Writing in the Twenty-First Century

Writing is one of the most important courses to take within higher education in the twenty-first century, especially when aligning education that will meet individual career goals. According to the Nation's Report Card on Writing, in 2011 alone, only about a quarter of young people can write proficiently. There is a need to institute change to developing and increasing the amount and quality of writing students are expected to produce. There is a need for greater collaboration for student learning by using innovative pedagogies that maintain the complexity and importance of pioneering work while showing that it is, in some cases, negotiable with traditional classroom practices. There are three specific examples: teaching point of view with multicultural studies, incorporating language awareness/critical theory into the composting process, and considering prescriptive suggestions in the workshop. Discussions of large-scale structural change should and will continue, but this article—which reviews how some theorists situate and enact innovation, include narratives of student resistance, and discuss practices that reframe more traditional activities—invites instructors to reflect on recent scholarship and consider larger educational goals for their classrooms.