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On January 29th, our little composition and rhetoric group will be having a full-day retreat. It will be our first official retreat and it couldn’t come at a better time.
With several new courses on the books, a program in the final stages of approval, and a load of ideas about where we go from here, it’s going to be good to be able to spend some sustained time hammering out our plans. I also thinks it’s a good time to formalize some of the principles that shape both our programmatic identity and our pedagogical practices. From my perspective, this is our chance to discuss what we want to be as a distinct intellectual and teaching community as well as how we want to be as a community.
So, here’s to a spectacular spring 2010 semester!
Followers of this blog will know that we have been building toward a concentration in Composition, Rhetoric, and Literacy Studies for the past year or so. We just got confirmation today that our third new course is on the books!
Here’s our three new courses:
ENG 260 – Issues in Composition and Rhetoric Studies
This course provides undergraduate students an introduction to the history, traditions, issues, problems, and debates of Composition and Rhetoric Studies. Despite its long history and growing influence in academia, many students of English are unfamiliar with the depth and breadth of the field of Composition and Rhetoric. It is the goal of this course to familiarize undergraduate students with the historical development of Composition and Rhetoric Studies and the shape of the filed today. This course will include inquiry into the major theoretical, professional and disciplinary issues and challenges of the field. The course also provides an introduction to research methods and resources in Composition and Rhetoric, as well as experience writing academically in and about Comp / Rhet Studies.
Prerequisites: English 023 or 025.
ENG 274 – Women, Writing and Rhetoric
While the spoken and written word have long been studied for their rhetorical intent and success, this study has been conducted primarily through a male lens. As such, women’s contributions to rhetoric throughout history, like so many other aspects of women’s experience, have yet to be fully explored. Women, Writing, and Rhetoric seeks to expand the study of rhetoric with a multi-layered consideration of how rhetoric has been informed by, and informs, a female consciousness. This is an elective course for English majors, Women’s Studies minors, and those seeking a concentration in Composition, Rhetoric, and Literacy Studies.
Prerequisites: ENG 023, 025, or equivalent.
ENG 316 Rhetoric, Democracy, Advocacy
The connection between rhetoric and democracy is an old one dating back to the origins of both concepts in Western traditions. Simply put rhetoric—the skilled use of argument and persuasive discourse—and democracy were seen as ways to replace violence as the primary means of governing and resolving conflict. This course argues that the intimate connections between rhetoric and democracy are critical to retain and reclaim for the health of democratic society and culture. American democracy has been defined not only by its institutions and Constitutional frameworks, but also by vibrant traditions of citizenship advocacy that have relentlessly stretched the boundaries of democratic freedoms, identities, and protections. A healthy democracy requires citizen advocates who are skilled in the analysis of public discourse and the rhetoric of advocacy. This course will be a sustained study of the theory and practice of advocacy rhetoric, primarily in the American context. In addition, this course will raise practical questions about what citizenship advocacy means in a context of increasing globalization and new media. PREREQUSITE: ENG 023 or its equivalent.
While you’re at it, check our our growing number of courses here.
Well, actually, the fall semester wasn’t delayed at all. Only my post to this blog 
.
Welcome back everyone! I have to say that it was pretty incredible coming back this semester and having seven–SEVEN– comp/rhet faculty at our first meeting. We’ve come a long way in terms of faculty hiring and program development in a very short time. When I took over the Coordinator position, we had three comp/rhet faculty members.
There has also been a pretty rapid increase in student interest in upper-level composition courses. ENG 430 Rhetorical Traditions/Contemporary Renditions, went live in the Spring 2007 semester and this coming Spring, my new course ENG 316 Rhetoric, Democracy, Advocacy will be offered for the first time. Amy Lynch-Biniek authored a new course, ENG XXX Composition and Rhetoric Studies which is making its way through the curricular process and will be one of the key courses for our proposed concentration in Composition, Rhetoric, and Literacy Studies. Linda Cullum will be submitting her new course, ENG XXX Women, Writing, Rhetoric to the curriculum committees this semester. In addition, our ENU 405 Teaching of Writing, continues to fill every semester with graduate and undergraduate students. Needless to say, we are excited about the direction our program is headed!
This semester I hope to get all our comp/rhet faculty up and running on this blog too. This way you can hear from all of us…of different approaches to teaching, latest scholarship, thoughts on writing and rhetoric, musings, and random contributions to this little space.
I am going to leave for now…but will return soon! Thanks for taking the time to check in.
There are just three days left in the semester and we’re wrapping things up. Like most of my colleagues, I am deep in grading mode. However, I thought I would take a few minutes this morning (before I head into campus and while my son is sleeping) to post.
This past academic year has been pretty incredible for our little composition program. We have one new class on the books, ENG 316 Rhetoric, Democracy, Advocacy, which will be offered in spring 2010 for the first time. We also have two classes heading for college and university curriculum committees after passing our department unanimously: Women, Writing, Rhetoric and Issues in Composition and Rhetoric Studies. A very productive year for course development and another step toward rounding out a solid concentration in Composition, Rhetoric, and Literacy Studies at KU.
This past year we also completed two successful tenure-track faculty searches. In the fall, we will welcome Mysti Rudd from Lamar State College-Port Arthur (IUP PhD candidate) in Texas and Moe Folk from Michigan Tech. Over the summer I am going to ask Mysti and Moe to introduces themselves to you, but for now let me just say that both of these folks promise to contribute to our program in exciting ways. As I have suggested before on this blog, our program has at its core an ethic of “conversation.” That is, we are interested in a diversity of approaches at our composition table that can contibute to a lively conversation over the teaching of writing, literacy in the 21st Century, and all things composition and rhetoric. Many of us got into this field because of its lively discussion over the purpose and nature of writing, rhetoric, and literacy…so, it only makes sense that we would want to use that energy, that commitment to discussion as the model of our program. I am sure that Mysti and Moe will both expand and deepen our conversations.
This past spring saw another successful Composition Conference for student writers. This 5th annual conference was expanded to include student writers from all levels of composition courses, which exceeded our expectations. Despite a very miserable weather day, attendance at this year’s conference was the best yet. Our keynote speaker, Steve Parks from Syracuse University, gave an engaging talk entitled “Once I was a Washing Machine: Worker/Writer Alliances at the Edge of the Economic Abyss” (see the pics below). His talk was both well attended and sparked conversations that echoed through our conversations for weeks.
Over the course of this summer we will be planning for what promises to be an exciting new academic year. We will be hiring an additional tenure-track faculty member in Multicultural/Multiethnic Rhetorics; formally submitting our concentration for department approval; expanding our course offerings; deepening our use of new media; and continuing conversations in our weekly meetings and reading groups. Toward the end of this semester, we began some interesting and exciting conversations with our fellow rhetoricians in the Speech Department (soon to be Communications Studies). Frankly, the promise of reuniting rhetoric just gets me all happy (yes, I am a rhetoric geek). In short, I think we are in great shape…or, given that today is Obama’s 100th day in office, maybe I should say: “the state of our program is strong!” :-)
In addition to all the vlogging we did and photos we took, we did our first experiment in podcasting for the KU Composition Conference. Three students from my Advanced Composition class–Tim Crane, Katrina Albert, and Renee Franklin–agreed to having their panel recorded for a podcast. A huge thanks goes out to them for their willingness to try this out.
I just finished loading up the audio (with very minimal editing) and it sounds good! If you’d like to check it out, click on the radio icon above. A QuickTime (or other audio program) should start up and play the file. If you want a little context for the panel, check out the paper assignment that provided the prompt for Tim, Katrina, and Renee’s paper. Or, check out the Ramage-tagged posts on our class blog.
Hey all…I’m back from San Francisco and getting ready for next week’s Composition Conference for Student Writers. And now…the latest vlog:
Yesterday was a great day at CCCCs. All four of the panels I went to were fantastic. I did make one change in my schedule. I didn’t go to “We Have Been Here Forever” as I initially planned. Instead, I went to the session, “Community Literacies and Deliberative Democracy In and Beyond the University,” with Eli Goldblatt, Juan Guerra, Michelle Kells, and Carlos Salinas. Our panel, “Labor Rhetoric and Academic Organizing,” went extremely well…we had a packed house, our papers worked incredibly well together, Eileen Schell posed several key questions in her response, and many audience members walked with us over to the Serrano Hotel for our Labor Caucus Interest Group meeting. More on all of this when I have a little time (right now I am sitting in the hotel lobby waiting for my ride to the airport).
I was really looking forward to being here this year…and my expectations were more than met. The non-panel discussions I had with people who I haven’t seen since the last CCCCs and colleagues I see on a more-or-less regular basis were invigorating…which is, after all, why we come to these conferences in the first place, right?
More to come!
After spending some time reading through all of the sessions running tomorrow, I think I have my schedule for tomorrow:
- 10:30: “From Textile Mills to the Entrepreneurial University: Confronting the Political Economics of Writing”
- 12:15: “We Have Been Here Forever: Towards a History of Composition(ist)s of Color Rewriting Rhetoric within and beyond NCTE/CCCC”
- 1:45: “‘Driving into the Wreck’: A Feminist Inquiry of the Dissertation in Composition”
- 3:00: (no choice on this one, this is my panel) “Labor Rhetorics and Academic Organizing: Possibilities and Predicaments”
- 5:00: CCCC Labor Caucus Interest Group
On the 21st Century literacies the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) released several statements recently, most notably the “Definition of 21st Century Literacies,” which was adopted by the NCTE Executive Commitee on February 18, 2008.
The “Definition” statment follows NCTE’s 2005 “Position Statement on Multimodal Literacies,” which addressed issues of definition and challenges of new/digital/multimodal literacies. Even more recently, NCTE released a set of guidelines, “Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education,” which attemps to deal with new issues concerning fair use and copy right. And in 2007, NCTE released “21st Century Literacies: A Policy Research Brief.”
The Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCCs), which meets next week in San Francisco, also released “Position Statement on Teaching, Learning, and Assessing Writing in Digital Environments,” in 2004.
The article “Backers of ’21st Century Skills’ Take Flak,” in this week’s Education Week, reports on some of the critics of the call for “21st Century Skills”–that is, “information, media, and technology skills.” The article begins:
The phrase “21st-century skills” is everywhere in education policy discussions these days, from faculty lounges to the highest echelons of the U.S. education system.
Broadly speaking, it refers to a push for schools to teach critical-thinking, analytical, and technology skills, in addition to the “soft skills” of creativity, collaboration, and communication that some experts argue will be in high demand as the world increasingly shifts to a global, entrepreneurial, and service-based workplace.
But now a group of researchers, historians, and policymakers from across the political spectrum are raising a red flag about the agenda as embodied by the Tucson, Ariz.-based Partnership for 21st Century Skills, or P21, the leading advocacy group for 21st-century skills.
Unless states that sign on to the movement ensure that all students are also taught a body of explicit, well-sequenced content, a focus on skills will not help students develop higher-order critical-thinking abilities, they said at a panel discussion here in the nation’s capital last week.
Check out the full article here.
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