Argues for the teaching of "visible features of written texts," or document design, in composition classes. Concludes that educators must teach students how to see their own texts through the eyes of the readers they hope to attract, converse with, and persuade. (SC)

Shows how paying attention to specific insights from the quality movement can help writing teachers rethink their own approaches to writing processes and resist the corporate takeover of institutions and students' minds. Suggests teachers revitalize their thinking about process. Discusses resisting the system. Concludes that a process approach…

Presents a story that illustrates attempts to conflate theory and practice, enact critical pedagogy, and dissolve traditional boundaries. Demonstrates the axiom that the personal is always political. Argues that personal relationships as teachers and students help both parties to confront and act within the politics of the academy. (SC)

Examines how service learning is being conceptualized by compositionists, particularly through the trope of community, to consider how it functions as a practice and topic in the discipline. Considers how educators position themselves and their students as practitioners of service-learning. Considers what the relationship of that learning to the…

Shows how academic discourse can be taught as a site of conflict to be examined by first-year writing students. Shows that the articulation of personal experiences and beliefs by students can be the starting point for significant learning. Concludes that educators should consider their audience of first-year students and engage them in the…

Presents a course design of English 102: Intermediate College Composition. Describes this course as the second of two written communication courses required of undergraduates at the University of Louisville. Notes the goal of this course was to dissuade first-year writers from a limited outlook without debasing the education out of which it grew.…

Proposes a meltdown of academia's "detestable frozen hierarchies" by the abolition of rank and tenure, the formation of militant, inclusive unions of faculty with staff to battle administrators in corporatized education, and the serious teaching of the general-purpose prose that students need and faculty members want. (SC)

Discusses the author's 1991 conference speech that argued that if postmodern discourse has taught us anything, it is that "rhetoric" is at the center of all knowledge making, even in the sciences. Addresses the future of composition as a discipline and whether scholars in the field will position themselves as "enemies" or as "adversaries" in this…

Considers the issue of professional titles as it applies to women, composition studies, and how it applies to the author personally and professionally. Discusses many different approaches to answering the question "What should we call you?" Concludes that in an always evolving field there is no "right" title. (SC)

Explores the demands placed on a would-be critical teacher by the discourses of critical pedagogy. Explores the script of critical pedagogy by engaging the literature of critical pedagogy and by offering a kind of narrative kaleidoscope. Questions the use of critical pedagogy in educating students for proper use of grammar. (SC)

Examines positions held by those challenging the status quo in composition and dispels apparent misconceptions about their goals and motivations. Outlines the discontinuities between earlier "abolitionist" calls for reconceiving the discipline and recent "new abolitionist" arguments to illustrate that in these newer calls lies the potential for…

Discusses problems of collaborative writing. Introduces the "collage" as a teaching activity and lays out directions for its use. Suggests several methods for helping solo writers get comfortable collaborating with other writers and improve their solo writing. Attempts to make collaborative writing easier, more inviting, but more complex, and…

Considers a cross-cultural composition course as a placement option. Outlines the main points of the composition course: writing projects and activities; providing an English-as-a-Second-Language-friendly environment; discussing opportunities for cross-cultural learning; and implementing cross-cultural composition. (SC)

Gives a detailed syllabus for a course dealing with "unteaching" racism at University of Michigan. Discusses design, philosophy, and development of the course. Discusses experiences with the students' reactions to the course. (SC)

Outlines the characteristics of traditional academic discourse. Analyzes some examples of the new hybrid discourses in order to show what the author means by hybrid and to provide suggestions for hybrid rhetorical strategies that may be helpful to share with students. Offers some tentative suggestions on teaching intended mainly to stimulate…