We must continually remind students in the classroom that expression of different opinions and dissenting ideas affirms the intellectual process. We should forcefully explain that our role is not to teach them to think as we do but rather to teach them, by example, the importance of taking a stance that is rooted in rigorous engagement with the full range of ideas about a topic.
Spring 2007
Fall 2005
Student Resources
Grammar Resources
- Guide to Grammar and Writing
- This page from Capital Community College organizes grammar rules into sentence-level and paragraph-level categories. You can consult the frequently asked questions file, test yourself with the interactive quizzes, or use the index to quickly find information on a particular topic.
- The OWL at Purdue
- The online writing lab (OWL) at Purdue University receives million of visitors each year. The OWL offers printer-friendly handouts on grammar, punctuation, and spelling. The site also offers interactive and written practice exercises.
- Guide to Grammar and Style
- Written by Jack Lynch, an English professor at Rutgers University, this guide addresses grammatical usage and style issues. Lynch favors a less prescriptive approach to grammar, but he has included a table of contents to help you quickly find information on a particular topic.
Composition Resources
- The Elements of Style
- An online version of the classic guide to effective writing.
- Principles of Composition
- Another page from the Guide to Grammar and Writing at Capital Community College. Here you will find advice about purpose, organization, abstract and specific language, using examples, thesis statements, introductions, and conclusions. This page also offers advice on revision and a printable editing checklist.
Writing About Literature
- Writing about Literature from the OWL at Purdue.
- Writing about Fiction from the OWL at Purdue.
- Writing about Poetry from the OWL at Purdue.
- Writing about Literature from the Principles of Composition page at Capital Community College.
- Writing Tips for Literature Papers
from the Writers' Workshop at the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
- Literature
- A printable handout from the Writing Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
- Poetry Explications from the Writing Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Writing a Research Paper
- Using Sources Effectively
- This page from the University of Richmond's Writer's Web offers advice on incorporating quotations, using paraphrases, and using quotation marks properly.
- Evaluating Evidence
- A printable handout from the from the Writing Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
- Documenting Sources
- This guide from the Paradigm Online Writing Assistant explains what you should document and how you should document it. You will also find ten templates you can use when creating your Works Cited page.
- The Citation Machine can help you format your citations properly.
Writing Poetry
- First, consult the poetics section of my poetry page.
- Make the Line, Break the Line is a handout I developed for my creative writing classes.
- Poetry handouts from the OWL at Purdue:
- Image in Poetry.
- Pattern and Variation in Poetry.
- Sound and Meter in Poetry.
Composition Courses
English 127
- Section 28818, Spring 2007, Old Dominion University
- syllabus
- Rhetorical Analysis Paper