In this article, the author reflects on her personal experience, along with various historical accounts, in order to project a sense of "crisis" in 1963 film culture and argues that a similar disposition attempted to move 1963 Composition. Explored through the lens of the year 1963, the author focuses at the work of an iconic filmmaker--Jean Luc…

In this article, the author examines various publications published in 1963 in an attempt to look for relevance in a changing publication scene. The author considers Gordon Parks's reportorial photographs and accompanying personal essay, "What Their Cry Means to Me," as an act of publishing with implications for the teaching of written…

This article presents a course design of English 283: Rhetorical Theory and Applications. The course is described in the undergraduate catalogue as offering a "critical and analytical examination of the nature and historical development of rhetorical theory and its applications to contemporary discourse." The course fulfills requirements for the…

This article talks about the "old-school" practice of recopying. For its part in composition, this practice reminds that real literacy is not a technological product, but a cognitive process. In recopying to revise, students learn that almost all good writing is rewriting. Likewise, in recopying, the solitary writer engages in a kind of internal…

Fayette County, once home to the Carnegies, the Mellons, and the Fricks, now punctuated by abandoned mines and coke ovens, is the second poorest county in Pennsylvania. Gay and lesbian students experience discrimination in this County. In this article, the author discusses her efforts to intervene in this complicated problem by deploying a…

In this article, the author argues that teaching assistant (TA) peer mentoring programs need more formal support through well-articulated programmatic structures and through multifaceted mentor education that includes time for theorizing, practice, and reflection. In support of that claim, the author draws on mentoring scholarship as well as…

The author had the pleasure of being in an academic setting where students of color were in the majority. That was the summer of 2004 as she observed African-American Literature 1900-Present, a writing intensive class in the Special Program in Talent Development (SPTD) at the University of Rhode Island (URI). The author wants to tell the story of…

This article presents a course design of English 450: Theories and Methods of Argument. The course is an upper level course in the Writing concentration of B. A. in English and American Language and Literature at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, a metropolitan university in the South. At the 400 level, Theories and Methods of Argument is…

Calls for Composition Studies to move beyond the "universal requirement" of first-year writing, and toward "a sequenced curriculum of courses that introduce students to discipline-specific principles and practices" have been partially realized by the growing number of writing majors. Public descriptions of these programs have traditionally focused…

In the introduction to "Coming of Age: The Advanced Writing Curriculum," the author argued that instituting an advanced curriculum benefits not only the students enrolled in its courses, but also the teachers and students of the first-year sequence: the existence of an advanced curriculum challenges the expectation that "one or two required…

In this article, the authors use two sets of terms--"chronos/kairos" and strategy/tactic--to frame the way they tell the story or the "case" of Professional Writing and Rhetoric's (PWR's) developing identity at Elon University. In doing so, they offer to the readers a framework for identity development that is portable across contexts. The authors…

In this article, the author argues that compartmentalization in the way that writing education tends to be discussed and therefore understood in the professional discourse of rhetoric and composition should be critically examined and transcended if the field is going to lead the development of undergraduate writing majors. Any new major should be…

In "The Mis-Education of the Negro," Carter Woodson issues a mandate for a different and original program of education for African-Americans, specific to their own conditions. If educators, the author opines, are to take this mandate into consideration when designing and implementing appropriate curricula and pedagogy, then they must start paying…

In this essay, the author suggests that performance studies--a large and varied body of work that takes the fluidity of self and the relationship between word and action as its central concepts--offers theories and methodologies for writing teachers to use to help students construct discoursal identities. Although the performative screen offers…

The author's mother has taught advanced classes at a small Catholic elementary school. She also does private tutoring for at-risk students from neighboring high schools and colleges in an affluent suburban area. The author teaches at a large public, urban university. Her mother tutors Algebra through Calculus in a fairly traditional lecture-style…