The Writer's Mindset

Book excerpt: "To become good writers, students must learn more than a writing process: they must develop a writer's mindset-the rhetorical skills to read critically, analyze and synthesize sources, and write with their audiences in mind. How can we help students with the challenges involved in thinking like a writer? By using incremental steps that move from literal thinking to analytical and critical understanding, The Writer's Mindset makes the development of college-level writing capabilities possible for all students, whatever their level of preparedness. Students are guided to use rhetorical thinking, and in so doing, their ability to emulate the strategies of successful writers develops, and their capacity to use intentional, audience-based strategies in their own writing increases. The Writer's Mindset provides students with tools to transform the way they approach reading, writing, and arguing through five key pillars. Rhetorical Focus All successful writing-from an informative report to an argument-depends on the writer's audience awareness and rhetorical skill. The Writer's Mindset helps students understand and develop the rhetorical thinking needed for any writing purpose. Incremental Approach The Writer's Mindset breaks down the thinking required to be an effective writer and offers students methods to develop a writer's mindset in incremental steps. Embedded Support The Writer's Mindset helps even struggling students develop high-level reading, writing, and arguing skills by offering extra help for the more difficult topics and tasks. Student Appeal The Writer's Mindset meets students' needs for relevancy and value. The approachable tone, high-interest readings, and reflective writing prompts help students make personal connections with the content. The breadth of coverage allows the text to be used in both semesters of composition, making it a great value. Instructor Support The Writer's Mindset offers extensive instructor support created by the author, a writing professor with over thirty years' experience, including an annotated instructor's edition; topical PowerPoints; teaching plans for face-to-face courses, online courses, and co-requisite courses; chapter tests; a pre-created Connect course; and much more. The five pillars are supported by McGraw-Hill Connect for Composition. McGraw-Hill Education Connect is a digital assignment and learning platform that strengthens the link between faculty, students, and coursework. With a suite of comprehensive and flexible resources designed to help students meet outcomes in First-Year Composition while reducing instructor workload, Connect Composition includes SmartBook 2.0, Writing Assignment Premium, Power of Process, Adaptive Learning Assignments, and instructor resources. Rhetorical Focus"--