Design thinking—at times described as a mind-set, practice, process, method, methodology, tool, heuristic, and more—is a productive, iterative approach used to engage divergent thinking. Often made up of stages incorporating empathy, definition, ideation, prototyping, and testing, design thinking provides a framework for identifying and approaching problems. Design thinking, however, generally lacks a critical–rhetorical–methodological structure that makes room for what Rebecca Burnett called “substantive conflict,” or “conflict that deals with critical issues of content and rhetorical elements.” This article situates design thinking across the professional and academic spaces in which it is heralded and implemented in order to explore how it can be used in collaborative contexts to support substantive, productive dissensus. The authors lean on the ways in which they engage in design thinking in their different roles to situate the good, the bad, and the ugly of design thinking. They conclude by suggesting a rhetorical methodology for cultivating design thinking that facilitates dissensus, addresses resistance, and considers ideological variables.

In this review, I look back to the first issue of College English, and then across the years to trace the ways in which Intellectual Property (and this distinction from intellectual property is important) has been addressed by authors in the pages of the journal. I distinguish two periods of time marked by different approaches to IP issues, and conclude the review by drawing across the literature to situate implications, recommendations, and conclusions for the field to consider.

This article discusses the Napster phenomenon and its cultural significance, traces some of the threads of the current “copyright crisis,” and connects these cultural and legal dynamics to show how the current filesharing context of digital environments pertains to issues affecting writing teachers. The article (1) urges writing teachers to view the Napster moment—and the writing practice at the center of it, filesharing—in terms of the rhetorical and economic dynamics of digital publishing and in the context of public battles about copyright and intellectual property and (2) argues that digital filesharing forms the basis for an emergent ethic of digital delivery, an ethic that should lead composition teachers to rethink pedagogical approaches and to revise plagiarism policies to recognize the value of filesharing and to acknowledge Fair Use as an ethic for digital composition.

New-media writing exerts pressure in ways that writing instruction typically has not. In this article, we map the infrastructural dynamics that support—or disrupt—newmedia writing instruction, drawing from a multimedia writing course taught at our institution. An infrastructural framework provides a robust tool for writing teachers to navigate and negotiate the institutional complexities that shape new-media writing and offers composers a path through which to navigate the systems within and across which they work. Further, an infrastructural framework focused on the when of newmedia composing creates space for reflection and change within institutional structures and networks.