Seconding Johnathon Mauk’s call in these pages for greater attention to the politics of space, and extending it to the increasingly ubiquitous realities of virtual space, the author argues that course-management software systems such as Blackboard naturalize certain constructions of subjectivity for us and our students in ways inimical to our pedagogical goals. He argues that we and our students should not only be critically attentive to such constructions but should also wherever possible develop our own local, discipline-specific spaces in resistance to the homogenization of space and subjectivity they represent.

(2001). Effacing Difference in the Royal Society: The Homogenizing Nature of Disciplinary Dialogue. Rhetoric Review: Vol. 20, No. 1-2, pp. 94-112.

Describes a first-year college composition course and the daily preparatory writing assignments, “inquiry response papers,” that form its core. Describes how these assignments, in which students respond to their homework reading, have led to a collaborative, dialogic classroom where students realize and express their own voices, and have fostered a more intrinsic motivation within students.

Describes how a cooperative program between a community college (Spokane Falls) and a university (Eastern Washington) produced a successful teaching internship. Finds that, besides the ways in which interns learn from the experience, working with interns can benefit community college educators and offer them an opportunity for self-assessment and for introspection concerning their own planning and teaching.