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29 Legal Writing: J. Legal Writing Inst. i (2025)

handle is hein.journals/jlwriins29 and id is 1 raw text is: EDITOR'S NOTE On behalf of the Editorial Board, I'm excited to share Volume 29 of Legal Writing: The Journal of the Legal Writing Institute. Legal Writing publishes scholarly works about the theory, substance, and pedagogy of legal writing. The articles in Volume 29 focus on pedagogy, but they weave in theory and substance, showing that the three categories often cannot be neatly separated. Their inventiveness is matched by the creativity of the essays, which-perhaps for the first time in the Journal's history-feature several poems. The book reviews call attention to recently published books that are terrific resources for students while also providing fresh insights for even the most experienced legal writing professors. Articles Each of the articles reflects on our roles as educators: what we do, how we do it, and how we can do better. L. Danielle Tully's Behind the Curve: Rethinking Norm-Referenced Grading in First-Year Legal Writing Courses contextualizes and critiques legal writing grading practices. Tully combines critical historical analysis with data from two new empirical studies to uncover a multi-layered story about the evolution of grading practices in law schools generally and in legal writing courses specifically. She urges legal writing professors to untangle grading policies from concerns about how they and their courses are valued, and to rethink norm-referenced grading. In Teaching Cases: How Legal Writing Textbooks Approach the Rule Support Section, Alissa Bauer reports on how the fifteen most popular first-year legal writing textbooks approach rule support. Literally at the center of traditional legal analysis paradigms-the E in IREAC, CREAC, and TREAT-the rule support section describes how courts have interpreted or applied relevant rules. Bauer's examination reveals a lack of uniformity, beginning with how the textbooks name the section (explanation, case illustrations, and rule proof are just a few examples) and extending into different philosophies about what we should teach our students. Jonathan Moore's interdisciplinary article, Guided Autonomy: A Research-Based Approach to Improving Students' Wellbeing and Decision-Making in the Development of Problem-Solving Skills, addresses a dilemma at the core of teaching novice legal writers: how to strike the balance between fostering autonomy and providing adequate guidance. Drawing on Self-Determination Theory and Cognitive Load Theory, Moore introduces the guided autonomy approach and provides pointers on how to implement it in a first-year legal writing course.

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