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Practical Teaching Resources

These resources offer ways you might utilize Writing Studies’ best pedagogical practices to address some of the challenges posed by Generative AI/LLMs. This section offers time-tested approaches such as assignment scaffolding, process writing, and metacognitive reflection that can not only thwart the effectiveness of Generative AI/LLMs, but also engage your students in meaningful writing practices.

The UMass Writing Program is process-based, so students who have taken Englwrit 111 and/or 112 will have experience planning, drafting, revising, and participating in peer review and critical self-reflection. Whether you are an instructor who teaches in the Writing Program, who teaches a Junior Year Writing course, or if you use writing in any of your courses, you can build on these experiences using the strategies offered in this section.


General Writing Pedagogy

  • Engaging Ideas: The Professor's Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom, 3rd Edition
    This book is a hands-on, practical guide for all teachers of writing. It was designed for instructors and offers multiple ways to design writing assignments, to create writing-based activities, and to respond to writing.
  • The WAC Clearinghouse is an open-access, educational website focused on communication across the disciplines. For practical, writing-related resources, see these sections: Teaching Resources and Writing Resources
  • Bahls, Patrick. Student Writing in the Quantitative Disciplines: A Guide for College Faculty. First edition., Jossey-Bass, 2012.
    This book is designed for faculty who teach math to undergraduates. It serves as a guide to the ways writing pedagogy can enhance the teaching of mathematics. It focused on specific writing-to-learn and Writing in the Discipline strategies.

Specific Writing Practices

  • Leask, Rita, et al. “Scaffolding for Independence: Writing-as-Problem-Solving Pedagogy.” English Journal, vol. 108, no. 2, Nov. 2018, pp. 84–94.
  • Goldschmidt, Mary. “Teaching Writing in the Disciplines: Student Perspectives on Learning Genre.” Teaching & Learning Inquiry: The ISSOTL Journal, vol. 2, no. 2, 2014, pp. 25–40.
  • Oleksiak, Timothy. “Slow Peer Review in the Writing Classroom.” Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture, vol. 21, no. 2, Apr. 2021, pp. 369–83.
  • Straub, Richard. The Practice of Response: Strategies for Commenting on Student Writing. Hampton Press, 2000.
  • Yancey, Kathleen Blake. Reflection in the Writing Classroom. Utah State University Press, 1998.
  • Preventing Plagiarism, UMass Amherst Faculty Senate

Generative AI-Focused Resources