writing Project. The tasks making up the Writing Project engage students in composing and revising and, in the process, testing the ideas presented in the chapter.
  • Writing Assignments at the end of each chapter build on the Writing Projects and ask students to work with selected readings in Part 2.
  • 16 readings in Part 2 include a range of historical, literary, academic, and visual selections that cut across disciplines and can be read individually or in thematic groups based on the Assignment Sequences.
  • The Assignment Sequences in Part 3 are more extensive research and writing projects that help students connect a number of readings around a series of thematic or inquiry-based topics. The assignment sequences focus on specific disciplines–history, science, society, language–to help students grapple more deeply with the varying expectations of writers across the disciplines.
  •  “Try Outs” — Short, often collaborative writing assignments integrated in each chapter prompt students to test and explore key chapter concepts and strategies in or out of class. Try Outs are easy to pick up and use as in-class lessons to get students active in writing and talking about the ideas presented in the text.

Alternate Contents

Preface

 

PART ONE: KEY CONCEPTS IN WRITING AND READING

 

Chapter 1

Composing Our Composing Processes

 

Pose↔Composing Processes of Writing

 

Writing Project Part One

 

Responding to the Writing Situation

 

Using Language in Context

 

Material Resources of Writing

 

Writing Project Part Two

Expanding Your Toolkit of Composing Strategies

 

Some cautions about how to talk about composing processes

 

The writing↔reading↔thinking↔talking connection

Pre-writing, Drafting, Revision

 

Experimenting with Commonly Recommended Composing Strategies

 

Brainstorming

Proofreading

Outlining

                                    Dictionary Use, Note-taking

                                    Scrap Files, Note Taking 

                                    Re-reading, Satisficing, Questioning

                                    Collaborating

 

Writing Project Part Three

 

            Conclusion

 

            Assignments

 

 

 

Chapter 2

Reading and Rereading

           

Writing Project Part One

 

Identifying Habits of Reading

 

Writing Project Part Two

 

Reading in Academic Contexts

 

Writing Project Part Three

 

Reading to Revise and Make New Connections

 

Writing Project Part Four

 

Experimenting with Underlining and Reverse Underlining

 

Conclusion

 

Assignments

 

Chapter 3

Composing Genres

 

Questions for Composing Genres

 

Writing Project Part One (1)

 

Writing Project Part One (2)

 

Strategies for Composing Genres in College

 

Learning an Assigned Genre’s Expected Characteristics

 

Writing Project Part Two (1)

 

Learning to Tinker with a Genre’s Expected Characteristics

 

Writing Project Part Two (2)

 

Writing Project Part Three

 

Conclusion

 

Assignments

 

Chapter 4

Vocabulary: Composing the Meaning of Words

Learning a Specialized Vocabulary

 

The meaning of a word in its environment

 

Writing Project Part One:

 

Word Choice↔Thinking↔Living

 

Changes in Possibilities of Word Choice 

 

Writing Project Part Two

Using Words Critically and Creatively

 

Introducing new neighbors to an established word environment

 

Writing Project Part Three (1)

 

Researching the Historical Shifts in the Meanings of Individual Words

 

Writing Project Part Three (2)

Meshing the Specialized Vocabularies of Diverse Groups

Writing Project Part Three (3)

 

 Writing Project Part Four

 

Conclusion

 

Assignments

 

Chapter 5

Audience: Composing Ways of Reading

 

Anticipating and Proposing an Audience  

 

Anticipating and Proposing Ways of Reading

 

Getting Started

 

What type of writing am I expected to produce for this assignment? 

 

Where and when is my work going to be evaluated?

 

What has the reaction been to similar types of writing on similar occasions?   

 

Posing and Revising Audience when Reading and Writing

Proposing Audience in Writing

Writing Project Part One

 

Strategies for Composing Audience

 

Looking at the form of assigned readings

Writing Project Part Two (1)

 

Imagining an actual reader’s response to my writing

Writing Project Part Two (2)

 

Reading a text in a different context

 

Writing Project Part Two (3)

Conclusion

            Writing Project Part Three

Assignments

Chapter 6

Purpose: Composing Goals When Reading and Writing

 

Setting General Purposes When Getting Started

 

Exploring Connections among genre, purpose, and occasion

 

Assessing the relations among Genre, Purpose, and Occasion

 

Writing Project Part One

 

Adding and Revising Purposes When Writing

 

Allow alternative purposes to emerge during writing

 

Writing Project Part Two (1)

 

Creating breaks to explore alternative purposes

 

Writing Project Part Two (2)

 

Writing Project Part Two (3)

 

Writing Project Part Three

 

Conclusion

 

Assignments

 

 

Chapter 7

Error: Working Rules

 

Common Beliefs about Error

 

Seeing What (May Be) There on the Page

 

Proofreading Techniques

 

Summary of Proofreading Techniques

 

What to Do with What You’ve Seen: Working Rules

 

Working, Not Just Following, Rules

 

Matters of Agreement and Disagreement

 

Conclusion

 

Assignments

 


PART TWO: SELECTED READINGS

 

Jean Anyon.  “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work.” 

 

Gloria Anzaldúa.  “How to Tame a Wild Tongue.” 

 

James Baldwin.  “If Black English Isn't a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?”

 

Sarah Boxer.  “A New Poland, No Joke.” 

 

Sandra Cisneros.  "Little Miracles, Kept Promises." 

 

Stephen Jay Gould.  “A Biological Homage to Mickey Mouse.” 

 

Langston Hughes.  “Theme for English B.”

 

Eve Fox Keller.  “Language and Science: Genetics, Embryology, and the Discourse of Gene Action.” 

 

Thomas Kuhn.  “The Historical Structure of Scientific Discovery.” 

 

Royal Philips Corporation.  “Sense and simplicity.” [advertisement] 

 

Leslie Marmon Silko.  “Fences Against Freedom.” 

 

Karen Springen and Stanford Kay.  “Green Malls: The Color of Money.” 

 

Henry David Thoreau.  “Economy.”

 

Henry David Thoreau.  “The Bean Field.” 

 

Haunani Trask.  "From a Native Daughter." 

 

Alice Walker.  “In the Closet of the Soul.” 

 

PART THREE: ASSIGNMENT SEQUENCES

 

Assignment Sequences

 

Writing History

1.      Trask’s View of History Writing

2.      Trask’s Writing of History

3.      Testing Trask’s Perspective on History Writing with Silko

4.      Considering a Different View of History Writing: Thomas Kuhn

5.      Kuhn’s Writing of History

6.      Testing Kuhn’s Perspective on History Writing

7.      Writing History: Tentative Conclusions

8.      The History of What You’ve Written

 

Writing Science

1.      Thomas Kuhn’s Critique of Scientific Discovery

2.      Applying Kuhn’s Critique to Kuhn’s Discovery

3.      Keller on Science and Writing

4.      Gould as a Test Case for Scientific Writing

5.      Expanding Research on Science Writing

6.      Drawing Conclusions

 

Writing Society

1.      Anyon and Your Schooling

2.      Applying Anyon’s Approach to Anyon’s Text

3.      Your Writing as Work

4.      Alice Walker and the Effects of Writing on Society

5.      Anyon’s and Walker’s Writing as Work on Society

6.      Another Voice on Writing and Society: Henry David Thoreau

7.      Your Writing as Work on Society

 

Language and the Self

1.      James Baldwin on Language and the Self

2.      Baldwin’s Argument and “Little Miracles”

3.      Trask and Baldwin on Language and the Self

4.      Adding Hughes to the Dialogue on Language and the Self

5.      Your Language, Your Self

Index

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Writing Conventions by Min-Zhan Lu and Bruce Horner does not subscribe to the idea that there can be just one “right” way to write in college. Instead, this new text teaches the fundamentals of writing by asking you to reflect on your own experience as a writer and provides you with tools and strategies for approaching academic writing assignments.

Each chapter in Writing Conventions explores a core concept linked to the writing process and begins with questions such as:

  • How should I begin? How do I get unstuck? (Process)
  • Why can’t I see what others see in the text? (Reading)
  • What form should my writing take? (Genre)
  • What’s the right word? (Vocabulary)
  • Who am I writing to? (Audience)
  • What am I supposed to be doing?
  • What’s the point? (Purpose)
  • Why can’t I see the mistakes my teacher does in my writing? (Error).

Each chapter then explores the uses and limitations of conventional ways to address these questions, and also offers an array of alternative strategies that you might use in specific academic contexts. Short writing activities and extended assignments in every chapter, as well as readings from an array of different disciplines in Part 2, offer you ample opportunity to practice the new strategies and tools that you’ve learned.

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