[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":3,"doc-seo-599182-105":59,"doc-detail-599182-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,51,55],{"id":8,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":10,"show_sort_weight":11,"slug":12},1,"Document","Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":14,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":15,"show_sort_weight":16,"slug":17},2,"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":19,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":20,"show_sort_weight":21,"slug":22},4,"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":24,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":25,"show_sort_weight":26,"slug":27},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":29,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":30,"show_sort_weight":31,"slug":32},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":34,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":35,"show_sort_weight":36,"slug":37},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":39,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":40,"show_sort_weight":41,"slug":42},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":44,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":45,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":47},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":49,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":50},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":53,"show_sort_weight":52,"slug":54},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":56,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":57,"show_sort_weight":24,"slug":58},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":60,"data":61},"ok",{"site_id":62,"language":63,"slug":64,"title":65,"keywords":66,"description":67,"schema_data":68,"social_meta":123,"head_meta":125,"extra_data":127,"updated_unix":129},105,"en","improving-instructor-ethos-through-document-design","Improving Instructor Ethos through Document Design","","The article argues that many first-year writing instructors underuse document design in both their teaching materials and classroom instruction, despite its capacity to make assignment aims clearer and cultivate a student-centered classroom ethos. In a study of 166 first-year undergraduates, participants evaluated visually informative versus minimally designed assignment prompts. Students rated instructors of the visually informative prompts as more experienced, enthusiastic, and caring, and found the task more engaging. The findings support visually informative prose as a low-cost, high-payoff strategy for shaping student perceptions and assignment interest.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/improving-instructor-ethos-through-document-design/599182/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/improving-instructor-ethos-through-document-design/599182.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"kopisore","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-29","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":29},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"What problem does the article identify about first-year writing instructors?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"It finds that many first-year writing instructors overlook document design in their instruction and in the materials they give students, even though design can support comprehension and classroom ethos.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"How does visually informative prose affect students’ perceptions of instructors?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"In the study, students perceived the instructor using a visually informative prompt as more experienced, enthusiastic, and caring than the instructor using a minimally designed prompt.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What concern does Andersen raise about visually informative assignment prompts?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"Andersen worries that visually informative design may position students as passive readers and limit the range of students’ interpretations by guiding comprehension too explicitly.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},599182,1792161157,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":29,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":144,"read_time":145},962090880963,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_6f874abed73319feea01a86fa6f0fab8","Improving Instructor Ethos through Document Design  \nJoanna Wolfe, Ryan Roderick, and Andrea Francioni Rooney  \nDespite much attention given to visual rhetoric in Composition, there is evidence that most first-year writing instructors overlook document design, both in their instruction and in the documents they produce for their students. These instructors may be underestimating the role that visually informative prose (that uses document design features such as chunking and visual hierarchy) can play both in helping students understand assignment objectives and in establishing a student-centered ethos in their classrooms. To illustrate how visually informative prose helps shape student perceptions of instructors, 166 first-year undergraduates responded to two assignment prompts: a visually informative and a minimally designed prompt. Students perceived the instructor who wrote the visually informative prompt as more experienced, enthusiastic, and caring than the instructor who wrote the minimally designed prompt, and they found the task more interesting when it was presented in the visually informative prompt. These findings suggest that creating visually informative classroom materials is a relatively lowcost/high-payoff strategy that can positively shape students’ perceptions of the instructor and assignments.  \nIntroduction  \nIn 1986, Stephen Bernhardt issued one of the first major calls for composition classrooms to pay attention to “visually informative prose”(68). Visually informative prose structures texts into highly visible divisions through the use of design features such as headings, whitespace, and bulleted lists. When implemented well, such design features attract readers and enable them to access information selectively. Since Bernhardt’s call to attend to visual rhetoric, we have seen many developments in the ways that visual communication can play a role in the first-year writing (FYW) classroom. Scholars such as Diana George, Dennis Lynch and Anne Wysocki, and Jody Shipka argue for the importance of teaching students to analyze and compose a range of visual texts, and our field now has several textbooks that foreground visual communication, including Donald & Christine McQuade’s Seeing Writing and Lester Faigley et al.’s Picturing Texts. In fact, visual rhetoric has been encoded into the WPA Outcomes Statements, which advocates that students demonstrate an ability to attend to “the interplay verbal and nonverbal elements” in texts  \nComposition Studies 47.2 (2019): 146–166  \nand learn common “design features for different kinds of texts” among other visual competencies.  \nIf recent scholarship is any guide, many first-year writing (FYW) instructors tend to interpret the WPA guidelines for visual competencies as calling for the analysis or production of visual artifacts such as photo essays or videos, but perhaps pay less attention to using document design principles to produce the“visually informative prose” that Bernhardt describes. For instance, in a 2005 article on visual design in FYW, Margaret Graham and colleagues state in a footnote that they do not address document design in their essay because it has “received robust consideration in advanced composition and professional communication courses” (38) . Similarly, in a 2010 article titled “Teaching Visual Rhetoric in the First-Year Composition Course,” Kristen Welch and colleagues mention document design in a historical overview of the topic of visual rhetoric and then move on to discuss two assignments focused on analyzing visual artifacts. Lending further evidence to the interpretation that document design is of little interest to most FYW instructors, a 2007 study found that over half of the composition instructors at one major university“never” or “rarely” addressed document design in their classrooms (Nelms and Dively 220) .  \nOne exception to this trend can be found in Rebekka Andersen’s recent call to teach document design as a close reading stra","cbCaikX4TcEiKX68","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaikX4TcEiKX68","pdf",426454,21,"English","# Introduction\n## Research problem and motivation\n## Visually informative prose and document design principles\n## Evidence from scholarship and instructor practices\n## Andersen’s close reading approach and assignment redesign","[{\"question\":\"What problem does the article identify about first-year writing instructors?\",\"answer\":\"It finds that many first-year writing instructors overlook document design in their instruction and in the materials they give students, even though design can support comprehension and classroom ethos.\"},{\"question\":\"How does visually informative prose affect students’ perceptions of instructors?\",\"answer\":\"In the study, students perceived the instructor using a visually informative prompt as more experienced, enthusiastic, and caring than the instructor using a minimally designed prompt.\"},{\"question\":\"What concern does Andersen raise about visually informative assignment prompts?\",\"answer\":\"Andersen worries that visually informative design may position students as passive readers and limit the range of students’ interpretations by guiding comprehension too explicitly.\"}]","Improving Instructor Ethos through Document Design | PDF",1792088298,53]