Bøger i Studies in Writing and Rhetoric serien

Winner of the 2020 Best Book Award from the Council of Writing Program Administrators (CWPA).This collection centers writing program administration (WPA) discourse as intersectional race work. In this historical moment in public discourse when race and racist logics are no longer sanitized in coded language or veiled political rhetoric, contributors provide examples of how WPA scholars can push back against the ways in which larger, cultural rhetorical projects inform our institutional practices, are coded into administrative agendas, and are reflected in programmatic objectives and interpersonal relations. Editors Staci M. Perryman-Clark and Collin Lamont Craig have made a space for WPAs of color to cultivate antiracist responses within an Afrocentric framework and to enact socially responsible approaches to program building. This framework also positions WPAs of color to build relationships with allies and create contexts for students and faculty to imagine rhetorics that speak truth to oppressive and divisive ideologies within and beyond the academy, but especially within writing programs. Contributors share not just experiences of racist microaggressions, but also the successes of black WPAs and WPAs whose work represents a strong commitment to students of color. Together they work to foster stronger alliance building among white allies in the discipline, and, most importantly, to develop concrete, specific models for taking action to confront and resist racist microaggressions. As a whole, this collection works to shift the focus from race more broadly toward perspectives on blackness in writing program administration.About the CCCC Studies in Writing & Rhetoric (SWR) SeriesIn this series, the methods of studies vary from the critical to historical to linguistic to ethnographic, and their authors draw on work in various fields that inform composition--including rhetoric, communication, education, discourse analysis, psychology, cultural studies, and literature. Their focuses are similarly diverse--ranging from individual writers and teachers, to classrooms and communities and curricula, to analyses of the social, political, and material contexts of writing and its teaching.

Reframing the Relational examines how writing specialists and faculty in other disciplines communicate with each other in face-to-face conversations about teaching writing. Sandra L. Tarabochia argues that a pedagogical approach to faculty interactions in Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) and Writing in the Disciplines (WID) contexts can enhance cross-disciplinary communication and collaboration and ultimately lead to more productive, sustainable initiatives. Theorizing pedagogy as an epistemic, reflexive, relational activity among teacher-learners, she uses a pedagogical framework to analyze conversations between writing specialists and faculty in other disciplines, drawing on transcripts from interviews and recorded conversations. The author identifies the discursive moves faculty used to navigate three communicative challenges or opportunities: negotiating expertise, orienting to change, and embracing play. Based on this analysis, she constructs a pedagogical ethic for WAC/WID work and shows how it can help faculty embrace the potential of cross-disciplinary communication.

Redesigning Composition for Multilingual Realities argues that students of English as a second language, rather than always being novice English language learners, often provide models for language uses as English continues to spread and change as an international lingua franca. Starting from the premise that "multilingualism is a daily reality for all students--all language users," Jay Jordan proceeds to both complicate and enrich the responsibilities of the composition classroom as it attempts to accommodate and instruct a diversity of students in the practices of academic writing. But as Jordan admits, theory is one thing; practical efforts to implement multilingual and even translingual approaches to writing instruction are another. Through a combination of historical survey, meta-analytical critique of existing literature, and naturalistic classroom research, Jordan's study points to new directions for composition theory and pedagogy that more fully account for the presence and role of multilingual writers.

This book develops a new theoretical approach to the study of writing by fusing key aspects of postmodern theory with the empirical sensibilities of composition studies and with that field's long-standing investment in writerly agency. Specifically, Inside the Subject describes the act of writing in terms of the event, a concept for mapping relations between the symbolic and the nonsymbolic. In addition, the book casts writers as both locations and catalysts for these relations. And finally, it develops a theory of identity to describe these relations, and these locations, in more detail than the field currently has at its disposal.

Leslie Seawright describes the journey of a police report as it travels through the criminal justice system. Tracing the path of a police report from writer, to supervisor, to prosecutor, to defense lawyer, to judge, this study exposes the way in which power, agency, and authority circulate and accrue between writers and readers. The chained literacy event, created as a report moves through the system, is highlighted and its hierarchical nature examined. The book ultimately addresses the constraints of the police report genre and seeks to expose the complex and multifaceted rhetorical situation of report writing. Due to her position as a police officer's wife, Seawright was granted access to perspectives and realities of police writing typically reserved for those inside the police profession. Seawright obtained candid interviews and perspectives from police officers and supervisors, lawyers and judges. This book analyzes the writing and reading process of the officer writing the report and the report's subsequent readers. Interlaced throughout the book are micro-chapters that offer glimpses into the day-to-day job of police officers. These vignettes, combined with Seawright's description of her own life as wife and scholar, present a compelling picture of the complexity of police writing. This study challenges the idea that arhetorical and objective documents are possible to create in many organizations.

Through a blend of African American cultural theory and literacy and rhetorical studies highlighting the intellectual and pedagogical traditions of African American people, Rhea Estelle Lathan argues that African Americans have literacy traditions that represent specific, culturally influenced ways of being in the world. She introduces gospel literacy, a theoretical framework analogous to gospel music within which to consider how the literacy activities of the Civil Rights Movement illuminate a continual interchange between secular and religious ideologies. Lathan demonstrates how gospel literacy is deeply grounded in an African American tradition of refusing to accept the assumptions underlying European American thought and institutions, including the oppression of African American people and the denial of full citizenship rights. Lathan's critical historical analysis draws on oral histories, personal interviews, and archival data, allowing her to theorize about African American literacy practices, meanings, and values while demonstrating the symbiotic relationship between literacy and the Civil Rights Movement. Central to her research are local participants who contributed to the success of citizenship education, and she illuminates in particular how African American women used critical intellectualism and individual creative literacy strategies to aid in the struggle for basic human rights.

Institutional, organized expressions of male coming-of-age encourage Americans to believe that emergent masculinity is an enduring natural phenomenon and an essential component of American identity, and that the outcomes of the transformation process from boy to man have important consequences for the United States as a nation. Leigh Ann Jones explores performances of developing young male identity in case studies from twentieth- and twenty-first-century federal and civic organizations that recruit boys and young men using appeals to American national identity, often coding these appeals as character building. Examining documents from the Boy Scouts of America during the Progressive Era, the Sigma Chi college fraternity in the 1960s, and the US Army's "Army of One" recruiting campaign in the early 2000s, Jones explicates rhetorical strategies that position the young male figure as a source of enduring national identification and as a citizen who is the product of a distinct trajectory of development and transformation. These strategies emerge from an intense interest among community leaders in the psychology of boys and are characterized by language that directs and shapes boys' consciousness of themselves as males, tying that consciousness to an American identity. Applying Kenneth Burke's concept of rhetoric as identification, particularly his understanding of constitutive rhetoric, Jones outlines a framework for understanding how such organizations for boys have endured, along with their myths about masculinity, in spite of the ways in which these stories are troubled by economics, gender, race, and sexuality.

Argues that an underclass of rural whites is being left out of multicultural conversations. Katherine Kelleher Sohn shares how her own search for identity in the academic world parallels the journeys of eight non-traditional, working-class women. Through interviews and case studies, Sohn illustrates how academic literacy empowers women in their homes, jobs, and communities.

This study of African American students in the composition classroom lays the groundwork for reversing the cycle of underachievement that plagues linguistically diverse students. It approaches the issue of African American Vernacular English in terms of teacher knowledge and prevailing attitudes, and attempts to change pedagogical approaches.

Responding to contemporary discussion about using personal accounts in academic writing, this book draws on classical and current rhetorical theory, feminist theory, and relevant examples from both published writers and first-year writing students to illustrate the advantages of blending experiential and academic perspectives.

Through a blend of personal narrative, cultural and literary analysis, and discussions about teaching, this text shows how people of colour use reading and writing to develop and articulate notions of citizenship. It reveals the tensions that exist between competing beliefs and uses of literacy among dominant American culture and minorities.

Argues that contemporary economic and political challenges make elementary questions about literacy, language, literature, education, and class imperative, and require a clear understanding of the cultural ideals of English studies. This work explores the central role of freshman English and literary studies in the creation of the middle class.

Writer's block is more than a mere matter of discomfort and missed deadlines; sustained experiences of writer's block may influence academic success and career choices. The author delineates many cognitive errors that cause blocking, such as inflexible rules or conflicting planning strategies.

Examines a dynamic approach to teaching composition that reimagines not only the physical space in which writing and learning occurs but also the place occupied by composition in the power structure of universities and colleges. This work provides an alternative approach to traditional basic writing courses.

Identifies the problems inherent in trying to understand rural literacy, addresses the lack of substantive research on literacy in rural areas, and reviews traditional misrepresentations of rural literacy. This volume frames debates over literacy in relation to larger social, political, and economic forces.

Using the rhetorical experiences of students who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/or transgender, the author proposes a way of thinking about ethos that addresses the challenges of social justice, identity, and transfer issues in the classroom. She challenges writing teachers to consider ethos as a series of identity performances.

Julie Jung augments the understanding and teaching of revision by arguing that the process should entail changing attitudes rather than simply changing texts. Jung analyses feminist texts to identify a revisionary rhetoric that is, at its core, most concerned with creating a space in which to engage productively with issues of difference.

Nick Tingle investigates the psychoanalytic dimensions of composition instruction to illustrate that mastering academic prose requires students to develop psychologically as well as cognitively.

This text is a response to calls to enlarge the purview of literacy to include imagery in its many modalities and various facets. The author asserts that all meaning, linguistic or otherwise, is a result of the transaction between image and word.

Mapping out the relations of literacy and spirituality, Daniell tells the story of a diverse group of women who use reading and writing in order to find spiritual solutions to their problems. The text explores the implications for pedagogy and for empirical research in composition studies.

This work argues for a developmental perspective to counter the fantasy held by many college faculty that students should, or could, be taught to write once so that ever after, they can write effectively on any topic, any place, any time.

This study points out the centrality of rhetoric in the academy, asserting the intimate connection between language and knowledge making. The authors also stress the need for a change in the roles of teachers and students in today's classroom. Their goal is mutuality, a sharing of authority.

Part critique of existing policy and practice, part call-to-action, this work explores the complex linkage between technology and literacy that has come to characterize American culture and its public educational system at the end of the 20th century.