Teaching Writing in College
Teaching Writing in College explores the connections between writing pedagogy and learning transfer. Episodes emphasize praxis--the relationship between the theoretical and practical--in an effort to understand how people learn to write and how educators might make the most of the time they have with their learners. The driving question is: How can instructors in higher education leverage theory, science, pedagogy, and craft most effectively to help their learners with writing?
- Update frequency
- every 19 days
- Average duration
- 24 minutes
- Episodes
- 30
- Years Active
- 2023 - 2025
30. Handwriting, Practice, Participation, and Cornell Notes
Electronic technologies have been embedded in classrooms for decades, but the emergence of genAI has prompted some professors to resort back to handwritten assessments, such as bluebooks and notes. T…
00:21:52 |
Mon 01 Sep 2025
29. Inviting Students to Reflect on genAI (Summer Reflection Series, Episode 6)
As a follow up to episode 28, I made a plan to introduce reflection about genAI on my first day of classes. I start by reviewing a post I encountered on social media that got me thinking in more deta…
00:25:53 |
Mon 25 Aug 2025
28. What do Students Need to Know about genAI? (Summer Reflection Series, Episode 5)
As my start date for fall semester draws nearer, I've started thinking in more detail about the kinds of knowledge students need to help them with writing. The distinction Doug Downs and Elizabeth Wa…
00:23:02 |
Fri 15 Aug 2025
27. genAI Prompts Me to Make Adjustments in the Classroom (Summer Reflection Series, Episode 4)
In this continuation of reflection on my teaching, I present (briefly) the basic routine I use for developing lesson plans: review, launch, deliver, apply, and close (RLDAC). From there, I share two …
00:24:14 |
Thu 07 Aug 2025
26. Adjusting a Lesson Plan to Accommodate Student Learning vis-a-vis genAI (Summer Reflection Series, Episode 3)
As a follow-up to episode 25, I outline changes to one of my existing lesson plans to keep student learning focused on the rhetorical strategy of presence. This episode includes a brief rehearsal abo…
00:20:17 |
Wed 30 Jul 2025
25. AI Has a Context Problem (Summer Reflection Series, Episode 2)
Parsing the differences between writing from genAI and writing from people can be frustrating or intimidating. But it can also be fruitful for thinking about how humans and machines handle (or don't …
00:31:05 |
Thu 24 Jul 2025
24. Summer Reflection Series, Episode 1: Students Can Be Accomplished Novices, and So Can Teachers
In this first episode of my summer reflection series, I explore the need for both learners and teachers to position themselves as "accomplished novices"--people who are not complete novices, but also…
00:21:35 |
Thu 17 Jul 2025
23. Want to Help Students with Citations? Follow the "Penny Principle!" (part II)
Teaching Writing in College is now available on Spotify! (Please see below.)
Episode 23 is a continuation of a discussion in Episode 21 about what I call the "Penny Principle"--a name I have given to …
00:34:57 |
Sun 29 Jun 2025
22. GenAI Could Turn Education into an Illusion, but Do We Have to Let It?
In this long overdue episode, I offer thoughts in response to a recent article from the Chronicle of Higher Education called "In the Age of AI, Is Education Just an Illusion?" In the article, author …
00:24:54 |
Thu 12 Jun 2025
21. Want to Help Your Students with Citations? Follow the Penny Principle (Part I)
Earlier this week, I came across a discussion on Facebook that questioned assumptions about citing sources--especially in an academic way. Importantly, a lot of students who take our classes might no…
00:34:22 |
Fri 10 May 2024
20. Metacognition is a Learned Skill
For a while now, I've thought of metacognition as something that can and should be taught as a skill. (I was reminded of this by a podcast episode from The Happiness Lab.) In this episode, I share a …
00:31:53 |
Fri 19 Apr 2024
19. A 30-minute Activity about Student Writing in their Other Classes
In this episode, I depart briefly from my series on ROCSS (to which I will return in the next episode) to share a fun experience I had with students today. We used David Perkins and Gavriel Salomon's…
00:21:49 |
Thu 07 Mar 2024
18. Writing Is Made of Genres, and Genres Are Made of ROCSS (Part IV)
In the fourth episode of this multi-part series, I provide a classroom exercise I recently used to demonstrate how additional knowledge about writing can support students' use of ROCSS. In particular…
00:25:46 |
Sun 11 Feb 2024
17. Writing is Made of Genres, and Genres are Made of ROCSS (Part III)
In the third episode in this series, I share a paragraph from Carolyn Miller's influential article titled "Genre as Social Action." It's a passage that has stuck with me for some time and informs my …
00:27:30 |
Fri 12 Jan 2024
16. Writing is Made of Genres, and Genres are Made of ROCSS (Part II)
In this second episode on a series about ROCSS, I use a page from the Merriam-Webster Children's Dictionary on my son's bookshelf to talk through the components of the acronym: Recurring Occasion, Co…
00:23:31 |
Tue 28 Nov 2023
15. Writing is Made of Genres, and Genres are Made of ROCSS (Part I)
In scholarship on teaching for transfer from writing studies, a strong emphasis has been placed on knowledge about genre. Arguably, it can be seen as a threshold concept that helps students (or any o…
00:36:32 |
Thu 09 Nov 2023
14. Turn Your Entire Class Period into an Exercise in Learning Transfer in Ten Minutes
Class time is precious, and it goes without saying that it needs to be dedicated to your curriculum. Although those minutes pass quickly, you can give students an extra benefit by dedicating about 10…
00:16:25 |
Sun 22 Oct 2023
13. Varied Practice with Students over Time: Familiar to Unfamiliar
This episode follows up on a discussion about the importance of practice--one of the Elon Statement on Writing Transfer's "enabling practices" that can help learners develop expertise and transfer kn…
00:23:02 |
Thu 28 Sep 2023
12. Short-circuiting AI with Practice
In a recent episode, I covered how using AI can sometimes take the focus away from a learning task and thus short-circuit learning. In this episode, I follow up with the Elon Statement on Writing Tra…
00:25:25 |
Mon 11 Sep 2023
11. AI and What Are We Teaching?
In this second of two episodes about artificial intelligence and teaching writing, I continue exploring an important concept in cognitive psychology about learning--that the mind must focus on what w…
00:27:55 |
Mon 31 Jul 2023
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