Answering the call of the Boyer Commission Report to involve undergraduates in research from the very beginning of their college studies, Composing Inquiry invites students into genuine inquiry while helping them with college-level reading and writing.

We've designed Composing Inquiry to include much of the material you'll need, but this site provides additional materials and suggestions that arise out of our own experiences teaching students to undertake original research projects and then present their work in writing for different audiences.

We've organized the site around supplements teachers of college writing courses often need, including:

Frequently Asked Questions: includes links to material on the site and provides help with common problems

Planning your course:     helps teachers make decisions about organizing the work for the course they will teach. Includes:

•     general suggestions for working with inquiry and writing

•     overviews of assignment sequences

•     overviews of projects

•     annotations for each of the readings

•     sample schedules

Teaching inquiry:     support for working with each of the methods and special materials. Includes:

•     using the introductory material as you teach methods

•     class activities and lesson plans

•     handouts for students

Teaching Reading:     provides sample activities and handouts to help students with reading

•     for comprehension

•     as a researcher

•     as a writer

Teaching Writing:     offers general suggestions and specific activities and materials connected to teaching writing. Includes:

•     helping students with common writing issues
•     material for teaching self-reflection using authorial notes and end-of-term portfolio self-assessment
•     teaching students to be good peer reviewers
•     evaluation rubrics
•     a brief bibliography on commenting on student work
•     suggestions for the end-of-term portfolio

Additional Resources: provides additional resources, including:

•     updates of the investigations included in the readings provided by these authors
•     supplements for Practice Activities
•     additional internet resources
•     additional examples of student work

We intend that this site will continue to grow and develop and we welcome your suggestions, questions and additions.

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Send mail to mmarshall@miami.edu with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © 2008 Composing Inquiry: Methods and Readings for Investigation and Writing
Last modified: 02/21/08. Contributors to this site include: Margaret Marshall, Andrew Strycharski, April Mann, Isis Artze-Vega, Patty Malloy, John Wafer.