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4645 articlesMarch 2016
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This article examines how Web 2.0 technologies can be used to “flip” the online classroom by creating asynchronous workshops in social environments where immediacy and social presence can be maximized. Using experience teaching several communication and writing classes in Google Apps (Google+, Google Hangouts, Google Drive, etc.), I argue that flipping the classroom online with Web 2.0 technologies can maximize student participation and engagement, while also helping students develop flexible strategies for writing collaboratively and publicly in online spaces.
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Feature: Toward Local Teacher-Scholar Communities of Practice: Findings from a National TYCA Survey ↗
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Drawing on findings from a national survey of TYCA members about how and why they access published scholarship, this article makes recommendations for fostering local teacher-scholar communities of practice within two-year college English departments.
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Applying data from surveys and interviews, the authors examine why many experienced two-year college English faculty give up assigning group projects. They then propose a model of group training developed in the field of business management that aims to prevent many of these difficulties—the self-managed work team.
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Preview this article: Readers Write: Response to “Demystifying Poetry: Teaching a Process to Write Haiku”, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/tetyc/43/3/teachingenglishinthetwo-yearcollege28380-1.gif
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What does a twenty-first-century writing pedagogy look like? What principles should undergird contemporary writing pedagogy and practice? How should writing teachers today design writing courses, motivate student engagement, and promote literacy practices? Each of the five books reviewed here takes up these questions in calling for sensitivity and care in understanding students and the many ways that they are positioned in the world, for more attention to reading pedagogy in conjunction with writing, and for the continued study of transfer.
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Toward Job Security for Teaching-Track Composition Faculty: Recognizing and Rewarding Affective-Labor-in-Space ↗
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In this essay, I argue that contemporary efforts to advocate for job security for teaching-track faculty in English studies, especially in composition, can be enhanced by identifying and reconfiguring two types of negative affects: those circulating around the “affective labor” required to teach writing and those circulating around the educational spaces in which such labor typically occurs. After defining my terms, I begin analyzing the impact of these two types of negative affect on calls for teaching-track job security. I then use Grego and Thompson’s “studio” model of basic writing as an example of teaching work that can be used to generate and circulate positive affects regarding the “affective-labor-in-space” performed by writing teachers. Finally, I articulate three premises designed to help articulate and emplace positive affects regarding teaching-track composition work such that possibilities for job security are enhanced.
February 2016
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Abstract
John Dewey is a philosopher who seems perpetually on the verge of rhetoric. He displays a continual interest in the necessity of communication for democracy, and yet he often remains vague (maddeningly so) as to what shape such communication should take. While this would seem to limit his usefulness for rhetoricians, the opposite has proven true. As scholars of rhetoric, we now find ourselves in the midst of a renaissance in studies of Dewey. Trained Capacities: John Dewey, Rhetoric, and Democratic Practice seeks to both consolidate the gains made by such scholarship and further encourage rhetoricians' interest in Dewey's work. Namely, the various authors in this volume concern themselves with treating Dewey's writings as contributions to a broader “democratic culture” (2) of which rhetoric is a vital, animating component. In doing so, they offer a collective argument as to why Dewey is, and should remain, a rich resource for rhetorical inquiries into democracy, treated here as both a practice and a way of life.Trained Capacities is divided into three sections, each dealing with an aspect of Dewey's scholarly work and his career as a public intellectual. The essays in the first section, “Dewey and Democratic Practice,” look to Dewey's engagement with the perpetually important yet problematic subjects of science, philosophy, and religion—“the architectonic assumptions of democratic practice” (20). William Keith and Robert Danisch lead off this section with “Dewey on Science, Deliberation, and the Sociology of Rhetoric.” They begin by arguing that “Dewey does not offer a rhetorical pedagogy, a way of practicing rhetoric,” which is no surprise to rhetoricians familiar with Dewey's work (28). Rather, they argue, Dewey's unification of scientific thinking and democratic deliberation provides a “sociology of rhetoric,” or “a systematic account of the theoretical and normative ways in which social structures, institutions, and forms of individual agency are both guided by and constituted by communicative practices” (28). For Keith and Danisch, Dewey supplies a way of discussing the structures through which rhetorical action is made possible in the first place. Publics who are facing problems must attend to the ways in which their specific structural contingencies delimit the available means for developing democratic practices and arriving at sound judgment. Keith and Danish's essay is rich with ideas, and sure to provoke further discussion amongst pragmatist philosophers and rhetoricians alike.Philosophy and Rhetoric readers will want to pay special attention to Scott Stroud's contribution to Trained Capacities, “John Dewey, Kenneth Burke, and the Role of Orientation in Rhetoric.” We found it to be one of the high notes of this edited volume in that it goes beyond “the account of rhetoric that Dewey held (or failed to hold)” in order to craft a “Deweyan pragmatist rhetoric” (48). This is a worthwhile project that has been under way for some time, but Stroud does something too few have done by bringing Kenneth Burke into the mix. The result is enjoyable and provocative. Deweyan rhetoric scholars will likely have intuited the linkages between Burke's notion of orientation and Dewey's understanding of habituation on their own, and it is this intuition that Stroud fleshes out for the book's readers. Stroud argues that Deweyan morality is situational and that Burke helps us understand how these situations are constructed linguistically via grammars of motivations and purpose. Individuals' responses to these situations are habitual, as they have already been oriented to them by the language of their respective communities. However, that does not guarantee that the individual's habituated responses are helpful—sometimes they are trained incapacities.Stroud suggests that our various trained incapacities call out for reorientations. He reaches beyond Dewey's preference for respect and civility and embraces Burke's notion of impiety. Drawing on Richard Rorty's understanding of the strong poet, Stroud suggests that the poet and the ironist are the artful critics most suited to addressing public moral dilemmas. Importantly, such artistic provocations are not undertaken for their own sake but rather (in keeping with a Deweyan pragmatist rhetoric) to answer actual problematic situations. Finally, in true Deweyan form, Stroud insists that these artful incongruities should take place experimentally if the project of moral reorientation is to result in moral development.Scholars have long been fascinated with Dewey's conflicting views on religious faith, and they go to great pains to demonstrate that his democratic faith was closely tied to his religious beliefs. Paul Stob's contribution, “Minister of Democracy: John Dewey, Religious Rhetoric, and the Great Community” extends this project. He begins with Dewey's response to William Jennings Bryan's discourse during the Scopes trial, noting Dewey's frustration with Bryan's “divisive, antagonistic, intolerant religious rhetoric” (66). Is there any room for such “fire spitting” in Dewey's Great Community? For Dewey, religious rhetoric should tend toward inclusivity, and its uses should be governed by the kind of society it is likely to produce. Stob argues that rather than dismiss religious rhetoric outright, Dewey appreciated the power of religious symbols as evinced by his own use of religious rhetoric. Stob contends that in using religious rhetoric himself, Dewey did not simply co-opt religious symbols but also infused “public culture with a new religious purpose” (68) and direction. Stob argues that Dewey's own rhetorical project—one characterized by religious dissociation and democratic faith—cemented his reputation as a minister of democracy. In the end, “Dewey's gospel, like Bryan's gospel, relied on judgments of sin and evil, of hope and deliverance, of community and communion” (80). The key for Dewey was to dissociate religiously infused language from the kinds of dogmatism that breed division and instead turn it to the work of creating the Great Community.Part 2, “Dewey and His Interlocutors,” is of particular interest to rhetoricians since it shows Dewey practicing the sort of democratic culture that the book as a whole works to theorize. Essays by Jean Goodwin, Louise W. Knight, Keith Gilyard, and Walton Muyumba treat Dewey's public interactions with the familiar figures of Lippmann, Addams, Du Bois, and James Baldwin, respectively. While these authors tread familiar ground, they nonetheless shed new light upon the close connection between Dewey's interactions with his various interlocutors and his subsequent public pronouncements. Across these essays the message is clear: “indispensable opposition” (as Goodwin figures Lippmann) is of vital importance to a democratic culture animated by rhetorical practice. Such opposition is no small matter, and these essays demonstrate the mutual influence necessary to sustain a democratic public. However, for those who pick up Trained Capacities with the hope of learning more about either rhetoric or Dewey's philosophy, it is worth noting that the essays in this section tend to focus more on the respective interlocutor than Dewey himself. Rhetorical theory and philosophy take a backseat to history—albeit history that is fascinating and very well written.One exception to this section's overt focus on history is Jeremy Engels's “Dewey on Jefferson: Reiterating Democratic Faith in Times of War.” Engels investigates Dewey's rhetorical uses of Thomas Jefferson for the purpose of affirming the necessity of democratic faith. It was through his invocation of the historical Jefferson, Engels argues, that Dewey attempted to build “an ontological, prepolitical foundation that would keep Americans from straying too far from the democratic cause and that would keep democracy itself from transforming into something else entirely” (94). Engels supports this claim by supplying a fascinating, though necessarily brief, genealogy of Jeffersonian tropes in American democratic theory (which surfaced in a variety of forms throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries). Engels's primary purpose in doing so is to demonstrate the importance of history, and its rhetorical translation into new situations, when responding to antidemocratic challenges. In Engels's telling, Dewey's democratic faith was beset by a “crisis of war and exception” (103) not unlike our own. He responded by turning to Jefferson's writings, seeing in them a moral foundation for a lasting democratic faith. The challenge for rhetorical theorists today is to understand “how best to render democratic faith to the jaded ears of a postmodern generation” (103), a particularly salient problem for citizens struggling with the prospects of a seemingly endless war on terror. No easy answers are given, but the lesson is clear: attending to Dewey's rhetoric of democratic faith better equips us, immersed as we are in our in our own conflict-laden politics, to confront the challenges of crisis and war that necessarily and tragically lurk at the margins of democratic culture.The essays in section 2 serve as a powerful reminder that Dewey's contributions to both democratic theory and rhetoric were at their most robust when they reflected his engagements with equally committed interlocutors. As Knight states, summarizing the outcome of Dewey and Jane Addams's disagreements over the First World War, “Addams had learned from Dewey and experience, and Dewey had learned from Addams and experience. Their debate over World War I illustrates how they applied their ideas of pragmatism to their own lives as well as a point made often in this book: that when, over time, debate turns into shared inquiry, there is mutual learning on both sides” (121).Though Dewey did not directly engage in rhetorical theorizing, his work nonetheless affirms the social necessity of rhetoric for the vitality of a democratic society. This point is particularly evident when we turn to Dewey's work on education, which is taken up in the third section of the book. Evincing concern for the ways in which Dewey's philosophy can be applied to rhetorical pedagogy, the essays in this section demonstrate that practice is the central link between Dewey's pragmatism and “experimental” methods of rhetorical instruction designed to inculcate democratic values. As Nathan Crick observes in “Rhetoric and Dewey's Experimental Pedagogy,” such an “experimental attitude … is not merely one facet of democracy; its cultivation within a public is the culmination of democratic social life itself” (186). In short, as students are given lease to test ideas through rhetorical interaction, their capacity for healthy skepticism, self-reliant inquiry, and other critical tools necessary for sustained democratic practices increase exponentially. As Donald Jones is quick to point out, encouraging this type of rhetorical engagement is no easy task for the teacher. Nonetheless, such an experimental attitude is necessary for the building and maintenance of a truly democratic culture.To be clear, Trained Capacities is not concerned with crafting a clear narrative in which Dewey's work is transformed into rhetorical theory, nor one in which Dewey is treated as a rhetorician. Rather, Trained Capacities moves beyond such strict binaries—“Dewey and Rhetoric,” or “Dewey as Rhetorician”—and instead treats his pragmatism, public engagement, and commitment to education as equally valuable components of an overarching faith in democratic culture. Central to, and constitutive of, such a democratic culture is the practice and teaching of rhetoric. It goes without saying that such a broad, sweeping project is bound to miss some things, to focus too much on others, and to appeal to a variety of readers from all over the intellectual spectrum. Even so, Philosophy and Rhetorics's readers will want to read Trained Capacities, which is a welcome contribution to studies of pragmatism and rhetorical theory. The individual chapters, each with their various strengths and weaknesses, work in concert to create the beginnings of a Great Community of Dewey scholarship.
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The concept of metanoia illuminates the spaces that exist around and beyond opportune moments. As such, metanoia offers ways to reframe the affective elements of teaching and learning, writing and revising. This essay examines emotion, agency, and transformation in the concept of metanoia as a way to expand “opportunity” in writing processes. View a short video by Myers and some of her students on the CCC Videos page.
January 2016
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Intercultural professional communication (IPC) requires a nuanced understanding of international users' interactions with technology and information. This requirement poses a distinct challenge to international communication and information designers who must overcome geographic, linguistic, and cultural barriers to understanding users as complex agents. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) annually publishes aHuman Development Report (HDR)that contains high-quality international statistics on the regional, national, and transnational contexts in which individuals use technology and information. Thus, the HDR can serve as a resource for communication designers working in international contexts. This article presents strategies for how communication designers might use the HDR when designing materials for users in other cultures as well as use when teaching international aspects of professional writing/communication."
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Reviews Janet Downie, At the Limits ofArt: A Literary Study ofAelius Aristides' Hieroi Logoi New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. pp. 1-223. ISBN 9780199924875 In this book Janet Downie displays an expert and intimate understand ing of Aelius Aristides, the eccentric second-century rhetor from Asia Minor. She focuses in particular on his Hieroi logoi (HL) and the relationship between religion and rhetoric. In his concern with the divine, Aristides pushed the rhetoric of religion to its limits. Asclepius was his inspiration, his teacher, and, to some degree, his co-author, and was at the center of the HL, which Aristides considered the fulfillment of his obligation to this god. Yet the real protagonist of the work is Aristides with his failing body, his dreams, his cures, his performances, and his powerful self-assertion. Downie argues that Aristides' purpose is rhetorical, and he uses his narrative of divine healing to create a portrait of himself as a professional rhetor. Whether Aristides succeeded in this purpose, and was able to commu nicate his vision to his audience is a question which persists throughout the book, but, basically, cannot be solved. No reaction from Aristides' contempo rary audience has been preserved. It is puzzling that in his Lives ofthe Sophists Philostratus recognized the rhetor's craft but did not mention the religious character of his rhetoric, ignored the presence of Asclepius, and dismissed Aristides' talent because of his lack of improvisation. Apart from Libanius and some of his friends in the fourth century, later reception of Aristides and the HL was decidedly cool, and, in the nineteenth and twentieth centu ries, utterly disdainful. Downie attributes this to the fact that the HL were not read in conjunction with the rest of Aristides' work. It is uncertain whether she is right, or if generations of readers simply considered the work too eccentric and odd. A merit of Downie's book, in any case, is that it puts the HL in dialogue with all Aristides' writings, his orations and Hymns in particular, so that the whole of this challenging author is illuminated. One of the difficulties in approaching the HL as a coherent literary work is the discontinuity in its style. Book 1 is in diary form, and books 2-5 proceed thematically and have narrative aims. With great literary sensibility, Downie shows that the different styles derive from various and deliberate layers of composition intended to throw into high relief the combination of the divine voice with the human voice. Aristides' dreams are many and so vivid that Rhetorica, Vol. XXXIV, Issue 1, pp. 106-118. ISSN: 0734-8584, electronic ISSN: 1533-8541. © 2016 by The International Society for the History of Rhetoric. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Reprints and Permissions web page http://www.ucpress.edu/journals.php?p=reprints. DOI: 10.1525/rh.20l6.34.l.l0b. Reviews 107 they make an impact on the reader. Discontinuity is typical of dreams and Downie links the unique language of dreams to Aristides' desire to suggest dreaming as a cognitiv e process. This reviewer does wish that Downie had taken briefly into account the dreams of the sons of Glaukias in Ptolemaic Memphis who lived and slept in the temple of Sarapis. Their words and expressions on papyri were those of common people and so they could have prov ided a useful comparison. Undoubtedly' the most disconcerting parts of the HL are those in which the author appears to further weaken his body by endless vomiting or dipping in frigid waters. Aristides knew7 contemporary medicine and the medical tradi tion and sometimes first consulted doctors who appear as rivals of Asclepius who triumphs at the end. Downie rightly remarks that this is the first instance in which an author revealed the illnesses and cures he personally experienced. Yet, we can surmise that these passages were the most repulsive to his contemporaries and may hav e been the cause of their disregard of the whole work. While Aristides sometimes is a patient passive in the hands of his doc tors and Asclepius, at times he has...
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110 RHETORICA dialect when the sophists spread their teaching in the Hellenic world. The inscriptive evidence provides a strong case for the utility of sophistic rhetoric. This innovative volume builds a case for using physical artifacts along with textual evidence to research the histories of rhetoric. Researchers look ing into under-represented or marginalized traditions may find this book useful for providing a method to examine the cultural context of these understudied rhetorics. Enos is arguing for an expansion of method which feminist rhetoricians are already strongly embracing. Scholars looking to expand their repertoires in academic investigation may find these new ave nues for research rewarding. Robert Lively, Arizona State University B. Fernandes Pereira, Retórica e Eloquéncia em Portugal na época do Renascimento, Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional - Casa da Moeda, 2012; 988 pp. ISBN 9789722719711 For most people, the rich history of Portuguese rhetoric is terra incog nita. The comprehensive survey of Belmiro Pereira offers a unique occasion to explore these unknown fields and discover their many treasures. Many ISHR members will be delighted to see their names in the footnotes of this extremely well documented book. It starts with an overview of medieval rhetoric and the transmission of ancient texts during this period; there are chapters on the artes dictandi and artes praedicandi, on classical rhetoric in medieval Portuguese culture, on reading the Fathers of the Church, on the growing interest in the works of Aristotle, Cicero and Quintilian in the four teenth and fifteenth centuries. As in other parts of the book, Pereira indica tes where the manuscripts of these works are to be found: this precise information about the major places of learning in Portugal and Spain is very welcome. It also shows the aim of the author to present rhetoric in the wider context of education, culture and religion. This aim continues to be pursued in the second part of the book, which deals with rhetoric and the rise of humanism in Portugal. The prominence of rhetoric in Renaissance culture is considered in an international perspec tive, with special emphasis on developments in Spain, France and, more unexpectedly, in Germany and the Low Countries. Indeed, one of the major discoveries in this book is the importance of Northern humanism for the evolution of rhetorical education in Portugal. The author has founded his research on an extensive knowledge of the sources in the various countries under consideration. His reading of studies published in all these countries on the subject of Renaissance rhetoric is vast, up to date and accurate. A stu dent of German or Spanish rhetoric may learn a great deal from this book about his or her own field of interest. The presence of major works of ancient, medieval and Renaissance rhetoric in the more important Portuguese libraries is documented for two Reviews 111 periods, before and after the year 1537. The author singles out the years 1527 to 1548 for special consideration. In these two decades the King of Portugal, John the Third, sent his country's most promising students to Paris to have them acquaint themselves with the ideas and methods of Erasmian humanism. They gathered in a college run more or less perma nently by Portuguese scholars: Sancta Barbara, in French Sainte-Barbe. Moreover, the syllabus of the Santa Cruz monastery in Coimbra was reorga nised according to modern standards. Finallv, in the year 1548 the humanist Colegio das Artes is established by order of the King in the same city; and teachers educated in centres of learning in Paris and elsewhere in Europe are engaged to bring to Portugal the methods of reading and writing devel oped by major humanist educators. According to B. Pereira 1537 was a pivotal year: the centre of higher education was transferred from Eisbon to Coimbra and the King's brother Henry (D. Henrique) founded in Braga a new college, Saint Paul's. In this latter college, the influence of Northern humanism is conspicuous due to the presence of teachers such as N. Clenardus and J. Vasaeus. Pereira gives a great deal of attention to the career of A. Pinus (Pinheiro), educated in Paris and afterwards entrus ted with high offices at the Portuguese court...
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Globalization, most sociologists agree, is not a new phenomenon.Its phase in the late 20 th century and early 21 st century, however, is recognized now as one of the more transformative periods in human history-what Anthony Giddens (2011) has characterized as a "runaway world."In the last few decades, there has scarcely been a domain of human activity untouched by these forces-economic systems, mass media and communication, cultural flows, the movement of people.A global site as intensive as any has of course been our universities; indeed, it is these "runaway" forces that have been responsible for so many of the changes witnessed on our campuses in recent decades.They are evident, for example, in the considerably more diverse student cohorts who now participate in university education, along with the rich variety of languages and cultures they bring to their studies.Dramatic changes have also been seen in what is taught on programs, including the push within many disciplines to systematically "internationalize curricula."Along with new content are radically new ways of delivering programs, as digital communications become more and more sophisticated at replicating-and also reconfiguring-the learning experiences of the traditional classroom.Finally, these forces have also brought about new types of collegial relationships as institutions and academics reach out across borders to connect and collaborate on a great variety of educational and research enterprises.Versions of these changes have been experienced in many parts of the world.In my home country, Australia, for example, such has been the scale of these developments that international education has emerged in recent times as one the nation's largest export industries.But while global forces have reshaped university education in all sorts of interesting and dynamic ways, it is not to say that there are not issues and challenges associated with these developments.Frederic Jameson (2000) has suggested that globalization is in many respects a euphemism for "anglocization."The dominance of the anglosphere, according to this view, has meant that global capital-whether this be of an economic, cultural or educational kind-is unavoidably spread in highly uneven ways.Within higher education, this raises issues of power, privilege and potential inequity in the ways that different cultural groups engage with their studies, and in the rewards and successes they get to enjoy.Arguably, nowhere is this more evident than on the less-thanlevel playing field where first and second language students must compete in the assessment and evaluation of their academic abilities.So, while global forces have provided students with unprecedented access to what were once largely exclusive and culturally homogenous institutions, the view of many is that considerable work still needs to be done to address these "asymmetries" and to truly value the diversity that is now such a part of our institutions (Rizvi, 2000).A related critique is the view that globalization, in tandem with its ideological bedfellow neo-liberalism, has led sadly to an increasing commodification of higher education, so that students, especially our
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Abstract
Globalization, most sociologists agree, is not a new phenomenon. Its phase in the late 20 th century and early 21 st century, however, is recognized now as one of the more transformative periods in human history-what Anthony Giddens (2011) has characterized as a "runaway world." In the last few decades, there has scarcely been a domain of human activity untouched by these forces-economic systems, mass media and communication, cultural flows, the movement of people. A global site as intensive as any has of course been our universities; indeed, it is these "runaway" forces that have been responsible for so many of the changes witnessed on our campuses in recent decades. They are evident, for example, in the considerably more diverse student cohorts who now participate in university education, along with the rich variety of languages and cultures they bring to their studies. Dramatic changes have also been seen in what is taught on programs, including the push within many disciplines to systematically "internationalize curricula." Along with new content are radically new ways of delivering programs, as digital communications become more and more sophisticated at replicating-and also reconfiguring-the learning experiences of the traditional classroom. Finally, these forces have also brought about new types of collegial relationships as institutions and academics reach out across borders to connect and collaborate on a great variety of educational and research enterprises. Versions of these changes have been experienced in many parts of the world. In my home country, Australia, for example, such has been the scale of these developments that international education has emerged in recent times as one the nation's largest export industries.
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1986. New Orleans. The Conference on College Composition and Communication. The two of us and Elaine O. Lees are presenting on a panel titled “ReaderResponse Theory and the Teaching of Writing: The Teacher as Responding Reader.” Our titles? Salvatori: “Some Implications of Iser’s Theory of Reading for the Teaching of Writing.” Donahue: “Barthes and the Obtuse Reader.” Lees: “Is There an Error in This Text? What Stanley Fish’s Theory of Reading Implies about the Teaching of English.” There was something special about the Conference on College Composition and Communication that year, especially for anyone concerned about reading. A few books had already been published: Composition and Literature: Bridging the Gap, edited by Winfred Bryan Horner (1983); Writ ing and Reading Differently, edited by G. Douglas Atkins and Michael Johnson (1985); Only Connect, edited by Thomas Newkirk (1986); and Conver gences: Transactions in Reading and Writing, edited by Bruce T. Peterson (1986). More appeared to be on the way, for instance, Reclaiming Pedagogy: The Rhetoric of the Classroom, edited by Patricia Donahue and Ellen Quandahl (1989). College English and College Composition and Communication were brimming with provocative investigations. Interest in reading was, paradoxically, both bourgeoning and at its apex, which we came to recognize only in retrospect. Over the next few years, while we and a few others (most notably David Bartholomae, Elizabeth Flynn, Joseph Harris, David Jolliffe, Kathleen McCormick, Susan Miller, Thomas Newkirk, and Donna Qualley)
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This article argues for the importance of teaching reading in first-year composition courses within a metacognitive framework called mindful reading. Crucial for developing more comprehensive literacy practices that students can transfer into other courses and contexts, this framework encourages students to actively reflect on a range of reading practices in order to become more knowledgeable and deliberate about how they read. This work is intended to prepare students to successfully engage with the range of complex texts they will encounter throughout their postsecondary academic careers and beyond.
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This essay argues that students must call on their rhetorical sensibilities each time they sit down to write instead of automatically assuming that engaging in code-meshing is the appropriate response to every writing situation. It also encourages pedagogical efforts among teachers that invite students to locate translingualism in its larger contextual relationship with monolingualism and multlingualism, two other approaches to language difference that inform the teaching of writing. In the end, the essay suggests, students must take into consideration how each of these approaches to language difference influences the various decisions they are required to make in the writing classroom.
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Teacher preparation for translingual writing differs from dominant forms of professional development wherein teachers are armed with predefined norms, materials, and knowledge for classroom purposes. Describing the principles that guide a teacher training course, this essay argues that teacher preparation for translingual writing should focus on encouraging teachers to construct their pedagogies with sensitivity to student, writing, and course diversity, thus continuing to develop their pedagogical knowledge and practice for changing contexts of writing. The essay outlines the principles (practice-based, dialogical, and ecological) that shape the course, describes its main features, and assesses its outcomes.
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This essay examines what a translingual orientation offers to the study and teaching of genre, in particular what we gain when we think of genre difference not as a deviation from a patterned norm but rather as the norm of all genre performance. A translingual perspective draws our attention to genre uptake as a site of transaction where memory, language, and other semiotic resources, genre knowledge, and meanings are translated and negotiated across genres, modalities, and contexts. Focusing on genre uptake performances shifts attention from genre conventions to the interplays between genres where agency is in constant play.
2016
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This essay describes a year-long, grant-funded, cross-institutional collaborative project between Boise State University and the College of Western Idaho, a community college. The goal of the project was to institute an Accelerated Learning Program (ALP) model for first-year and basic writing in response to a state mandate to embrace Complete College Idaho, a form of Complete College America. The essay depicts the institutional context of each college and analyzes the challenges and benefits of the new model at each institution. The authors consider the differing roles of full-time and contingent faculty at the two institutions and the challenge of defining reasonable grant work requirements, given the varied teaching, research, and service expectations of instructors. The piece also considers the complex reasons Idaho students may not finish higher education and the extent to which the goals of Complete College Idaho could be met by instituting an accelerated model.
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To Live with It: Assessing an Accelerated Basic Writing Pilot Program from the Perspective of Teachers ↗
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At a community college in the Midwest, an English Department designs and implements a teacher-driven pilot project to experiment with its basic writing program. The article discusses some methods and the value of a local decision-making process that is driven primarily by the concerns of teachers and the experience of students.
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Entering college students are profoundly disturbed when placed in courses labeled “basic,” “developmental,” or “remedial.” Discouraged and often faced with pressing life problems, many of these students drop out of college before ever reaching first-year composition. Beginning in 2007, the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC) renamed and reframed their basic writing program as ALP (the Accelerated Learning Program). Students enrolled in ALP take regular, credit-bearing composition along with a writing workshop taught by the same teacher and designed to help them succeed in the comp course. Now, ten years later, ALP has enabled thousands of students at CCBC to move into the college mainstream in a timely and cost-effective fashion. Efforts to disseminate the program have been wide-ranging and successful. Currently, the ALP model has been implemented at approximately 240 campuses nationwide. In this essay, I argue that with the widespread implementation of innovative, student-centered programs such as ALP, Stretch, and writing studios, the time has finally come to end remediation as we know it.
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In the wake of research showing failures in transfer of writing skills, the question of how to help students see how their learning goes beyond individual learning experiences has become a pressing concern in composition.In addressing this concern, scholars have primarily focused on improving our classroom pedagogy so that we are teaching for transfer.However, with the finding that transfer often needs to be cued and guided in order to be successful, we need to begin focusing on writing centers as crucial spaces for the facilitation of students' understanding of the transportability of writing-related knowledge.This article presents findings from a study that examines the effects of teaching writing center tutors about transfer theory.Findings suggest that educating writing center tutors about transfer theory can positively affect their ability to facilitate the transfer of writing-related knowledge.
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Multimodal pedagogy is increasingly accepted among composition scholars. However, putting such pedagogy into practice presents significant challenges. In this profile of Washington State University’s first-year composition program, we suggest a multi-vocal and multi-theoretical approach to addressing the challenges of multimodal pedagogy. Patricia Ericsson, the director of composition, illustrates how theories of agency are central to the integration of multimodality. Elizabeth Sue Edwards, a graduate teaching assistant, explores negotiating departmental standards and implementing multimodal assignments. Tialitha Michelle Macklin, also a graduate teaching assistant, discusses her journey from rejecting multimodal assignments to embracing them as an integral element of her pedagogy. And Leeann Downing Hunter, a non-tenure-track faculty member, approaches the challenge through the lens of adaptability. We believe that this multi-vocal approach to building a multimodal composition program offers: (1) a foundation for other writing programs to adapt and build upon; (2) an alternative to traditional approaches that rely on single theories and single leaders; and (3) a reconstitution of how the university works, integrating stakeholder voices from administrators to students themselves.
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GTA Preparation as a Model for Cross-Tier Collaboration at North Carolina State University: A Program Profile ↗
Abstract
This program profile describes recent changes to the process for preparing graduate teaching instructors (GTAs) in North Carolina State University’s first-year writing program. The authors—one a non-tenure-track faculty member and the other a tenure-track faculty member—describe the philosophical, ethical, and practical concerns in scaling teacher preparation to accommodate rapidly growing cohorts of MA and MFA GTAs. By providing an example of cross-tier collaboration, the authors propose an approach to GTA preparation that takes into account that many of these novice teachers will begin their teaching careers as contingent faculty colleagues.
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Abstract
Occluded genres in academia work “behind the scenes” to support and develop an academic’s professional identity. However, while significant attention has been paid to occluded genres that support an academic’s identity as a researcher, very little scholarship examines how occlusion operates in genres of pedagogy, such as the syllabus, teaching statement, or assignment prompt. These genres promote and endorse an academic’s teacherly identity, not only by expressing a teacher’s authority and expertise in the classroom, but also by representing a teacher’s pedagogical philosophy, activity, and experience in other academic scenarios beyond the classroom. In this article, I explore the characteristics of occlusion associated with these genres as well as the implications faced when their rhetorical complexity is obscured by that occlusion. Ultimately, I argue for an increased awareness and study of the occluded contexts of pedagogical genres so that we may better understand how these genres facilitate the pedagogical activity and identities of teachers within academia.
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Abstract
In addition to teaching research and writing skills, First-Year Composition classes are well situated to help students develop strategies for managing stress and increasing well-being. I describe an assignment sequence in which students interview others from three generations about topics related to happiness and well-being, analyze shared transcripts, and present their findings in two genres. Beyond providing instruction in research methods, academic writing, and multimodal composing for non-academic audiences, this sequence supports the five elements of authentic well-being outlined by positive psychologist Martin Seligman: positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning and purpose, and accomplishment. These assignments and related course content foster emotional literacy by prompting students to approach happiness and well-being as academic subjects and to develop practical strategies for implementing what they’ve learned.
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Abstract
Sarah DeBacher and Deborah Harris-Moore offer their experiences with teaching in the aftermath of traumatic situations. DeBacher, who taught at the University of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and Harris-Moore, who taught at UC Santa Barbara following a mass shooting, explore the difficulty of teaching writing in the wake of traumatic events.
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Abstract
Empathy is attracting increased attention within and beyond the academy. In this essay I review relevant theories of empathy and their place within rhetoric and composition. I propose two approaches to teaching empathy: as rhetoric and as disposition. A rhetorical approach incorporates a necessary critical awareness of empathy’s enticements and limitations, while a dispositional approach cultivates empathy as a habit of mind. I argue that writing pedagogies of empathy as rhetoric and disposition are ideally suited to combine the cognitive and affective, critical awareness and practice, to inform not only our engagements with texts but also with one another.
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Abstract
This article critically analyzes under-acknowledged influences on the recent turn toward emotions, happiness, and well-being in higher education generally and in writing studies specifically: positive psychology (the science of happiness) and positive education (teaching well-being). I provide an overview of their primary features and complicate their assumptions, values, and goals. I also highlight their overlap with and implications for writing studies, including connections and shared concepts between writing and well-being, the central role of writing in positive psychology and positive education pedagogies, and the potential for writing studies to critique and influence well-being education. I argue that embracing emotion as a key component of our pedagogy and scholarship introduces ideological commitments that may challenge and even undermine our personal and professional beliefs. Positive psychology and positive education deserve our sustained attention, and any consideration about emotions in composition will need to confront these movements’ influential version of teaching well-being.
December 2015
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Abstract
Written clarity and conciseness are desired by employers and emphasized in business communication courses. We developed and tested the efficacy of a cueing tool—Scribe Bene—to help students reduce their use of imprecise and ambiguous words and wordy phrases. Effectiveness was measured by comparing cue word usage between a treatment group given the tool and a control group without the tool. In written assignments, the treatment group used 16 of 23 cue words significantly less than the control group and this effect persisted over time. Implications for using automated cueing tools in teaching written communication skills are discussed.
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Abstract
An instructional note on one method of using folktales as texts in the composition classroom to help students gain a basic understanding of agenda and the way objectives and ideologies can shape information.
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Abstract
Reviewed are: Inspiring Dialogue: Learning to Talk in the English Classroom, by Mary M. Juzwik, Carlin Borsheim-Black, Samantha Caughlin, and Anne Heintz, Reviewed by Mary Ann Zuccaro Academic Writing: Concepts and Connections, by Teresa Thonney, Reviewed by Kirstin Bone Teaching, Learning, and the Holocaust: An Integrative Approach, by Howard Tinberg and Ronald Weisberger, Reviewed by Lesley Broder
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Abstract
The Inquiry column is about the scholarship of teaching and learning.
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Feature: “Forget What You Learned in High School!”: Bridging the Space between High School and College ↗
Abstract
This essay considers the contexts and constraints that shape high school and college teaching and limit opportunities for faculty at both levels to collaborate; it then offers suggestions for how to bridge the space between these two institutional cultures and make students’ transitions from one level to the next more seamless and successful.
November 2015
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Abstract
There is considerable confusion in contemporary society when it comes to talking about race.Because of this confusion, race talk in schools can be fraught with difficulty, leading to problematic conversations, disconnections, and ultimately student disengagement. While studies in psychology, sociology, and linguistics have considered the role of race in discourse, there have been fewer of these investigations in English education, especially research on the teaching of literature. This article looks closely at the classroom talk of two veteran English teachers’ one an African American man, the other a White woman’ in a racially diverse high school, showing how teachers employ different strategies to navigate similarly fraught conversations. Taking an interactional ethnographic approach, I demonstrate ways that conversations about race that emerged from literature units in both classrooms opened up opportunities for some students to participate, while constraining and excluding others. The results of the study revealed that the two teachers navigated these dilemmas through tactical and strategic temporary alignments of actions and discourse, but in both classes, silence and evasion characterized moments of racial tension. As a growing number of researchers and teacher educators provide workshops and materials for teachers interested in classroom discourse studies, supporting new and experienced teachers’ investigations in this area may ultimately prove fruitful not only for teaching and learning, but also for race relations.
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Abstract
Preview this article: Editors’ Introduction: The Teaching of English, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/rte/50/2/researchintheteachingofenglish27598-1.gif
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Disinviting Deficit Ideologies: Beyond “That’s Standard,” “That’s Racist,” and “That’s Your Mother Tongue” ↗
Abstract
Current research suggests that attention to language variation in teacher preparation can promote equity and narrow achievement gaps, particularly for African American students. However, persistent ideologies about language and race can stymie teachers’ desires for equitable teaching.Teachers who take up linguistically responsive positions that value student language variation still struggle in the moments of enactment due to expectations that they serve as gatekeepers for “standard” English(es). In this article, I conceptualize these struggles as linguistic ideological dilemmas (LIDs) and use discourse analytic and qualitative methods to present illustrations of preservice English teachers’ LIDs as they grapple with deficit language ideologies in relation to course work about language variation. In the focal illustration, I use positioning theory to illustrate the LIDs faced by a student teacher when responding to a student’s blog writing that included features of African American English. The findings show how this participant and others hadlimited awareness of how they were positioned racially until the moment of teaching in which they struggled to articulate and enact linguistically informed principles; in some cases, this positionality led to avoidance of future discussions of race and language. The findings advance past scholarship through generative description of students’ internalized deficit language ideologies and teachers’ struggles with implementation related to valuing language variation. Findings show the affordances and limitations of code-switching for addressing language variation in classroom interactions and the need for preparation about when, how, and why to have conversations about language variation, including greater understanding of language-related ideological triggers.
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Abstract
The expert teams compiling this annual bibliography looked for major or large studies that held significant implications for teaching English language arts, as well as research that might lead to new insights into the paradigms or methodological practices within a given field.
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Abstract
This article discusses findings from a three-year ethnographic study of an ethnic studies course called Native American literature, which began during the passing of legislation that banned the teaching of ethnic studies in Arizona’s public and charter schools. The data analyzed here explore the ways students use silence as a form of critical literacy “or critical silent literacies” in response to racial microaggressions enacted by their peers, their teachers, or a combination of both. This framing of silence questions common assumptions that Native American students aresilent because of their biological, inherent, and/or cultural “traits” Challenging such assumptions, Native American students in this study reveal that as they attempt to voice their ideas, they are repeatedly silenced because their knowledges counter the dominant settler knowledges taught in public schools. As a result, they discuss how their silence has been used over time as a resistancestrategy to shield themselves, their identities, and their family and community knowledges from dominant, monocultural knowledges with which they did not agree.
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Abstract
Four texts are reviewed that exemplify an important strand of writing center scholarship focused on power dynamics and identity politics in literacy teaching and learning, particularly but not exclusively within college writing centers. Each text takes up the entrenched problem of oppression and injustice toward students identified as being minority by institutional standards; each addresses possibilities for more productive, humane, and inclusive practice. Considered alongside scholarship by authors participating in this January's symposium issue and others concerned with disrupting monolingual, monocultural ideologies and institutionalized oppression, these texts add significantly to the conversation on theory and practice of critical literacy teaching and learning.
October 2015
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Abstract
While a great many educational institutions now take part in the complex network of English language learning, this article asks what an institution expressly created to respond to and spur the transnational movement of English language learners, Intensive English Programs (IEPs), can reveal about how literacy is taught and learned transnationally. Specifically, I examine how the transnational political economy of English literacy is negotiated discursively at one US-based IEP (Northwest IEP) through teacher and student talk. From this discourse analysis, I suggest that, in addition to the difficult and time-consuming tasks of language learning, students in my study were involved in and recipients of another, much less visible type of literacy management: the ongoing valuing and defining of each other’s prior literacy-related knowledge vis-à-vis their and other students’ access to global Englishes. Thus, Northwest IEP did more than situate students in relation to privileged English literacy. That institution also served as a broker for the shifting status and subsequent privileging of global Englishes. This dynamic gives insight into how multilingual spaces come to mediate the broader transnational political economy of English literacy. Ultimately, this research shows the value of looking into institutes at the periphery of US higher education, which broadens the field’s linguistic terrain to situate US-based composition as one of many actors across the transnational landscape of higher education.
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Abstract
Teaching delivers signs. The teaching body produces … signs, or more precisely, signifiers supposing the knowledge of a prior signified. … Every university puts language in a position of belatednes...
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“Virtue and Knowledge Combined”: French Catholic Tradition within a Nineteenth-Century American School for Women ↗
Abstract
This article analyzes the rhetorical practices at a nineteenth-century Catholic school run by women religious for young women of all faiths. This school, St. Mary-of-the-Woods, embraced its motto “virtue and knowledge combined” to achieve its goal of establishing the French religious spirit in a country with anti-Catholic biases. Teaching lessons based on their French traditions, the sisters replaced lessons in religion with ones on morality and virtue. Thus the sisters promoted their French religious spirit without appearing to proselytize; even without converting students to Catholicism, the sisters succeeded in helping to establish the “French religious spirit” in Indiana.
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Abstract
It has been established that in the Netherlands, as in other countries, a majority of students do not attain the desired level of writing skills at the end of elementary school. Time devoted to writing is limited, and only a minority of schools succeed in effectively teaching writing. An improvement in the way writing is taught in elementary school is clearly required. In order to identify effective instructional practices we conducted a meta-analysis of writing intervention studies aimed at grade 4 to 6 in a regular school setting. Average effect sizes were calculated for ten intervention categories: strategy instruction, text structure instruction, pre-writing activities, peer assistance, grammar instruction, feedback, evaluation, process approach, goal setting, and revision. Five of these categories yielded statistically significant results. Pairwise comparison of these categories revealed that goal setting (ES = 2.03) is the most effective intervention to improve students’ writing performance, followed by strategy instruction (ES = .96), text structure instruction (ES = .76), peer assistance (ES = .59), and feedback (ES = .88) respectively. Further research is needed to examine how these interventions can be implemented effectively in classrooms to improve elementary students’ writing performance.