The Writing Process: A Writer's Workshop helps students improve their writing with careful attention to the writer's process and a sustained emphasis on revision.

Student Models: Every assignment chapter offers 2 to 3 student samples with extensive, focused apparatus, in addition to an annotated student sample in 4 drafts.

Balance of Paragraph and Essay: A Writer's Workshop moves students from paragraph-level work into serious exploration of the essay. 60% of the material refines paragraph-level skills and 40% focuses on essay-level writing.

Aims-Based: A Writer’s Workshop provides the greatest number of opportunities for student writing of any basic writing text. The exercises – individual and group activities, journal prompts, and writing assignments – are all firmly grounded in the aims and purposes that inspire writing.

Readings: Fourteen professional readings, appropriate to the course in length and complexity, model key principles introduced in the assignment chapters.