Occasional Papers

OPs, short for Occasional Papers. are the "backbone" of our writing instruction. Students write several during the grading period. They are what some writing professionals call natural context writing, writing that does what writers want writing naturally to do - to communicate. Writers communicating with an audience is the natural context of writing. Do these Occasional Papers replace everything that we are used to teaching in a writing course: matters of correctness, expectations of genres, adjustments for different audiences, research considerations? No. The Occasional Papers do not, cannot, replace everything in a comprehensive writing curriculum. They are a backbone activity, an on-going activity done over and over as a classroom routine that moves students toward thinking like writers and justifies them in thinking of themselves as writers.