eaching and the 'Alternative' Writer by Richard Kostelanetz is about Richard Kostelanetz: whether Richard wants to take a university teaching position if one is offered; what he might teach if he does take such a position; and how he might avoid becoming an academic of the sort he describes, having so easily divided the universe of writers in this country into independents and academics. First, let me say that I have long known and admired Richard's work (though I have never met him) and that I hope his artistic productivity continues long into the future, perhaps untainted by the university work he contemplates doing. Second, let me say for the time being that I will not attack this essay for its obvious use of easy binaries (e.g., the independent writer/academic writer split); it is unnecessary to do so. What I would like to do is offer a reading of Richard's essay by placing it in the context of both the isolation voiced by others in the profession as well as the loneliness I have expressed unconsciously in three pieces I have written at different times during my career. My point is that some of the feelings Richard expresses evoke certain strong feelings in me. Not what Richard says, but how he says it, brings to mind for me a session I attended last year at the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), a session that introduced me to what for lack of a better phrase we might call rhetorics of emotion. I believe Richard has written such a piece. Unknowingly over the past twenty years, I believe I have too.

Examines (1) job opportunities available for PhDs in creative writing as contextualized within the larger English Studies job market; (2) arguments for and against training such candidates to be university teaching professionals; and (3) training that might better prepare these candidates for both more productive, successful university teaching careers as well as more productive, successful undergraduate creative writing classrooms.

Teaching, like politics, can be considered to be the “art of repetition.” But teaching, again like politics, is also capable of enlarging our political views by challenging current arguments or by examining the limitations of the argument. The four books reviews here, which examine race, culture, and sexuality, are poised to inform the politics of their readers, but find themselves bound by the problem of political mantras. Says Stockton: “Never have so few propositions been repeated by so many in such a shore time over such a broad range.” Although not without merit, all four books struggle with politicized texts that have all been done before.

In three voices - one as a scholar, one as a writer, and one as an alcoholic - Hindman considers the question: in what ways can our own personal writing illuminate the theory and practice of teaching composition? Demonstrating the process of composing the self within the professional, she responds both passionately and personally to literary criticisms about recovery discourse. Her purpose is to “make writing matter” and, in doing so, to attempt to dispel the tension between competing versions of how the self is constructed. She also considers how, in and for recovery, she learned to write, and how it has affected her professional writing. This type of writing, which she has called “embodied rhetoric,” offers lessons for composing a better life.

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Considers how teachers might re-create, rather than import, Paulo Freire into North American contexts—and so not lose the power of his ideas. Takes the method of pragmatism and connects it to Freire’s concept of praxis to argue for pragmatic theory and practice in the work of teaching literacy.

hen in 1968 Ellis Page and Dieter Paulus published The Analysis of Essays by Computer, they saw a promising future for programs that could evaluate both the aesthetic traits of essays and their substantive content (191). Now, more than thirty years later, the future that Page and Paulus envisaged seems to have arrived: computer power has increased exponentially, textand content-analysis programs have become more plausible as replacements for human readers, and our administrators are now the targets of heavy marketing from companies that offer to read and evaluate student writing quickly and cheaply. E-rater, developed by Educational Testing Service (ETS), is today used as one reader for evaluating the essay portion of the Graduate Management Admissions Test-a human is still the other reader. Intellimetric, developed by Vantage Technologies, is used for evaluating writing in a range of applications, K through college. WritePlacer Plus, developed by Vantage for the College Board, is being marketed as a cheap and reliable placement instrument. The Intelligent Essay Assessor, developed by Landauer, Laham, and Foltz at the University of Colorado, is now being marketed through their company, Knowledge Analysis Technologies, to evaluate essay exams for college courses across disciplines. The firms that are marketing the machine scoring of student writing all explicitly or implicitly define the task of reading, evaluating, and responding to student writing not as a complex, demanding, and rewarding aspect of our teaching, but as a burden that should be lifted from our shoulders. The current scene in American postsecondary

Maps out two simultaneous and mutually reinforcing phenomena: (1) the material conditions that have given rise to hierarchically arranged writing programs; and (2) the attendant cultural values that have made possible the feminization as well as the racialization of composition teaching. Argues that writing programs have emerged by way of divisions in labor, separating mental labor from mechanical labor.

Explores the place of faculty and faculty values in the process of assessing the work of higher education. Searches to find better ways to put the intellectual work of faculty and students at the center of the educational concerns and at the center of assessment models. Suggests that faculty should devote themselves to teaching the first-year course.

Addresses the evolution of the most authoritative and widely used textbook in world literature courses in the United States, “The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces.” Questions if the “Norton Anthology” has provided educators who are committed to the teaching of world literature from non-Eurocentric perspectives with a useful tool, or if the anthology reproduces the canon’s ideological underpinnings.

Argues that the current electronic environment forces English studies into competition and combination with extra-verbal codes and languages. Describes a specific approach to reading, composing, and teaching the problematic combination of verbal and nonverbal features in texts conceived for or in electronic environments. Describes continuities between visual digitality and the verbal literacy currently taught within English Studies curricula.

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exercise that they see as merely academic. If anything governs this work, it is the attention to the requirements of a particular form. Students dutifully present claims, back the claims with evidence and reasons, which they warrant as needed. They consider alternative positions to show that they have canvased all or most reasonable points of view and, further, that they have qualified their position in light of these other viewpoints. The result is a well-formed essay that, I suspect, has little if any impact on anybody. I suspect further that the students at some level sense this. And if they do, then the composition of an argument becomes primarily a formal exercise, and, more important, it inadvertently teaches a cynical lesson: the production of arguments is a charade, no one actually attends to them, and at best they are a mask for how real power operates-those who have power pretty much do what they want. There is a Creon-like commitment to the rhetoric of public reason because one knows in advance that this reason will have little impact on anyone or involve little risk to the one who argues. This is the dark vision that has haunted the rhetorical tradition. If students need confirmation of this view, all they have to do is look to the way that Congress and large corporations work. Serious argument is often impotent when it encounters the power of well-entrenched and well-financed interest groups. Reason and argument become the cover for the operation of powerful lobbying groups indifferent to the consequences of their actions for others. If the operation of such power is the reality, what then are the consequences for teaching argument? This is an especially important question for a democracy and an even more important question for a democracy in which there is only limited citizen participation. Unlike fifth century BCE Athens, we do not have a face-to-face democracy, so our courses in argument cannot pretend to be a straightforward preparation for a commonly available political life. Most of us are not leisured gentlemen free to attend to the direct business of governing our cities and states. Instead, we occupy a complex position toward current discourses of power, be they civic or corporate, and what we need is a rich and complex sense of the opportunities and limits of argument. What we need to explore is the value of argument given the way that power is held in the contemporary world. Texts like Antigone offer an alternative to the current teaching of argument, for they see argument as problematic. They offer no easy or mechanical solutions but pose argument as a problem and offer it for serious reflection. Other scholars have argued for the value of teaching literature as argument (Fisher and Filloy), but I am advocating something else. What I am proposing is that literary texts such as Antigone be taught as theoretical works in argument. These works would allow us to teach argument as a philosophical or political problem and not as a mode of presenting evidence for purposes of justifying claims. Instead, they would raise questions as to why arguments so often fail, and they would open students to questions of why, given the unlikeliness of success, someone might argue. And a course based on such texts This content downloaded from 157.55.39.116 on Sun, 18 Sep 2016 06:21:01 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

Gives an account in journal format of the author’s experiences teaching writing and literature at a missionary school in Nigeria. Describes difficulties and conflicts of beliefs encountered over a period of time with her colleagues. Presents a poem from one of her teaching assistants and discusses reactions and meanings involved in the different cultures.

Raises questions about the representability of the trauma of rape and the purposes of its representation. Focuses on how the strategic enactment of a culturally dominant rape script can potentially open up a gap within which that script can be contested and the act of rape or death resisted. Discusses pedagogical challenges of teaching the literature of trauma and survival.

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Presents a definition for a formalist approach to teaching argument and discusses limitations and serious problems with this approach. Discusses “Antigone” as a representative text for teaching argument because it challenges the very possibility of argument. Proposes that literary texts such as “Antigone” be taught as theoretical works in argument.

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Explores the relation of essays to canon theory, explains why the only essay canon to be publicly identified in the 20th century is a powerful teaching canon. Shows “where essays live,” how they arrive in the teaching canon, and why they stay there. Examines how essays are taught. Looks at the future of the essay canon.

Describes two ways that teaching and responding to student writing are being pressured by rapidly developing technologies now being introduced into educational institutions. Discusses (1) the increasing replacement of face-to-face contact by “virtual” interaction via multimedia technology, e-mail communication systems, and the recently expanded capabilities of the World Wide Web; and (2) distance education.

Sion some three thousand feet below, watching tiny airplanes take off from the airstrip and disappear over the shimmering ridge of alps to the north. Just below us is another chalet, the home of a Swiss family. At this time of day, they gather at the large wooden table on the slate patio behind their home to have a long, meandering lunch in the French Swiss tradition. Madame is setting the table, opening a bottle of Valais wine, which grandpere ritually pours out for the family and any friends who join them. As they sit to eat, the scene becomes for me a vision of all that is most deeply social in human affairs. They could not survive without this interconnectedness, this entwining of selves, the stories passed around, problems discussed, identities shared and nourished. For weeks, away from phones, TVs, computers, and electronic mail, a dot on the rugged landscape of the southern Alps, I have a profound sense of my own familial belonging, of how the four of us are made one by this closeness of being. Just now Bernard, the little boy who lives on the switchback above, has run down with his dog Sucrette to see if the kids can play. He is here, standing before us, his face smudged with dirt, holding out a toy truck to entice the boys. For now, it is his only way to communicate with them, poised here in all his Bernard-ness, his whole being telling his story.

Challenges the recently proposed definition of the public intellectual. States that true public intellectuals (1) combine their research, teaching, and service efforts in order to address certain social issues important to community members in underserviced neighborhoods; and (2) believe in protecting scholarly autonomy through popularizing intellectual work.

States that a number of college literature and composition teachers have shown that they care intensely about ethical issues, although they express themselves in the language of postmodernism rather than that of traditional ethics. Claims the traditional ethical goal of building “character” can be harmonized with the postmodern effort to build “selves”--persons with a “useful” ethical center.

Reflects on Paulo Freire’s place in pedagogical history and why his representation of the power of teaching holds such an appeal for so many educators. Considers why it is that the image of the teacher as liberator of the oppressed, upon which Freire’s pedagogy relies so heavily, has had such a perduring appeal.

Compares 20 years of teaching college writing (and reading countless drafts of student papers) to an immigrant father’s working 40 years in the family store in Terre Haute, Indiana (and selling 350,000 coats).

Aims to redefine what happens in the margins through a practice called “sideshadowing,” adapted from Bakhtinian theorist Gary Saul Morson’s examination of narrative technique. States that sideshadowing redirects the attention to the present moment, its multiple conflicts, and its multiple possibilities. Argues for sideshadowing’s potential to transform students’ (and teachers’) understandings of what a “good” essay is.

his essay explores the convergence we see between projects in ethnographic research and composition pedagogy that emphasize the critical power of experience.Though their aims are usually described differently, both ethnographers and composition teachers confront similar ethical issues of representing the populations they work with and the changes that may arise from that work.Both thus face the challenge of negotiating differences and power.The course of these negotiations, we argue, depends on what experience is taken to mean and how it can be used.Signs of this convergence between ethnography and composition pedagogy appear in both the shared ideals and the shared dilemmas reported in recent accounts and critiques of such projects.We have in mind those projects which attend to the politics of their research and teaching methods in pursuit of their commitment to socially emancipatory ends.Many ethnographers and teachers might see themselves as working for socially emancipatory ends (if defining these in different ways), and presumably all would be concerned with methodology.For us, however, critical ethnography and pedagogy approach methodology not strictly in terms of its efficiency in producing or transmitting knowledge to inform subsequent (social) practice but in terms of its effects as social practice.Critical ethnography and pedagogy thus reject the possibility of a politically neutral stance or practice before, during, and after contact between researchers and informants, or teachers and students.

ror Has Two Faces-in class no less-with Jane Gallop's essay, Teacher's Breasts, and you find an apparent contradiction. The professor played by Barbra Streisand blithely lectures about sexuality and casually acknowledges students' awareness of her breasts, shown off in a low-cut black dress; Gallop, however, contends that teacher's create a conflict about the question of sex and, thus, the question of (84-85). In Gallop's view, teacher's display of authority makes male student more not less recalcitrant, and more not less in struggle for power (86). As usual, Gallop offers a startling interpretation: breast-singular, symbolic, and maternal-is precisely imaginary organ of nurturance, what good feminist teacher proffers to her daughterstudents. Refusing to nurture, . . . bad, sexual teacher brings into discourse of feminist pedagogy not breast, which is already appropriately there, but breasts (87). By mentioning her in plural, Streisand sexualizes literature classroom, exactly as camera does when it follows boys hurrying to class or pans intensely yearning students' faces. Streisand's movie demonstrates these cultural politics, showing how female teacher's sexuality has to be managed in order to avoid threat of sexual power struggle Gallop accurately predicts. What we see in Streisand is a version of Gallop's theory: maternal breast-safe and good-is opposed to more dangerous plural breasts, offered promiscuously to class's gaze. The erotics of literature classroom in Hollywood imagination comes as no surprise. Hollywood eventually misrepresents all professions, and all voca

Focuses on images of teachers (particularly English teachers) in films. Argues that understanding how society views teachers through the prism of cultural imagination can productively challenge the profession to create its own pedagogical images. Suggests that, although these films depict the teacher’s sexuality to define its proper limits, the drama of eroticized teaching obscures larger concerns over classroom politics.

Explores the convergence between projects in ethnographic research and composition pedagogy that emphasize the critical power of experience. Argues that critical ethnography and pedagogy need to redefine “experience” and its function for research and teaching and that composition can help this redefinition by looking for ways to build and constructively use a tension between teaching and research practices.

Explores the convergence between projects in ethnographic research and composition pedagogy that emphasize the critical power of experience. Argues that critical ethnography and pedagogy need to redefine “experience” and its function for research and teaching and that composition can help this redefinition by looking for ways to build and constructively use a tension between teaching and research practices.

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Describes the author’s experiences as a Fulbright scholar and English-as-a-Foreign-Language lecturer at the National University of Cote d’Ivoire in Abidjan before and during teacher and student strikes in May 1991. Notes that the author experienced what education is like for many people in the world--education in Abidjan was serious and deadly.

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Shows how some key postmodern ideas about texts forced a teacher and her students to rethink typical writing assignments and typical student responses. Describes the assignments and considers how they invite postmodern critique. Suggests giving up grandiose, romantic notions that Freshman Composition can fix students either personally or politically.

Suggests that what makes Charles Johnson’s “Middle Passage” significant and eminently teachable is that it is an accessible example of “historiographic metafiction”-bestselling postmodern novels set in the past. Notes that students find the novel “easy” and enjoyable and that teaching the novel with some of its intertexts, such as H. Melville’s “Moby Dick,” can be a rewarding experience.

t was not until I had embarked upon my coming out as a deaf person that I considered my rites of passage, and dwelled on my acts, both deliberate and unconscious, both past and present, of passing. Because my coming out was a mid-life event, I had much to reflect back on and much, too, to illuminate ahead of me. This through an identity crisis, as it were, and the rites of passage then involved in uncovering the paths of my lifelong passing as hearing, took place in a hall of mirrors. (Later I would come to know this place as the art and act of rhetoric.) I first saw myself mirrored in several students I met at Gallaudet University (the world's only liberal arts university for deaf and hard-of-hearing students). I was thirty-two and finishing my PhD, writing a dissertation-that quintessential act of literate passing. What's more, I was finishing it by doing an ethnographic sort of study on deaf student writers at Gallaudet University; thus I was using the guise of an academic grant and a PhD-producing project as a professional foil to make a personal journey to the center of Deaf culture. I was always good at finding a way to pass into places I shouldn't normally be. So, there I was, doing time as a teacher and researcher at Gallaudet, collecting data for my study, taking a sign language class, living with a Deaf woman and faculty member at Gallaudet, going to Deaf gatherings, tutoring some of the students. Mostly, I was trying to pass in ways that were both familiar and unfamiliar to me: to pass (unfamiliarly) as D/deaf-and doing a lousy job of it-and to