Coming of Age: The Advanced Writing Curriculum

Part book, part CD-ROM, Coming of Age marks a new age in curriculum development, offering innovative new ideas for transforming advanced writing courses. Together, these essays describe and offer concrete examples of curriculum that incorporates discipline-based theory and history, that situates writers in public discourse, and that fully prepares students for careers as writers.

Because Coming of Age is intended to instigate direct, immediate curriculum and pedagogical action, it is ideally suited to the book/CD-ROM format that the authors call print-linked publishing. The theoretical framework is presented in the solid, stable medium of print. Part I proposes the move from "advanced composition" to "advanced writing," and along with Part II, argues for what the undergraduate writing curriculum should accomplish. The generative course descriptions and program recommendations are presented in the interactive medium of a CD-ROM. Here you'll find Parts III and IV, which explain and demonstrate how to accomplish these goals, discuss ways to implement such curriculum, and provide concrete suggestions from a variety of campuses that have done so. The CD-ROM also features a full list of course descriptions for each selection. All of the electronic material can be downloaded as you compose your own curriculum and course proposals.

Rebecca Moore Howard is the coeditor of the Boyton/Cook title Pluralizing Plagiarism (2008). She is Associate Professor of writing and rhetoric at Syracuse University, where she teaches courses in composition pedagogy, authorship theory, writing program administration, composition history, and stylistics. She is the author of Standing in the Shadow of Giants: Plagiarists, Authors, Collaborators.

Sandra Jamieson is Associate Professor of English and Director of Composition at Drew University.

Robert Schwegler is Professor of English at the University of Rhode Island.

Linda Shamoon is Professor of English and Director of the University of Rhode Island's Writing Program and of The Faculty Institute on Writing.