In Writing Rhetorically, Jennifer Fletcher provides teachers with strategies and frameworks for writing instruction that cultivate student expertise and autonomy. By teaching writing rhetorically, we support students in becoming independent problem solvers. They learn how to discover their own questions, design their own inquiry process, develop their own positions and purposes, make their own choices about content and form, and contribute to conversations that matter to them. Inside this book, Jennifer examines the rhetorical writing skills and practices that help students effectively communicate across contexts while providing successful ways to foster: Inquiry, invention, and rhetorical thinking. Writing for transfer. Paraphrasing, summary, synthesis, and citation skills. Research skills and processes. Evidence-based reasoning. Rhetorical decision making. Rhetorical decision making helps students develop the skills, knowledge, and mindsets needed for transfer of learning: the ability to adapt and apply learning in new settings. The more choices students make as writers, the better prepared they are to analyze and respond to diverse rhetorical situations.

Students need more than just academic skills for success in college and career and the lack of an explicit instructional focus on the "soft skills" critical to postsecondary success poses a challenge for many students who enter college, especially the underprepared. Based upon a multi-campus, cross-disciplinary collaboration, this book presents the resulting set of habits-of-mind-based strategies that demonstrably help not only low-income, ESL, and first-generation college students overcome obstacles on the path to degree completion; these strategies equally benefit all students. They promote life-long, integrative learning and foster intellectual qualities such as curiosity, openness, flexibility, engagement, and persistence that are the key to developing internalized and transferrable competencies that are seldom given direct attention in college classrooms. This contributed volume, written with full-time and adjunct faculty in mind, provides the rationale for this pedagogical approach and presents the sequential instructional cycle that begins by identifying students' assets and progressively focusing on specific habits to develop their capacity to transfer their learning to new tasks and situations. Faculty from both two-year and four-year colleges provide examples of how they implement these practices in English, math, and General Education courses, and demonstrate the applicability of these practices across course types and disciplines. Chapters address key factors of college success, including: The link between habits of mind and student retention and achievement Using an assets-based approach to teaching and learning Supporting and engaging students Creating inclusive learning communities Building confidence and self-efficacy Promoting transfer of learning Teacher networks and cross-disciplinary collaboration By foregrounding habits of mind as an instructional lens, this book makes a unique contribution to teaching in developmental and general education settings.

Students need more than just academic skills for success in college and career and the lack of an explicit instructional focus on the “soft skills” critical to postsecondary success poses a challenge for many students who enter college, especially the underprepared. Based upon a multi-campus, cross-disciplinary collaboration, this book presents the resulting set of habits-of-mind-based strategies that demonstrably help not only low-income, ESL, and first-generation college students overcome obstacles on the path to degree completion; these strategies equally benefit all students. They promote life-long, integrative learning and foster intellectual qualities such as curiosity, openness, flexibility, engagement, and persistence that are the key to developing internalized and transferrable competencies that are seldom given direct attention in college classrooms. This contributed volume, written with full-time and adjunct faculty in mind, provides the rationale for this pedagogical approach and presents the sequential instructional cycle that begins by identifying students’ assets and progressively focusing on specific habits to develop their capacity to transfer their learning to new tasks and situations. Faculty from both two-year and four-year colleges provide examples of how they implement these practices in English, math, and General Education courses, and demonstrate the applicability of these practices across course types and disciplines. Chapters address key factors of college success, including: The link between habits of mind and student retention and achievement Using an assets-based approach to teaching and learning Supporting and engaging students Creating inclusive learning communities Building confidence and self-efficacy Promoting transfer of learning Teacher networks and cross-disciplinary collaboration By foregrounding habits of mind as an instructional lens, this book makes a unique contribution to teaching in developmental and general education settings.

"When am I ever going to need this again?" If you've heard students ask this in your English class, Jennifer Fletcher has just the answer. Teaching Literature Rhetorically shows you how to help your students develop transferable literacy skills that allow them to succeed not just in their English language arts classes, but, more importantly, their future lives in college, career, and beyond. The book is built around eight high-utility literacy skills and practices that will help students communicate effectively and with confidence as they navigate important transitions in their lives: integrating skills and knowledge; reading closely and critically; assessing rhetorical situations; negotiating different perspectives; developing and supporting a line of reasoning; analyzing genres; communicating with self and others in mind; reading and writing with passion. Teaching Literature Rhetorically offers readers writing prompts, readings, discussion questions, graphic organizers, as well as examples of student work and activities for helping students to understand key rhetorical concepts. As Jennifer writes in her introduction "rhetorical thinking promotes the transfer of learning - the single most important goal we can have as teachers if we hope to have a positive impact on our students' lives." This book will help teachers everywhere do just that.

No matter where students’ lives lead after graduation, one the most essential tools we can teach them is how to comprehend, analyze, and respond to arguments. In Teaching Arguments, Jennifer Fletcher provides engaging classroom activities, writing prompts, graphic organizers, and student samples to help students at all levels read, write, listen, speak, and think rhetorically. Teaching Arguments will help students learn how to understand multiple perspectives; the tension between belief and doubt; the interplay of reason, character, and emotion; the dynamics of occasion, audience, and purpose; and how our own identities shape what we read and write.