Linda Adler-Kassner suggests structuring course content around questions about writing, offering students readings about what happens when people write, and more broadly, why do people write in particular ways. She hopes students find some resonance with the readings.

Nedra Reynolds advises less is more. She recommends structuring course content around a brief rhetoric textbook, but she also advises being able to customize the course content as necessary so it can be focused. Reynolds emphasizes the need to return to texts throughout the course and implement them into classroom work, not simply assign and forget a text.

Jacqueline Jones Royster analyzes why she uses a Studs Terkel story in her writing class. The story features a compromise between a Klansman and woman who have no historical imperative to get along under any circumstance but do so anyway. She believes students internalize the exigency in this story that gives an opportunity for peace instead of war. Ultimately, Jones Royster believes the readings in a writing course can be springboards to consider the prospects of thorny issues.