ment workshop gone awry. A session on responding to student work—meant to introduce the commenting philosophies fundamental to writing studies—became derailed when faculty failed to accept the orthodoxy of deemphasizing grammar and sentence-level concerns in favor of global issues, such as content development, elaboration, and arrangement. As Cole notes, such conflicts between writing studies’ principles and the beliefs of faculty in the disciplines are common. Cole responds to the issue pragmatically, reasoning that we will ultimately have greater success in persuading disciplinary faculty of our writing across the curricu-lum / writing in the disciplines (WAC/WID) philosophies if we make some effort to address what they see as the most pressing concerns with student writing. To this end, he provides a list created by faculty on his campus of ten “things ” university students should know about writing—a list he hopes will be revised as needed, over the years, and accepted by all faculty at his institution. He ends with a call to bring “discussions of grammar pedagogy out of the margins, and reconsider how grammar instruction might be optimally reintegrated into our classrooms.”

“The first thing I want to say to you who are students is that you cannot afford to think of being here to receive an education: you will do much better to think of being here to claim one. ” —Adrienne Rich (1979, p. 231) It may seem odd to begin a discussion of academic research by quoting Adrienne Rich’s well-known 1977 speech, “Claiming an Education. ” But, if one substitutes “research ” for “an education, ” the sentiment more or less de-scribes the situation faced by most first-year students assigned research in com-position. Completing the monumental academic “Research Paper ” in first-year writing courses is considered a rite of passage for students in many universities (including my own, Auburn University), and is one often performed with grim resignation and uncertain purpose by many of those involved (Schwegler & Shamoon, 1982). Such was the case when I began teaching English Composi-tion II, a second-semester, first-year writing course that makes up one of sev-eral humanities core courses within Auburn’s curriculum. These core courses, including a two-semester sequence of composition, are mandated by our state articulation agreement, and many curricular guidelines are predetermined by that agreement. Our department has molded this curriculum somewhat, but any innovations must be implemented cautiously and creatively. Drawing on previous WAC research about disciplinary writing as well as classical rhetoric and critical pedagogy, I will describe my response to this mandate, theorizing a new critical space for WAC, one that promotes students ’ civic engagement while they are researching an academic discipline. Operating at the nexus of rhetoric, critical theory, and WAC scholarship, I will discuss ways that a criti-cal WAC pedagogy encourages students ’ investment in their own research and encourages students to become responsible “citizen-experts ” within their com-munities. Though the purpose of Auburn’s research paper in English Composi-tion II is to prepare students for academic research, I also strive to include a strong critical component, highlighting moral and ethical concerns within academic discourse much like that described by John Pennington and Robert Boyer (2003), wherein students are conscious of the responsibility they have

My aim here is to write out of the experience of “doing philosophy” with graduate students online through an educational web site template called WebCt. WebCt provides me with the ability to custom design a learning environment in which we can read, think, write and share our experiences, sometimes at great physical distance. Writing is the me-dium of communication for every aspect of my online courses. The specific online course I will describe in this paper is ED 501: Philosophy, Education and Ethics. ED 501 is a core requirement in the Graduate Studies Program in Education at Plymouth State College. At the time of this writing, I am teaching two online sections of this course, each with twenty-five students. I have students in Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Honduras and in various areas of the U.S. In the online environment that I’ve designed, “doing philosophy ” is a kind of conduct and that conduct is expressed as writing that we share in various ways. John Dewey wrote in Democracy and Education, “To be the recipient of a communication is to have an enlarged and changed ex-perience. ” Dewey claims that “social life is identical with communica-tion ” and that “all communication is educative ” (1985, p. 8). Although he certainly had in mind face-to-face communication, we accomplish this fact of social life in ED 501 through writing within the online environ-ment. Writing as communication is a form of educative conduct. In a typical semester, ED 501 includes the following writing com-ponents: • personal biographical statements which are made public to the class through posting on the website bulletin board • an e-mail dialog with the instructor which is essentially private, but may be shared with the class as a final project • responses posted on the website bulletin board to core questions and topics about a specific reading

It’s a cloudy Thursday morning in November, and the university writing center is humming. A peer tutor sits at a table near the center of the room, listening to a sophomore explain her essay assignment for a recreational therapy class while a second tutor helps a freshman fine tune his thesis statement for a research paper. In the far corner, a third tutor works at a computer, responding to an on-line submission from a student in a local high school’s creative writing class. The director is conferring with a member of the mathematics department on ways to include meaningful writing activities in an advanced calculus class. It’s a typical day at a college-level writing center, but it raises a question for educators. Are similar scenes occurring in our public secondary schools? As an awareness of the importance of writing as a means of learning has grown, the writing-across-the-curriculum (WAC) movement has gained momentum on college campuses. One response to this increased focus on the importance of writing in the learning process has been the establishment of writing centers at hundreds of colleges and universities. These centers are designed to serve the needs of both students and faculty and aim to support learning in all fields. While these programs have flourished in many post-secondary settings, formal WAC programs in general and writing centers in particular still seem to be something of an exception in secondary public schools; however, interest in these practices appears to be growing there as well. A number of publications show an increasing integration of WAC philosophy and strategies into secondary public school settings. Pamela Farrell’s The High School Writing Center: Establishing and Maintaining One not only provides practical information on designing and running writing labs in secondary schools, but also illustrates the variety of forms