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As far back as we can trace student papers, we can see the attempts of teachers to squeeze their reactions into a few pithy phrases, to roll all their strength and all their sweetness up into one ball for student delectation. Every teacher of composition has shared in this struggle to address students, and writing helpful comments is one of the skills most teachers wish to develop toward that end. Given that writing evaluative commentary is one of the great tasks we share, one might think it would have been one of the central areas of examination in composition studies. Indeed, a number of thoughtful examinations of written teacher commentaries exist, most of them measuring empirically the comments of a relatively small teacher and student population. No studies we could find, however, have ever looked at large numbers of papers commented on by large numbers of teachers. We do not have, in other words, any large-scale knowledge of the ways that North American teachers and students tend to interact through written assessments. There are clear logistical reasons for this lack of large-scale studies; the gathering and analysis of a large data base are daunting tasks, and evaluating rhetorical (as opposed to formal) commentary is a challenge. But we had the data base gathered from previous research, and in the great tradition of fools rushing in where wise number-crunchers fear to tread, we thought we'd take a look at this question of teacher commentary. As inveterate historical kibbitzers, we naturally started research by asking what sorts of comments teachers had made on student papers in the past. Have teacher comments become more or less prescriptive, longer or shorter, more positive or more negative? We headed for the stacks to try to find out. Rather to our amazement, we discovered that what we were proposing to look at-

In original essays, fourteen nationally known scholars examine the practical, philosophical, and epistemological implications of a variety of research traditions. Included are discussions of historical, theoretical, and feminist scholarship; case-study and ethnographic research; text and conversation analysis; and cognitive, experimental, and descriptive research. Issues that cross methodological boundaries, such as the nature of collaborative research and writing, methodological pluralism, the classification and coding of research data, and the politics of composition research, are also examined. Contributors reflect on their own research practices, and so reflect the current state of composition research itself.

So ends Arthur Clarke's classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, and, as David Bowman contemplates with some dismay his seeming mastery of the universe, his unstated question is one the contemporary writing or literature teacher might well appropriate for his or her own contemporary pedagogical dilemma: So what do I do now with my students? It is the question a high-school English teacher once asked me as she read some Derrida and Nietzsche as part of a required Contemporary Theory and Pedagogy class I was teaching. Her pedagogical quandary was not an isolated one. I answered her with another question: What if a student in your freshman writing class submits to you a rough draft of a paper which you consider to be racist-very racist? Would you, or should you, with that paper-or perhaps one that asserts that it is the duty of Christians to ferret out every gay and 'beat some sense into him'-mark it as any other paper? She seemed to squirm in her seat. She had, in fact, once gotten a racist paper, and her response had been unequivocal: she did not allow the paper and sat the student down and set him right. Whatever truth there is to Foucault's assertion that each society has its regime of truth, its 'general politics' of truth-i.e., the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true (Truth 131), and whatever personal power agendas are working subtly at the heart of any particular discourse, still, to that teacher that morning, there were some things you could be certain about. In the case of a racist paper, some seemingly universal principle far beyond political correctness, beyond situational truths, was at issue. Still, as she struggled through some of the assigned readings for the course, it was clear she was having some difficulty reconciling her own moral fervor

Responses to Maxine Hairston, “Diversity, Ideology, and Teaching Writing” John Trimbur, Robert G. Wood, Ron Strickland, William H. Thelin, William J. Rouster, and Toni Mester Reply Maxine Hairston Responses to the Editor’s Column on Reader Reactions to “Diversity, Ideology, and Teaching Writing” Ralph F. Voss and Laurence Behrens

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This kind of emotional reaction was typical of what the students wrote in response to reading about poverty and homelessness. That particular semester, I assigned readings on one particular theme-i.e., poverty and homelessness. Over the course of the first few weeks, we read about a dozen essays, then a longer nonfiction piece, Jonathan Kozol's Rachel and Her Children, and finally, a novel, Kaye Gibbons's Ellen Foster. I hoped the students would find the readings interesting and that, taken as a whole, they would provide a common classroom experience upon which to base our discussions. I also tried to choose material that I thought would provoke strong student reactions.

Response to Vara Neverow-Turk, “Researching the Minimum Wage” John Ruszkiewicz Reply Vara Neverow-Turk Response to Thomas Kent, ”On the Very Idea of a Discourse Community” Edward Schiappa Reply Thomas Kent Response to Janice M. Wolff, ”Writing Passionately” B. J. Bowman Reply Janice M. Wolff Responses to Thomas E. Recchio, ”A Bakhtinian Reading of Student Writing” Sanford Tweedie and Lynn Kramer Reply Thomas E. Recchio

This book examines the process of reading (when one's purpose is to create a text of one's own) and writing (which includes a response to the work of others). This is a central process in most college work and at the heart of critical literacy. The study observed students in the transition from high school to college, and in the process of trying to enter the community of academic discourse. The study draws on the methods of textual analysis, teacher evaluation, and interviews to examine students' writing and revising.

Preface - Charles R Cooper and Sidney Greenbaum Introduction - Walter Nash The Stuff These People Write The Literary Argument and Its Discursive Conventions - Susan Peck MacDonald Modality in Literary-Critical Discourse - Paul Simpson Precise and Vague Quantities in Writing on Economics - Joanna Channell Metadiscourse in Popular and Professional Science Discourse - Avon Crismore and Rodney Farnsworth Qualifications in Science - Christopher S Butler Modal Meanings in Scientific Texts When Is a Report Not a Report? Observations from Academic and Non-Academic Settings - Ronald A Carter Writing as an Institutional Practice - Willy van Peer The Writing Student - Mike Hannay and J Lachlan Mackenzie From the Architect of Sentences to the Builder of Texts

Preface Acknowledgments Introduction PART I The Structure of Sentences Chapter 1 An Introduction to Words and Phrases Chapter Preview Form Classes Nouns The Noun Phrase Verbs The Verb Phrase NP + VP = S Adjectives and Adverbs Prepositional Phrases Grammatical Choices Key Terms Chapter 2 Sentence Patterns Chapter Preview Rhetorical Effects The Be Patterns The Linking Verb Pattern The Intransitive Pattern The Basic Transitive Verb Pattern Transitive Patterns with Two Complements Sentence Pattern Summary The Optional Adverbial Questions and Commands Punctuation and the Sentence Patterns Basic Patterns in Prose The Short Paragraph Key Terms Rhetorical Reminders Punctuation Reminder Chapter 3 Our Versatile Verbs Chapter Preview The Expanded Verb Using the Expanded Verb Special Uses of the Present Tense Other Auxiliaries The Passive Voice Using the Passive Voice The Obscure Agent Well-Chose Verbs: Showing, Not Telling Key Terms Rhetorical Reminders Chapter 4 Coordination and Subordination Chapter Preview Coordination Within the Sentence Parallel Structure Coordination of the Series Climax Coordination with Correlative Conjunctions Subject-Verb Agreement Compound Sentences Conjunctive Adverbs and Transitional Phrases Compound Sentences with Semicolons Compound Sentences with Colons Punctuation Pitfalls The Compound Sentence: Punctuation Review Subordination: The Dependent Clauses Revising Compound Structures Key Terms Rhetorical Reminders Punctuation Reminders Part II Controlling the Message Chapter 5 Cohesion Chapter Preview Reader Expectation Repetition The Known-New Contract The Role of Pronouns Personal Pronouns Demonstrative Pronouns The Role of the Passive Voice Other Sentence Inversions Parallelism Repetition versus Redundancy Key Terms Rhetorical Reminders Chapter 6 Sentence Rhythm Chapter Preview Intonation: The Peaks and Valleys End Focus Controlling Rhythm The It-Cleft The What-Cleft The There Transformation Rhythm and the Comma Power Words Correlative Conjunctions Adverbials of Emphasis The Common Only Key Terms Rhetorical Reminders Punctuation Reminder Chapter 7 The Writer's Voice Chapter Preview Tone Diction Verbs and Formality Nominalized Verbs and Abstract Subjects Contractions Metaphor Metadiscourse The Overuse of Metadiscourse Point of View Key Terms Rhetorical Reminders Punctuation Reminders Part III Making Choices: Form and Function Chapter 8 Choosing Adverbials Chapter Preview The Movable Adverbials Adverbs Prepositional Phrases Proliferating Prepositional Phrases Noun Phrases Verb Phrases Dependent Clauses Punctuation of Adverbial Clauses Movability of Adverbial Clauses The Because-Clause Myth Elliptical Adverbial Clauses Key Terms Rhetorical Reminders Punctuation Reminders Chapter 9 Choosing Adjectivals Chapter Preview The Noun Phrase Preheadword Modifiers Determiners Adjectives and Nouns Modifier Noun Proliferation The Movable Adjective Phrase Postheadword Modifiers Prepositional Phrases Adjective Phrases Participial Phrases The Prenoun Participle The Movable Participle The Dangling Participle Relative Clauses The Relatives The Broad-Reference Clause Punctuation of Phrases and Clauses A Punctuation Rule Revisited Key Terms Rhetorical Reminders Punctuation Reminders Chapter 10 Choosing Nominals Chapter Preview Appositives The Colon with Appositives Avoiding Punctuation Errors The Sentence Appositive Nominal Verb Phrases Gerunds The Dangling Gerund The Subject of the Gerund Infinitives Nominal Clauses Nominals as Delayed Subjects Key Terms Rhetorical Reminders Punctuation Reminder Chapter 11 Other Stylistic Choices Chapter Preview Absolute Phrases The Coordinate Series Repetition Word-Order Variation Ellipsis Antithesis The Deliberate Fragment Key Terms Rhetorical Reminders Punctuation Reminders PART IV Your Way With Words Chapter 12 Words and Word Classes Lexical Rules Parts of Speech The Form Classes Nouns Plural-Only Forms Collective Nouns Proper Nouns Verbs Adjectives Adverbs Derivational Affixes The Structure Classes Determiners Auxiliaries Qualifiers Prepositions Particles Conjunctions Pronouns Personal Pronouns The Missing Pronoun Case Errors The Unwanted Apostrophe The Ambiguous Antecedent Reflexive Pronouns Intensive Pronouns Reciprocal Pronouns Demonstrative Pronouns Indefinite Pronouns The Everyone/Their Issue Key Terms Rhetorical Reminders Punctuation Reminders PART V Punctuation Chapter 13 Punctuation: Its Purposes, Its Hierarchy, and Its Rhetorical Effects The Purposes of Punctuation Marks Syntax Prosody Semantics The Hierarchy of Punctuation The Rhetorical Effects of Punctuation Key Terms Glossary of Punctuation Glossary of Terms Bibliography Answers to the Exercises Index

This book brings together the best current original work on the concept of audience in written communication. Firstly examining historical and theoretical perspectives on audience, the contributors explore and synthesize current theories on its shifting and intangible nature as well as the broader context of post-structuralist concepts of reader, writer and text. The second part of the book embraces a wide variety of research on audience and serves to illuminate contested theoretical points of earlier chapters. Authors of chapters report on case studies, textual analyses, comparative experimental research and protocol analysis.

Dineson. It reads: All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them.I I come to this podium this morning fully conscious of the rather daunting responsibility attached to this occasion-a responsibility heightened by what my distinguished predecessors have said in their Chair's Addresses. Mindful of that tradition, I do not intend this morning to speak for our profession, nor to try to prepare a different focus for our individual or collective work. Nor do I intend to argue for the need to establish either greater coherence for or a different map of the shifting demarcations within the field of composition studies. Rather, I've come here prepared simply to tell a story about writing, about writing as a matter of life and death, a story about how I now know much better what I thought I had known before-about the dignity and the importance of what we try to do each day in our public and private conversations about the importance of the work of words in the lives of our students and in our own lives.

Jay L. Robinson, Catherine F. Smith, Response to John Schilb, Review of Conversations on the Written Word: Essays on Language and Literacy, College Composition and Communication, Vol. 42, No. 4 (Dec., 1991), pp. 499-500

Delores K. Schriner, William C. Rice, Response to Gail E. Hawisher and Cynthia L. Selfe, "The Rhetoric of Technology and the Electronic Writing Class", College Composition and Communication, Vol. 42, No. 4 (Dec., 1991), pp. 501-502

Introduction: A Model of Discourse Development Reading and Writing as Social Activities The Answers Are Not in the Back of the Book: Developing Discourse Practices in First-Year English THE SOCIAL STANCE The Artful Conversation: Characterizing the Development of Advanced Literacy Making Sense of Reading The Development of Poetic Understanding During Adolescence Writing and Reasoning about Literature THE TEXTUAL STANCE Writers, Judges and Text Models The Development of Persuasive Argumentative Writing Adolescents' Uses of Intertextual Links to Understand Literature Verbocentrism, Dualism, and Oversimplification: The Need for New Vistas for Reading Comprehension Research and Practice THE INSTITUTIONAL STANCE Developing Reflective Thinking and Writing Teaching English for Reflective Thinking Reading, Writing, and the Prose of the School THE FIELD STANCE Telling Secrets: Student Readers and Disciplinary Authorities Assessing Literacy Learning with Adults: An Ideological Approach Developmental Challenges, Developmental Tensions: A Heuristic for Curricular Thinking Author Index Subject Index

Preview this article: A One-Time Part-Timer's Response to the CCCC Statement of Professional Standards, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ccc/42/3/collegecompositioncommunication8922-1.gif

The published draft of the CCCC Statement (CCCC Initiatives on the Wyoming Resolution, CCC, Feb. 1989, 61-72) made me uneasy in its assumption that full-time teaching was the only legitimate model for academic employment in our--or indeed, any-field. Thus, I was pleased when the final version-in response to suggestions made by several of us at the 1989 CCCC meeting in Seattle-acknowledged the legitimacy of fully professional, tenuretrack part-time positions in the teaching of writing (Statement of Principles and Standards, CCC, Oct. 1989, 329-36). Regular part-time faculty are a permanent good in the academy and in our writing programs for two reasons. First, they allow for some variation from the standard male academic career track in one's 20's and early 30's-the track where you graduate from college, start grad school (maybe with a wife to help support you through it), land your first full-time tenure-track job, and write your first book to earn tenure (while your wife bears and watches the kids and provides the support system for 6 or 7 years). Not everyone can easily fit that time frame or career schedule, and our students need to see that different career patterns and work lives are possible. Business and government have been successfully experimenting with professional part-time positions and a number of successful part-time policies also exist in academia, like the ones at Carleton in Minnesota, Central College in Iowa, and Wesleyan in Connecticut, where part-time faculty in all disciplines can earn tenure and sabbaticals just like their full-time colleagues. Second, such professional part-time positions are important because they allow us to build into our writing programs, in a stable and productive way, faculty who have chosen to work part-time in order to have time for their own writing or other work which involves writing-people working as everything from novelists to free-lance journalists to political activists to consultants. These people bring a broad range of experiences with language into the classroom and they can teach our students and us a lot about writing in the nonacademic world. The final version of the CCCC Statement does not suggest

Introduction Social Science Perspectives Who are Basic Writers? by Andrea Lunsford and Patricia A. Sullivan Development Psychology and Basic Writers by Donna Haisty Winchell Literacy Theory and Basic Writing by Mariolina Salvatori and Glynda Hull Linguistic Perspectives Modern Grammar and Basic Writers by Ronald F. Lunsford Dialects and Basic Writers by Michael Montgomery TESL Research and Basic Writing by Sue Render Pedalogical Perspectives Basic Writing Courses and Programs by Michael D. Hood Computers and Writing Instruction by Stephen A. Bernhardt and Patricia G. Wojahn Writing Laboratories and Basic Writing by Donna Beth Nelson Preparing Teachers of Basic Writing by Richard Filloy Appendix: Selective Bibliography of Basic Writing Textbooks by Mary Sue Ply Name Index Subject Index

Response to Gary Sloan, Frequency of Errors in Essays by College Freshmen and by Professional Writers William S. Robinson Reply Gary Sloan

As a community-college English instructor immersed in teaching four sections a semester, at least two of which are writing courses, I have very little time to study theories of composition and pedagogy. And yet, out of a desire to improve as a teacher, I read theory in what little time I have. I look outside my classroom to learn what theoreticians have to say about what happens in my classroom. I have, over the years, internalized a view that if I am to find theory I am to do so outside my classroom-in the major journals and at conferences. I have also come to expect that the theoreticians, those writing the journal articles and presenting papers, are most likely to be from universities, and a relatively small number of them. Needless to say, I do not expect the theoreticians to come from the community colleges or from other institutions whose faculty devote most of their time to teaching. In recent years, however, the line between theory and classroom practice has begun to be breached, the dichotomy between the two questioned. When Robert Coles, whose words begin this essay, encourages me to consider theory as rooted in observation, in things observed and people observing, I wonder whether, maybe, even a beleaguered community-college writing teacher can theorize, and I begin to think it is possible. I am further encouraged by events happening in the profession. In this regard, an extraordinary thing happened at the 1990 CCCC Convention, which took place in Chicago. Jane Peterson, while giving the Chair's Address on Valuing Teaching: Assumptions, Problems, and Possibilities, identified herself unequivocally as a teacher who had in the past taught five sections in one semester and would continue to do so. At one point, she turned to the

Responses to Elisabeth McPherson, “Remembering, Regretting, and Rejoicing” David W. Chapman, Joyce Magnotto, and Barbara Stout Reply Elisabeth McPherson Response to Lester Faigley, “Judging Writing, Judging Selves” Bruce Holland ReplyLester Faigley Response to James Hoetker and Gordon Brossell, “The Effects of Systematic Variations in Essay Topics on the Writing Performance of College Freshmen” Davida Charney Reply James Hoetker

Creating a Learning Flow for Exploratory Writing Chuck Guilford In-Depth Interviewing in the Preparation of Writing Teachers Linda Miller Cleary and Earl Seidman

Robert S. Burton, Response to Andrea A. Lunsford, "Composing Ourselves: Politics, Commitment, and the Teaching of Writing", College Composition and Communication, Vol. 41, No. 3 (Oct., 1990), pp. 336-337

One Hundred Ways to Make the Wyoming Resolution a Reality: A Guide to Personal and Political Action Susan Wyche-Smith and Shirley K Rose Principles of Generic Word Processing for Students with Independent Access to Computers Ronald A. Sudol Encouraging Critical Thinking: A Strategy for Commenting on College Papers Patrick Slattery

Response to Andrea A. Lunsford, “Composing Ourselves: Politics, Commitment, and the Teaching of Writing” Robert S. Burton Reply Andrea Lunsford

When it was first published in 1989, Susan Miller s Rescuing the Subject: A Critical Introduction to Rhetoric the Writer established a landmark pedagogical approach to composition based the importance of the writer the act of writing in the history of rhetoric. Widely used as an introduction to rhetoric composition theory for graduate students, the volume was the first winner of the W. Ross Winterowd Award from JAC and is still one of the most frequently cited books in the field.This first paperback edition includes a new introductory chapter in which Miller addresses changes in the field since the first edition, outlines new research, surveys positions she no longer supports. A new foreword by Thomas P. Miller assesses the proven impact of Rescuing the Subject on the field of rhetoric composition.Situating modern composition theory in the historical context of rhetoric, Miller notes that throughout the eighteenth century, rhetoric referred to oral, not written, discourse. By contrast, her history of rhetoric contends oral written discourse were related from the beginning. Taking a thematic rather than chronological approach, she shows how actual acts of writing comment both rhetoric composition. Miller also asserts that contemporary composition study is the necessary cultural outcome of changing conditions for producing discourse, describing the history of rhetoric as the gradual unstable relocation of discourse in conventions that only written language can create. She maintains teachers historians of rhetoric must recognize that the contemporary writing they analyze teach demands their attention to a textual rhetoric that allows theorizing the writer as always symbolically a student of situated meanings.