Jackson: That awareness of rhetorical context, that's always kind of my baselines. I don't mean to be repetitive, but I just think that's so important. Because I really think that students often don't consider that writing has to be and should be different in various writing situations and that your literary analysis is not going to be the same type of writing you do in your scientific report.

And so for students to go through that kind of meta process of thinking about their own writing, I think that is so key. And at this level, that they are able to transfer those skills. And reminding them that even though I'm giving them certain ideas in first year writing that when they go into a history class or a psychology class, the expectations may be a little bit different. And here's how you can transfer the skills that we're learning here to that situation.

I also think at this level being able to think critically is really important. And of course, that's a key term that we all talk about heavily. Again, just being able to go beneath the surface, particularly thinking about research. That's so key now. With technology, sometimes students think that research equals go to Google and pull up the first five articles and that's academic research. And so with technology, it is tempting to want to go that route, but helping them to understand what credible and reliable resources are, I think that is really crucial for mastering writing at this level.

Because you want to-- I always tell my students the research should not control your paper. You control the resources. You're the one who's in charge, and you decide how they work in support or not support what you're saying, but they shouldn't take control of your paper. And so I think for a lot of students coming from high school, sometimes that thought of research is again, just pulling together someone else's ideas, but not thinking that they're in control of what that writing should be.

And I think the other piece as well is just making sure that they are thinking about their own strengths and weaknesses as writers. I think that being aware of the writing process in a generic way but then thinking about their own writing process and what works for them and what doesn't work for them in terms of different brainstorming strategies. It varies from person to person. And thinking about their strengths and weaknesses that they know.

OK, one thing I have an issue with is having a good introduction. So when I go through my draft, I know my introduction may be a little bit crazy, but that's OK for my draft. But when I come back and revise, I know that's something I need to focus on. So having that awareness of their own writing process I think is really key here, too.