The open-access book, Bad Ideas About Writing, started as a Facebook complaint and, within a year, turned into a 63-chapter edited collection (Ball & Loewe, 2017) featuring dozens of scholars in rhetoric and composition studies arguing against typical myths in the teaching and learning of writing for an audience of non-scholars or researchers in other fields. Some of those myths—passive voice is bad; teaching grammar is a great idea; texting is a terrible idea; dual-enrollment classes prepare students for college; and anyone can teach writing—are debunked in the book and will be discussed (among other chapters in the book) in this presentation. The speaker will add some missing myths from her own research and experience that expand the notion of Bad Ideas such: as multimedia assignments lack critical engagement; online publishing is predatory; and pedagogical research can’t get you tenure.
This plenary session was presented as part of the 2018 Teaching & Learning Conference, hosted by Elon University. The T&LC is a collaboration between the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning & Teaching and Learning Technologies. The theme of the 2018 conference was Busting the Myths of Teaching and Learning, which represented an opportunity to challenge myths, misconceptions, and hidden assumptions related to teaching and learning.
(644)
