Expectations I walk into the room expecting to see an auditorium full of people listening to a speaker present on the mistakes college students are making when they are doing a research paper, and to top it off going through a PowerPoint on how our writing is not up for the professional world. However, I entered a normal looking classroom, where I could see myself taking a class, barely full of students, but at times there were some students sitting on the floor, and the most

Many different researchers have addressed different problems that have risen when conducting primary research. Dorothy Williams and Louisa Coles from The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, UK talked about teachers and the problems they face when conducting and using their research. “Teachers’ strategies and confidence in their abilities to find, evaluate and use research information,” was low because “limiting the use of research information, exacerbat[ed] the perceived chal

​ Who is the Better Reader? Steven or Danya? When Steven, an English 1302 student from UTPA, is assigned with readings from his English class, the first thing he looks for, that will motivate him to read it, is the length of the article. If the article is long, he sighs and tells himself, “Damn, I do NOT want to read this!” But if it is one of those two page, easy reading articles, he will be willing to read the article with enthusiasm and effort. While reading the article

Compocon is a composition conference for English 1302 students to have an opportunity to have an informal conversation with professionals and experts from the university.This year, Compocon-The SPARK took place at the University of Texas-Pan American Ballroom on February 18th and 19th.The purpose of Compocon was to help students Develop the Big Question.The Big question is basically just what their question will be like for their research. In order to get help from a professi

When we were assigned to attend the first week of COMPOCON I was a bit hesitant about it because I had never attended a writing convention before or even knew what it was going to be about. I didn't know how helpful it would be. I just thought the COMPOCON sessions were going to be covering what I already knew. Although COMPOCON was more like a small convention of information for English students. The first COMPOCON event of 2015 was an all week event in which you went and ex

By Krystina Ortiz and Antonio Salinas Attending Compocon opened our eyes to the intricate processes that occur at each step of the writing process. We hope to give you a taste of what we experienced and we hope that this will help students in their writing endeavors of First Year Composition. Compocon is a series of sessions that sets out to teach first year composition students their different options they can use in helping with their writing and aims to give students a b