Addresses a situation in which a foreign student wrote an extremely homophobic message to a class mailing list--advocating the death penalty for homosexuals, something which is "a practice common in his homeland." Engages in a less triumphal reading of the episode with the homophobic student, then explicates the controversies over…

Examines the rhetorical practice of liberation theology and how it has altered social relations of power in Latin America. Develops a rhetorical model that grounds postmodern theories of rhetorical performance in material relations to explain how marginalized or subaltern groups can effect social change by using the confrontational rhetoric of…

Illustrates key features of visual rhetoric as they operate in two professional academic hypertexts and student work designed for the World Wide Web. Considers how by looking at features like audience stance, transparency, and hybridity, writing teachers can teach visual rhetoric as a transformative process of design. (SG)

This article links failed reform to failed education through a case study of an annual collaborative revision of a program textbook in the Composition Program at the University of California at Irvine. Review of successive editions of the program's "Student Guide to Writing at UCI" reveals a progressive retreat from the program's…

Considers the ways in which two late 19th-century American Indian intellectuals, Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins and Charles Alexander Eastman, use the discourses about Indian-ness that circulated during that time period in order to both respond to that discourse and to reimagine what it could mean to be Indian. Argues that this "use" is a critical…

Identifies some of the pitfalls that contribute to the breakdown of communication between white faculty and Black male students during interactions over student writing. Points out the behaviors that both constrain and facilitate these interactions. Concludes with suggestions for improving faculty awareness of how racial dynamics impact…

Hopes to gain some understanding of the complexities and costs of building a multiethnic/multiracial professoriate in the discipline of literacy. Argues that mentoring must become an activist practice and that it is critical to the survival and success of graduate students and junior faculty of color in the academic culture. (SG)

Foregrounds issues of race, ethnicity, and education, and ties together two important issues in teaching basic writing: how social and pedagogical issues in higher education shape possibilities for bicultural students' writings, and how these students can use their developing sense of literacy and their texts to explore identity. Discusses…

Shares insights and experiences of three students that might smooth the way for other graduate students who may be struggling to chart their own courses to the "PhD shore." Suggests that it is ultimately the student who must take ownership and chart a course through the "choppy dissertation waters." (SG)

Takes up Geneva Smitherman's call to renew the fight for language rights by situating the theory of language rights in composition studies in a brief history of rights rhetoric in the United States. Locates the language rights rhetoric of composition studies within larger struggles over the rhetoric of rights in public policy and perception and…

Presents survey results from 37 different colleges and universities represented in the 13 years of survey results, as compiled by the Missouri Colloquium on Writing Assessment (CWA). Notes the collected data are unique in that the same cohort of schools responded to the same detailed inquiries related to the assessing, curricular design, delivery,…

Attempts to bring composition studies into a more thoroughgoing discussion of the place of visual literacy in the writing classroom. Argues that throughout the history of writing instruction in the United States the terms of debate typical in discussions of visual literacy and the teaching of writing have limited the kinds of assignments educators…

Reveals a few of the obstacles that hinder the sustainability of community literacy programs. Finds that professors in service learning courses can better sustain these initiatives when they view the community site as a place where their research, teaching, and service contribute to a community's self-defined needs and students' learning. (SG)

Argues for a context-sensitive understanding of plagiarism by analyzing a set of written institutional policies and suggesting ways that they might be revised. Offers examples of classroom practices to help teach a concept of plagiarism as situated in context. Concludes that plagiarism is an area where students need access to their teacher's…

Focuses on the "publicly authored" Internet spaces on the World Wide Web. Explores how these generative texts negotiate the odd interplay of fixity and fluidity online, an interplay that at once suggests both the presence of a coherent feminist community-through-text and the inadequacy of coherence as a textual principle. (SG)