From answering the question "Why teach writing?" to offering guidance in managing group work and responding to assignments, this remarkably successful text provides a comprehensive introduction to the teaching of writing. Now updated to incorporate the latest developments in the field, A Rhetoric for Writing Teachers describes in straightforward terms the cross-disciplinary scholarship that has reinvigorated composition teaching. Reflecting current views of writing as social interaction, this edition emphasizes workshops, collaborative learning, and holistic evaluation. Chapters on prewriting techniques, organizing material, paragraphing, sentence structure, words, and revising describe how the teacher can guide students through composing, while sections on rhetoric, cognition, and linguistics discuss theoretical principles that support classroom practices and make the teacher's performance effective. Treating both the theory and practice of writing, the author encourages teachers to adopt the methods that best meet their students' needs and to develop a style of teaching informed by knowledgeable decisions. Over forty percent of the text's material is new to this edition, offering composition scholars a broad range of techniques to encourage and motivate their students. Complete with an updated bibliography and a table of important dates in the history of composition, this classic work offers both prospective and seasoned writing teachers convenient access to recent scholarship in the field and inspires them to examine what it means to teach well.

"An excellent text with practical, useful suggestions for teaching writing."--Brenda Ameter, Troy State University

"I have used this book before and I find the Third Edition a must as a resource text for those who teach writing and composition. It has a comfortable balance of theoretical and practical discussions."--Sandra Jackson, DePaul University

"Erika Lindemann should include a subtitle: "...or, What Every Writing Teacher Should Know". Lindemann's book is admirable in its scope and accessibility for neophytes. I'm going to suggest that it becomes required reading for all of our TA's."--Ross Winterowd, University of Southern California

"An excellent book for beginning teachers or TA's who want a concise introduction to theory and practice in composition studies."--Bennett A. Rafoth, Indiana University of Pennsylvania

"The third edition is even better than expected....[T]he earlier editions worked very well in my methods classes. I look forward to teaching this edition."--Duane Roe, Arizona State University

Concise yet comprehensive, this practical handbook summarizes important research in the teaching of composition and shows how to apply it in the classroom. In addition to covering such essential topics as linguistics, cognitive research, and the history of rhetoric, the author provides solid advice on teaching prewriting, sentence strategies, paragraphing, essay development, and revision. The book concludes with detailed chapters on assigning and evaluating student writing and on design in writing courses. The new edition has been substantially revised, bringing the material as well as the bibliography up to date with current scholarship.

1 THE COMPOSING PROCESS.

1. Why Teach Writing?

Writing as Economic Power

Writing as Social Necessity

Writing as Knowing

The Humanistic Perspective

An Overview of This Book

2. What Is Writing?

The Addresser

The Addressee

Context

Code

Summary and Applications

3. What Does the Process Involve?

What Experience Tells Us

Published Accounts of the Process

Prewriting

Writing

Rewriting

Writing as Social Interaction

2 RHETORICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE.

4 What Do Teachers Need to Know about Rhetoric?.

Preliminary Questions

What Is Rhetoric?

Classical Rhetoric

Medieval and Renaissance Rhetoric

The Renaissance to the Twentieth Century

Contemporary Rhetoric

Conclusion

5. What Do Teachers Need to Know about Linguistics?

Writing and Speech

The Nature of Language

Grammar and Usage

Approaches to Grammar

Structural Grammar

Generative-Transformational Grammar

Th Association Model

6. What Do Teachers Need to Know about Cognition?

Creativity

Perception

Conception

Piaget

Moffett

Conclusion

7. Prewriting Techniques

Perception Exercises

Brainstorming and Clustering

Freewriting

Journals

Heuristics

Models

8. Shaping Discourse

Form Consciousness

Discovering for Teaching Form

Strategies for Teaching Form

Blocking

D'Angelo's Paradigms

9. Teaching Paragraphing

Traditional Views of the Paragraph

How Writers Paragraph

Relating Part to Whole

Generative Rhetoric of the Paragraph

A Sequence of Lessons

10. Teaching about Sentences

Sentence Combining

Cumulative Sentences

11. Teaching about Words

Parts of Speech

Active and Passive Voice

Derivational and Inflectional Affixes

Style

Additional Resources

Suggestions for Teaching Students about Language

12. Teaching Rewriting

Changing Attitudes

Writing Strategies Applied to Rewriting: Finding the Subject

Rewriting: Finding the Shape of Discourse

Rewriting: Finding Relationships in Paragraphs

Rewriting: Finding Sentence Problems

Writing Workshops

Student-Generated Criteria

3 TEACHING AS RHETORIC.

13. Developing Writing Assignments

Traditional Assignments

Defining a Rhetorical Problem

14. Responding to Student Writing

The Basics and Testing

Describing, Measuring, Judging

Diagnostic Reading

Teaching through Comments

Self-Evaluation

Atomistic Evaluation

Holistic Evaluation

Handling the Paper Load

15. Designing Writing Courses

Teaching as Rhetoric

General Principles of Course Design

Course Models

Active and Collaborative Learning

Course Outlines

Lesson Plans

The Teaching Performance

Some Important Dates in the History of Composition

A Selected Bibliography

List of Works Consulted

Index