Skip to content

    Read more about Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing Vol. II

    Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing Vol. II

    (15 reviews)

    Charlie Lowe, Grand Valley State University

    Pavel Zemliansky, James Madison University

    Copyright Year:

    ISBN 13: 9781602351967

    Publisher: Parlor Press

    Language: English

    Formats Available

    Conditions of Use

    Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
    CC BY-NC-ND

    Reviews

    Learn more about reviews.

    Reviewed by L. Huizar, Assistant Professor, Drake University on 12/22/21

    The volume offers robust and varied engagement with writing and rhetorical concepts. Its particular strength includes engaging students in critical thinking about their own writing processes. That is, most essays in the volume approach writing as... read more

    Reviewed by Chelsea Horne, Professorial Lecturer, American University on 4/30/21

    One of the great strengths of this text, and the Writing Spaces series as a whole, is the wide array of topics, themes, and issues addressed in relation to first-year writing. Or really even, writing at all levels. Further, the essays collected in... read more

    Reviewed by Jessica Jorgenson Borchert, Assistant Professor, Pittsburg State University on 4/19/21

    This textbook covers a lot of what any instructor would want to cover in FYW/Composition courses: from moving beyond the five paragraph essay to using sources. For an open-access resource, it does a good job at getting to the nuts and bolts of... read more

    Reviewed by Brian Graves, Lecturer, University of North Carolina Asheville on 2/1/18

    It's important to stress that this is volume two in a series that, ostensibly, is not yet finished (though the first two volumes were published in 2010 and 2011, and the planned third and fourth have not yet appeared). In other words, neither... read more

    Reviewed by Debra Shein, Instructor, Portland Community College on 8/15/17

    Writing Spaces provides a refreshing alternative to the traditional composition text, and its approach makes it very well suited to the new terrain of open textbooks. Instead of providing the usual monolithic soup-to-nuts introduction to... read more

    Reviewed by Sara Reilly, Adjunct Professor, Rhode Island College on 4/11/17

    The text covers a variety of topics commonly found in contemporary first-year writing (FYW) courses: process, rhetorical context (particularly audience and genre), citation, multimodal writing, and collaborative writing, just to name a few. Most... read more

    Reviewed by Kristen Fink, Instructor, Portland Community College on 12/5/16

    I would recommend this text for students focused on writing arguments in particular. The text is a series of stand alone articles related to various acts and processes of the writing process focused on academic writing and with an eye towards... read more

    Reviewed by Alyson Welker, Instructor, Colorado State University on 1/7/16

    This book follows well with the areas I outline within my first year writing course. There are essays which correspond to all of the major topics that I cover each semester. There are also essays which inspire new, appropriate subjects to include... read more

    Reviewed by Neil FitzPatrick, Special Instructor, Colorado State University on 1/7/16

    This book would serve as a decent secondary text in a composition course. The included essays - as outlined in the index - deal with the necessities of a first-year writing course. The book begins with the purpose of such courses, moves to... read more

    Reviewed by Karen Embry, Instructor, Portland Community College on 1/7/16

    Collection is comprehensive as it offers twenty-one “writings on writing” that cover a wide-range of perspectives on academic writing,offering advice and tips on all aspects of the writing process, primarily geared toward first year composition... read more

    Reviewed by Megan Knight, Senior Lecturer, The University of Iowa on 1/7/16

    This collection of essays provides comprehensive coverage of key issues in the first-year composition classroom. It addresses core skills––composing as a process, reading as a critical act, writing as a series of rhetorical decisions––elucidating... read more

    Reviewed by George Zamzow, Instructor, Composition & Literature, Portland Community College on 1/7/16

    I'm not sure this book is intended to be a comprehensive look at writing. Rather, it is a compilation of essays that's highly modular and flexible. That said, it does cover writing topics about as comprehensively as is possible for this format. read more

    Reviewed by Jaime Wood, Adjunct Instructor, Clackamas Community College on 1/7/16

    Writing Spaces Vol. II addresses first-year college writing through a series of essays about writing, reading, research, collaboration, publishing, etc. The book has a hyperlinked table of contents that makes it easy to browse around, but there's... read more

    Reviewed by Dana Harker , Lecturer , Portland Community College on 1/7/16

    This text seemed like a general overview of first year composition and with the exception of the chapters on research, the chapters are simply too broad for the discipline. It’s almost like each chapter is missing the second half. For example,... read more

    Reviewed by Holly Cullom, English Instructor, Portland Community College on 1/7/16

    Readings cover a wide range of topics that are essential for an introductory composition course, including audience, voice, critical thinking, critical reading, invention, research, and assessing sources. There was some overlap in readings, with... read more

    Table of Contents

    • Ten Ways To Think About Writing: Metaphoric Musings for College Writing Students
    • Composition as a Write of Passage
    • Critical Thinking in College Writing: From the Personal to the Academic
    • Looking for Trouble: Finding Your Way into a Writing Assignment
    • How to Read Like a Writer
    • Murder! (Rhetorically Speaking)
    • The Complexity of Simplicity: Invention Potentials for Writing Students
    • Writing “Eyeball To Eyeball”: Building A Successful Collaboration
    • On the Other Hand: The Role of Antithetical Writing in First Year Composition Courses
    • Introduction to Primary Research: Observations, Surveys, and Interviews
    • Putting Ethnographic Writing in Context
    • Walk, Talk, Cook, Eat: A Guide to Using Sources
    • Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Sources
    • Googlepedia: Turning Information Behaviors into Research Skills
    • Annoying Ways People Use Sources
    • Everything Changes, or Why MLA Isn't (Always) Right
    • Storytelling, Narration, and the “Who I Am” Story
    • The Sixth Paragraph: A Re-Vision of the Essay
    • Why Blog? Searching for Writing on the Web
    • A Student's Guide to Collaborative Writing Technologies
    • Beyond Black on White: Document Design and Formatting in the Writing Classroom

    Ancillary Material

    Submit ancillary resource

    About the Book

    Volumes in Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing offer multiple perspectives on a wide-range of topics about writing. In each chapter, authors present their unique views, insights, and strategies for writing by addressing the undergraduate reader directly. Drawing on their own experiences, these teachers-as-writers invite students to join in the larger conversation about the craft of writing. Consequently, each essay functions as a standalone text that can easily complement other selected readings in writing or writing-intensive courses across the disciplines at any level.

    Volume 2 continues the tradition of the previous volume with topics, such as the rhetorical situation, collaboration, documentation styles, weblogs, invention, writing assignment interpretation, reading critically, information literacy, ethnography, interviewing, argument, document design, and source integration.

    About the Contributors

    Authors

    Dr. Charlie Lowe is an assistant professor in the Department of Writing at Grand Valley State University where he teaches first year composition, professional writing, and web design, and he is a strong advocate of open source software adoption and open access publishing.

    Dr. Pavel Zemliansky is an associate professor and graduate coordinator in the School of Writing, Rhetoric, and Technical Communication at James Madison University where he teaches courses in composition, rhetoric, and professional communication.

    Contribute to this Page

    Suggest an edit to this book record