Overarching Principles | Instructional Principles | Faculty Principles | Institutional Principles | Research & Exploration
OWI Instructional Principles: Effective Practices in Action
OWI Principle 2: An online writing course should focus on writing and not on technology orientation or teaching students how to use learning and other technologies.

OWI Principle 3: Appropriate composition teaching/learning strategies should be developed for the unique features of the online instructional environment.
Screencast Feedback for Clear and Effective Revisions of High-stakes Process Assignments
by Jodie Whitehurst
This example demonstrates how to create screencast videos for feedback, which helps online writing faculty to indicate specific needs for revision within student assignments, discuss possible approaches for revising, display assignment rubrics to specify criteria that are and are not being met, direct writers to online resources, and give “voiced” affirmations to developing writers.
Screencast Feedback for Clear and Effective Revisions of High-stakes Process Assignments
by Jodie Whitehurst
This example demonstrates how to create screencast videos for feedback, which helps online writing faculty to indicate specific needs for revision within student assignments, discuss possible approaches for revising, display assignment rubrics to specify criteria that are and are not being met, direct writers to online resources, and give “voiced” affirmations to developing writers.

Using a Blog Throughout a Research Writing Course
by Danica Hubbard
This example demonstrates how the blog is a platform for ongoing conversation and reflection related to individual student research projects throughout a course. Use of the blog tool in this way helps students to keep research material organized, allows them to reflect on the research process as it unfolds, and helps to foster a sense of community in the online environment.
by Danica Hubbard
This example demonstrates how the blog is a platform for ongoing conversation and reflection related to individual student research projects throughout a course. Use of the blog tool in this way helps students to keep research material organized, allows them to reflect on the research process as it unfolds, and helps to foster a sense of community in the online environment.

Conversation Starters: Orchestrating Asynchronous Discussion to Build Academic Community among First-year Writers
by Dan E. Seward
This practice includes a sequence of discussion assignments developed to build academic community and develop academic literacies among first-year college students.
by Dan E. Seward
This practice includes a sequence of discussion assignments developed to build academic community and develop academic literacies among first-year college students.

OWI Principle 4: Appropriate onsite composition theories, pedagogies, and strategies should be migrated and adapted to the online instructional environment.
Clarity in an Online Course as an Extension of Onsite Practice
by Jessie Borgman
This effective practice used in online writing classrooms involves course clarity, in particular, easy course navigation. Clarity and ease of navigation are an extension of face-to-face instruction, thus the connection to OWI Principle 4 regarding the migration of onsite pedagogies to the online environment.
Clarity in an Online Course as an Extension of Onsite Practice
by Jessie Borgman
This effective practice used in online writing classrooms involves course clarity, in particular, easy course navigation. Clarity and ease of navigation are an extension of face-to-face instruction, thus the connection to OWI Principle 4 regarding the migration of onsite pedagogies to the online environment.
Conversation Starters: Orchestrating Asynchronous Discussion to Build Academic Community among First-year Writers
by Dan E. Seward This practice includes a sequence of discussion assignments developed to build academic community and develop academic literacies among first-year college students. |

A Conscious Craft: An Approach to Teaching Collaborative, Computer-mediated Composition
by Ruth Li
This practice includes collaborative playwriting assignments using Google Docs.
by Ruth Li
This practice includes collaborative playwriting assignments using Google Docs.
OWI Principle 5: Online writing teachers should retain reasonable control over their own content and/or techniques for conveying, teaching, and assessing their students’ writing in their OWCs.
OWI Principle 6: Alternative, self-paced, or experimental OWI models should be subject to the same principles of pedagogical soundness, teacher/designer preparation, and oversight detailed in this document.