CRG: Composing Reading Group @ Kutztown University

New Additions to the CRG Binder for 2007-2008

2007-09-17T13:29:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone and welcome to the Composition Reading Group's third year! Just so everyone knows, CRG is open to all faculty, grad students, and students who are interested in reading and discussing emerging scholarship in the field of Rhetoric and Composition.

CRG meets the second Thursday of every month from 11am-12pm in Lytle Hall 207.

We had an organizing meeting on Thursday, September 13th and decided to read Andrea Greenbaum's "'Bitch' Pedagogy: Agonistic Discourse and the Politics of Resistance," from the edited collection Insurrections: Approaches to Resistance in Composition Studies for our October 11th meeting. The article is available in the CRG binder in the English Department Mail/Copy Room or it can be downloaded through eReserves in the library.

We also decided that we would like to read:

Diana George, "From Analysis to Design: Visual Communication in the Teaching of Writing."
Keith Gilyard and Elaine Richardson, "Students' Right to Possibility: Basic Writing and African American Rhetoric."
Valerie Felita Kinloch, "Revisiting the Promise of Students' Right to Their Own Language: Pedagogical Strategies."
Nancy Welch, "Living Room: Teaching Public Writing in a Post-Publicity Era."

I have also compiled some new articles that we might want to consider for the 2007-2008 CRG. You can take a look at the list her e. All of the articles are available in the CRG binder in the English Department Mail/Copy Room and will be available on eReserve very soon.

I look forward to another great year!

Trimbur Circulates (Contradictorily)

2006-09-08T07:17:00.000-05:00

Ahhh...the beginning of another academic year. As promised, we invited John Trimbur back (OK, just his article) to the first meeting of the CRG this semester. I'll go out on a limb here and say that I think Trimbur was pleased to join us in our little academic outpost in the far north of Kutztown's campus.

It didn't take long to get into a lengthy discussion of Trimbur's "Composition and the Circulation of Writing" and his emphasis on the importance of paying attention to circulation and delivery in the teaching of writing. Here's a little sample of how Trimbur set up his argument:

To my mind, delivery can no longer be thought of simply as a technical aspect of public discourse. It must be seen also as ethical and political--a democratic aspiration to devise delivery systems that circulate ideas, information, opinions, and knowledge and thereby expand the public forums in whihc people can deliberate of issues of the day (Trimbur 190).

Trimbur suggests that the contributions of cultural studies--in particular Stuart Hall and Richard Johnson (as representatives of two poles of cultural studies research--to progressive composition pedagogies, while important, do not pay enough attention to the circulation of commication. Not paying enough attention to circulation carries an unintended consequence:

the tendency...to identify students mainly as readers, consumers, viewers, and spectators in need of training to resist the onslaughts of mass culture (198).

What Trimbur suggests is that we return to Marx's notion of circulation in the Marx's Grundrisse--"notebooks" representing an "extending process of exploratory writing" (207)--to aid in a concept of circulation that pays attention to "the rhetorical transformation that occur" as a cultural product, text, discourse circulates through different moments in the circuts of communication. In particular, Trimbur draws attention to how a research finding, for example, as it is first conceived as a "scientific study," then presented in an academic journal, and then reported in The New York Times, does not only go through a shift in genre, but also a "passage of forms" (213). That is, the shift in discourse is more than a "translation." The shift also does work of reproducing a historically specific process of production and relations of production--in particular, the "distribution and authorization of expertise" (213) as THE model of who has access to and who is authorized to produce socially useful knowledge.

As you may guess, we spent quite a bit of time working through what Trimbur means by circulation, "passage of forms," and a range of other concepts in his text. But we also raised many questions about how divisions between tenured, tenure-track, and temporary faculty also participates in a process of circulation, what it might mean to enact a pedagogy of circulation, Trimbur's "expert" discourse, the magic of writing, and Trimbur's examples of Breast Cancer and AIDS activists work "intervening in the process of production and changing the way science gets done" (215).

We talked about how PMS was not recognized as "real" in official medical discourse until fairly recently, and how this lack of recognition contributed to women being labled "crazy," "over-emotional," and "irrational," reproducing a patriarchal power structure. We grappled with whether or not Trimbur's suggestions were realizable. We laughed. We told anecdotes. And we talked about where we want to go from here.

And we decided to read Richard Miller's “On Asking Impertinent Questions,” in College Composition and Communication, 57.1 (2005): 142-159. The article is in the Composing binder in the mail room and on eReserve under English Department>Composing Group. Our next meeting will be October 5th in Lytle 207.

So enough of me...anyone else?

JT Will Get Over It

2006-04-25T10:58:00.000-05:00

Hello fellow CRGers. Well, the verdict's in: we're packing it in and calling it a semster :-(. I know, I know...We're all concerned that John Trimbur's virtual feelings will be hurt because we will not be discussing his article, "Composition and the Circulation of Writing" this semester. But just look at him...he doesn't seem to be too upset. I think he'll understand. JT can rest assured that his article will be first on the agenda for our next meeting--either this summer or next fall.

All in all, I'd say we've had a pretty good inaugural year of our little CRG. Yup. I don't know about you, but the CRG has been one of the highlights of the year for me. Our discussions have helped nurture our burgeoning little intellectual community in the department...and I hope they have also provided another venue for (re)thinking what we teach, why we teach what we teach, and some of the broader issues that impact how we think about literacy.

Thanks for a great year all! And, JT, thanks for understanding :-).

CRG Y2

2006-04-21T22:02:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I know, I already posted to the blog today...I guess my earlier post has given me the blog bug again. After posting earlier today, I started thinking about post-spring 06 semester.

This past year, we've had some good discussions in our CRG meetings and I am beginning to think about this summer and next fall. Like last year, I'll put together a list of possible readings for next year. However, I thought I would ask everyone if they have any ideas about what to read. Are there certain articles or books that you have been dying to read? Are there particular issues that you'd like to get into?

Looking back at this past year, it seems we had a Critical Discourse Analysis arc in our readings. I am curious where Trimbur's piece will take us. In any case, if anyone has suggestions for next year, post your ideas or email me suggestions. I'd love to get a head start on putting articles up on eReserve. I was also thinking that if people will be around, we could continue our readings and discussions over the summer. I'm certainly game.

Anyway, just some thoughts as the rain begins to fall. Have a good weekend all!

Where'd I Go? Where We Goin'?

2006-04-21T14:41:00.000-05:00

It's been ages, ages I tell you, since I've written. Yes, folks, the semester hit full stride a while back and I've neglected our little space in the blogosphere. The worst part of not writing is that I didn't post a summary of our last meeting. Last time, way back in early March, I believe, we read "Composition Studies and Critical Discourse Analysis: A Study of Presidential Discourse and Campus Discord," by Pegeen Reichert Powell.

The worst part about allowing so much time to elapse is that the details of our last meeting are not as sharp, the tenor of our conversation not as vivid, and the joy of intellectual community mediated by the end of the semester duties of paper grading. But alas, I will take a moment to recall some of what I remember and leave it up to the group to collectively rebuild our memories.

One of the things that we all seemed quite intrigued by was Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and its use in the composition classroom. Similar to our discussion of Micciche's "Making a Case for Rhetorical Grammar," many of those present seemed very interested in how CDA allowed a different approach to the analysis of language and student texts. What seemed to stand out in our discussion, was also the ways in which Reichert Powell's text provided some language for looking closely at some of the rhetorical/discursive features of texts and connected those features to broader social, political, and ideological functions of the text. All in all...CDA seems to be a direction that many of us are interested in exploring further next year.

Anyway, I'll keep this post short...CRG will meet one more time before the semester is out. We will be reading John Trimbur's, "Composition and the Circulation of Writing." The article will be available in the CRG binder in the mailroom for copying. Keep your eyes on this space for the specific date and time!

Times Article

2006-02-21T20:07:00.000-05:00

Here is an article from today's New York Times on email and professors.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/21/education/21professors.html?pagewanted=1&incamp=article_popular_1

Professor@University.edu Subject: Why It's All About Me

By JONATHAN D. GLATER
Published: February 21, 2006
One student skipped class and then sent the professor an e-mail message asking for copies of her teaching notes. Another did not like her grade, and wrote a petulant message to the professor. Another explained that she was late for a Monday class because she was recovering from drinking too much at a wild weekend party.

Jennifer Schultens had a student ask what kind of notebook to buy.
Jennifer Schultens, an associate professor of mathematics at the University of California, Davis, received this e-mail message last September from a student in her calculus course: "Should I buy a binder or a subject notebook? Since I'm a freshman, I'm not sure how to shop for school supplies. Would you let me know your recommendations? Thank you!"
At colleges and universities nationwide, e-mail has made professors much more approachable. But many say it has made them too accessible, erasing boundaries that traditionally kept students at a healthy distance.
These days, they say, students seem to view them as available around the clock, sending a steady stream of e-mail messages — from 10 a week to 10 after every class — that are too informal or downright inappropriate.
"The tone that they would take in e-mail was pretty astounding," said Michael J. Kessler, an assistant dean and a lecturer in theology at Georgetown University. " 'I need to know this and you need to tell me right now,' with a familiarity that can sometimes border on imperative."
He added: "It's a real fine balance to accommodate what they need and at the same time maintain a level of legitimacy as an instructor and someone who is institutionally authorized to make demands on them, and not the other way round."
While once professors may have expected deference, their expertise seems to have become just another service that students, as consumers, are buying. So students may have no fear of giving offense, imposing on the professor's time or even of asking a question that may reflect badly on their own judgment.
For junior faculty members, the barrage of e-mail has brought new tension into their work lives, some say, as they struggle with how to respond. Their tenure prospects, they realize, may rest in part on student evaluations of their accessibility.
The stakes are different for professors today than they were even a decade ago, said Patricia Ewick, chairwoman of the sociology department at Clark University in Massachusetts, explaining that "students are constantly asked to fill out evaluations of individual faculty." Students also frequently post their own evaluations on Web sites like ratemyprofessors.com and describe their impressions of their professors on blogs.
Last fall, undergraduate students at Syracuse University set up a group in Facebook.com, an online network for students, and dedicated it to maligning one particular instructor. The students were reprimanded.
Professor Ewick said 10 students in one class e-mailed her drafts of their papers days before they were due, seeking comments. "It's all different levels of presumption," she said. "One is that I'll be able to drop everything and read 250 pages two days before I'm going to get 50 of these."
Kathleen E. Jenkins, a sociology professor at the College of William and Mary in Virginia, said she had even received e-mail requests from students who missed class and wanted copies of her teaching notes.
Alexandra Lahav, an associate professor of law at the University of Connecticut, said she felt pressured by the e-mail messages. "I feel sort of responsible, as if I ought to be on call all the time," she said.
Many professors said they were often uncertain how to react. Professor Schultens, who was asked about buying the notebook, said she debated whether to tell the student that this was not a query that should be directed to her, but worried that "such a message could be pretty scary."
"I decided not to respond at all," she said.
Christopher J. Dede, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education who has studied technology in education, said these e-mail messages showed how students no longer deferred to their professors, perhaps because they realized that professors' expertise could rapidly become outdated.
"The deference was probably driven more by the notion that professors were infallible sources of deep knowledge," Professor Dede said, and that notion has weakened.
Meanwhile, students seem unaware that what they write in e-mail could adversely affect them, Professor Lahav said. She recalled an e-mail message from a student saying that he planned to miss class so he could play with his son. Professor Lahav did not respond.
"It's graduate school, he's an adult human being, he's obviously a parent, and it's not my place to tell him how to run his life," she said.
But such e-mail messages can have consequences, she added. "Students don't understand that what they say in e-mail can make them seem very unprofessional, and could result in a bad recommendation."

Still, every professor interviewed emphasized that instant feedback could be invaluable. A question about a lecture or discussion "is for me an indication of a blind spot, that the student didn't get it," said Austin D. Sarat, a professor of political science at Amherst College.

College students say that e-mail makes it easier to ask questions and helps them to learn. "If the only way I could communicate with my professors was by going to their office or calling them, there would be some sort of ranking or prioritization taking place," said Cory Merrill, 19, a sophomore at Amherst. "Is this question worth going over to the office?"
But student e-mail can go too far, said Robert B. Ahdieh, an associate professor at Emory Law School in Atlanta. He paraphrased some of the comments he had received: "I think you're covering the material too fast, or I don't think we're using the reading as much as we could in class, or I think it would be helpful if you would summarize what we've covered at the end of class in case we missed anything."
Students also use e-mail to criticize one another, Professor Ahdieh said. He paraphrased this comment: "You're spending too much time with my moron classmates and you ought to be focusing on those of us who are getting the material."
Michael Greenstone, an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said he once received an e-mail message late one evening from a student who had recently come to the realization that he was gay and was struggling to cope.
Professor Greenstone said he eventually helped the student get an appointment with a counselor. "I don't think we would have had the opportunity to discuss his realization and accompanying feelings without e-mail as an icebreaker," he said.
A few professors said they had rules for e-mail and told their students how quickly they would respond, how messages should be drafted and what types of messages they would answer.
Meg Worley, an assistant professor of English at Pomona College in California, said she told students that they must say thank you after receiving a professor's response to an e-mail message.
"One of the rules that I teach my students is, the less powerful person always has to write back," Professor Worley said.

Composing in 2006

2006-01-09T13:46:00.000-05:00

Welcome back fellow composers. I hope everyone had a great break and a smooth transition to the new year. I'm sure that you can feel the coming semester and are busily working on finalizing your syllabi and gearing up for Part II of the 2005-2006 academic year.

I thought I'd take this opportunity to remind everyone that the Composing Reading Group (CRG) will have it's first meeting of the 2006 spring semester on Tuesday, January 24th, from 11-12 noon in LY 207. At our last meeting of the fall semester, we decided to read Pegeen Reichert Powell's article, "Critical Discourse Analysis and Composition Studies: A Study of Presidential Discourse and Campus Discord." As usual, the article is available on eReserve as well as in the Composing Reading Group binder in the English Department mailroom.

Looking forward to seeing all of you then!

Grammar Fest '05, Rhetorically Speaking

2005-11-22T13:25:00.000-05:00

Well, well. Welcome back to the KU Composing Blog. We met today to discuss Laura Micciche's "Making a Case for Rhetorical Grammar." A hot topic indeed. I mean, it's the day before Thanksgiving break, the end of the semester is looming, and we can all hear the distant footsteps of dozens of student papers making their way to our doorsteps.

We began our discussion, as many discussions about grammar do, talking about our classes and our students. Actually our students and their writing. Hmm. Not really all their writing, just the writing they do in our classes. And, yes, we did talk about the complaints we hear from other faculty about students' grammatical identities...at least how they perform them for us. And we did discuss how tricky it can be finding ways of addressing sentence-level concerns (you know, semicolons, comma splices, and fragments) without resorting to the dreaded red pen. But the issue of the day was more about how. I mean, we can all complain (and we do) about our students' grammatical identities, but it's tricky finding ways of engaging students about the importance of their grammatical ethos.

Enter Laura Micciche. Many of us liked her approach of using what she calls "commonplace books" (724). For those of you who have read or used Sharon Crowley's Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students, you might recall her referring to the Renaissance practice of keeping these books. According to Crowley, a commonplace book was "a notebook kept by a rhetor as a storehouse of materials to be remembered or quoted" (qtd. in Micciche 724). Micciche picks up on this practice and uses it in her classroom. Students record passages of writing they like (using correct MLA format, of course) and then "follow each entry with at least one paragraph of analysis in which they identify the work achieved by specific grammatical techniques in the passage" (724). Interesting, we thought.

Jen B. brought up the issue of how in film studies, one assumes that students enter the classroom quite familiar with watching movies. What they are not familiar with are the specific techniques filmmakers use to achieve specific affects. That seemed to be a fitting comparison to what Micciche is talking about. David added that one of the assignments he gives in linguistics has a similar purpose: to focus on how a sentence works to accomplish a particular affect. Micciche seems to be in agreement (forgive the long quote):

I have two goals for the commonplace books: first, to emphasize the always entangled relationship between what and how we say something; second, to designate a place where students document and comment on their evolving relationship to writing and grammatical concepts. Both goals circulate around the idea that learning how to recognize and reflect on language as made and made to work on people's lives is central to being able to use language strategically (724).

So, yeah, (notice I am not explicating the quote) we talked about that. We also wondered how such a practice would help students, or if it would help students, become more effective writers. We weren't sure. We did, however, seem agree with Micciche's argument that "when correcting language outside a meaningful context, students and teachers alike are often frustrated by the lack of transfer from the exercise to the rhetorical situation" (732). Perhaps we can put some of her ideas to use?

We also talked a bit about Micciche's focus on rhetorical grammar as part of a project of critical pedagogy. Ok, we didn't talk a lot about it, but I am writing this and I have the advantage of being able to craft this little piece of the world, at this particular moment (until, of course, others decide to re-craft it). I am reminded of many of the debates around Lisa Delpit's book when it first came out. Micciche seems to be trying to walk the same line: being committed to sentence-level writing (skills, for Delpit) and empowering students to become "active citizens of the worlds they inhabit" (733). Indeed, she begins her piece by trying to create an opening in a long discussion about grammar and critical pedagogy, arguing that "teaching grammar is not necessarily incompatible with liberatory principles" (717).

But alas, the discussion is interminable. The hour [grew] late, [we had to] depart. And [we] did with the discussion still vigorously in progress (a little Kenneth Burke for my students and those looking for a way of understanding those Thanksgiving visits for which they are about to depart). We did think that we'd like to continue along the same thread for our next meeting. We decided to read Pegeen Reichert Powell's article, "Critical Discourse Analysis and Composition Studies: A Study of Presidential Discourse and Campus Discord" for our next meeting. As usual, the article is available on eReserve as well as in the Composing Reading Group binder in the English Department mailroom.

We will meet again in the new year--Tuesday, January 24th, from 11-12 noon in LY 207. Have a grand ole Turkey Day everyone!

November 15th Meeting Rescheduled

2005-11-15T12:25:00.000-05:00

The November 15th meeting of the Composing Reading Group has been rescheduled for Tuesday, November 22nd at 11am in LY 207. My apologies for the schedule conflict. We will be discussing Laura Micciche's "Making a Case for Rhetorical Grammar." The article is available in hardcopy in the Composing binder in the English Department mailroom or on eReserve under English Department, Composing Group. Sorry for the confusion...see you next week!

On Multiliteracies and Working Too Much at Home

2005-10-18T11:18:00.000-05:00

Hey folks...well, the Composing Group met today to discuss "A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures," by the New London Group, from the collection Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures. We had bagels, multimedia, and a jolly ole time. I thought I'd post a little summary of our discussion to which others who attended or who would have liked to attend can add, contest, or ignore.

Several of us raised questions and/or resistances to some of the issues raised by the New London Group. To what degree do we accept their concept of Design as a way of rethinking literacy pedagogy? Do we really want to embrace the new modes of work that are part of "fast capitalism"? Don't we want to resist the erosion of "private" space? What kind of responsibility do we have to change the way we teach literacy in the face of changes in "working lives," "public lives," and "personal lives"? Do we accept their reading of these changes?

We also discussed the fact that this text was a manifesto, but still had questions about what a pedagogy of multiliteracies would look like in practice. We also discussed the ways in which our personal lives are becoming more and more indistinguishable from our working lives and how technology and changes in public space contributed to expanding forms of reproductive and affective labor (a la Hardt and Negri). Yet, these changes do not seem entirely bad...that is, we are able carry on discussions with students about their papers over the weekend.

Just as our hour was about to expire turning us all into Halloween pumpkins, we got into a discussion of ethical discourse and the role of rhetoric in general education. As the lights were going out and the bagels were being cleaned up (and the next class was waiting to come in) we carried our conversation into the hall. We ended our hallway discussion talking about the implications of a pedagogy of multiliteracies for the classroom and the curriculum. All in all, a grand time.

We will be meeting again on Tuesday, November 15th at 11am in LY 207 to discuss Laura Micciche's "Making a Case for Rhetorical Grammar." The article is available in hardcopy in the Composing binder in the English Department mailroom or on eReserve under English Department, Composing Group.

Composing Group Meetings for Fall 2005

2005-08-26T12:05:00.000-05:00

The KU Composing reading group will have its first meeting on Tuesday, September 20th from 11am-11:50am in Lytle 207. As I said in the meeting yesterday, I am thinking about this first meeting as an organizational meeting. I thought we could decide on a couple of readings we would like to discuss and to find a good time to meet for the rest of the semester.

There are several articles on eReserve that we might want to consider:

"Bitch" Pedagogy- Agonistic Discourse and the Politics of Resistance (Greenbaum, Andrea)
Critical Discourse Analysis and Composition Studies: A Study of Presidential Discourse and Campus Discord (Powell, Pegeen Reichert)
Fa(c)ulty Wiring? Energy, Power, Work, and Resistance to Technology (Strenski, Ellen)
Pedagogy of Multiliteracies- designing social futures (The New London Group)
Politics of writing- Introduction (Clark and Ivanic)
Resistance as a Tragic Trope (Trimbur, John)
Students' Right to Possibility: Basic Writing and African American Rhetoric (Gilyard, Keith and Elaine Richardson)
Technology and Literacy- A Story About the Perils of Not Paying Attention (Selfe, Cynthia L.)
Three Codifications of Critical Literacy (Philion)
Writing on the Bias (Brodkey, Linda)

But these articles are just suggestions. At the first meeting, or on the blog, please post any additional suggestions and we can add them to the eReserve list.

Multi-Literacies?

2005-08-15T14:55:00.000-05:00

I've been reading Robert Scholes's The Rise and Fall of English: Reconstructing English as a Discipline. I'm glad I finally got around to reading this text. Scholes argues for resituating English curriculum, especially general education core classes, around issues of textuality. He argues,

We need speaking and listening skills, to be sure, and we need to be literate in the traditional sense: able to read and write. But we also need to be "literate" across a various and complex network of different kinds of writing and various media of communication (130).

A couple issues have been in the back of my mind while reading this. This year, the Composition Committee will be taking a look at the College Composition curriculum in order to update/revise it. The question is: what principles and assumptions about literacy and the purpose of composition are we using currently? To what degree is our teaching relevant to today's world? That is, I am thinking about why we do what we do, who we serve, and toward what ends. Scholes is giving me some things to think about. In particular, Scholes gives us the following definition of literacy:

Literacy involves the ability to understand and to produce a wide variety of texts that use the English language--including work in traditional literary forms, in the practical and persuasive forms, and in the modern media as well. Whether students go on to higher education or enter the workforce after graduation, their success will depend to a great extent on their ability to understand and use the English language. That is why this course [a high school capstone course in English Studies] makes language itself--and its use in various forms, genres, and media--the center of attention (130, brackets mine).

Yes, Scholes is writing about a high school senior English course he helped develop for the College Boards with high school teachers around the country called "Pacesetter English." But his definition of literacy as something broader than "academic writing" or "good prose" interests me. It also makes me think that one of the things that is important to do when planning a course is to ask ourselves what assumptions we are making about literacy and the purpose of College Composition.

These are very provisional thoughts...and one's that make me want to get back to reading Pegeen Reichert Powell's, "Critical Discourse Analysis and Composition Studies," since she has bit of a different take, although still very interested in the assumptions and purposes of comp. And there's also that article from the New London Group, "Multiliteracies," that is quite useful. Both are on eReserve, by the way.

Kevin

I'm On

2005-08-15T13:41:00.000-05:00

For anyone who is interested, I've signed on. As Jen said, it couldn't be easier.

Meeting for new and returning faculty teaching composition

2005-08-05T23:41:00.000-05:00

I have scheduled an introductory meeting for new and returning faculty who will be teaching composition in the fall. The meeting will be held Thursday, August 25th at 12 noon in 207 Lytle Hall. The meeting is open to all faculty, but new faculty are especially encouraged to attend.

The meeting will address:

The directed self-placement process. For those new to the concept, this means that with guidance from me and others, students self-select the composition course based upon their history and comfortability with academic reading and writing. The directed self-placement process influences how we structure our composition classes. For example, ENG 022 Introduction to College Composition is not a "remedial" class. It is designed to give students an additional semester practice in academic writing so they can do well in ENG 023.
An overview of ENG 022. Given that Introduction to College Composition is not a remedial class, it poses challenges for faculty who are used to teaching introductory composition classes as "grammar" classes or "remedial" classes. Dr. Linda Cullum will join me to discuss the goals of ENG 022 and provide some suggestions about how to plan your course effectively.
Dr. Cullum is also the Director of the Writing Center. She will provide faculty with an overview of the Writing Center. Chris Lang, an English grad student and Writing Center tutor, will join us as well.
Composition Program planning for the academic year. Our plans include: the Third Annual Composition Conference for First-Year Student Writers, revising ENG 023, our weekly Composition Conversations, the new Composing reading group, and a "Teachnology" grant exploring the use of blogs in the Composition classroom.

I hope that some returning faculty will join us as well to talk about their experiences teaching composition at KU. If anyone has any ideas of additional things that would be useful to discuss--post them here!

Oh, and by the way, I'll be bringing the famed bagels and cream cheese for everyone. Even if you can't stay the whole time, please come by for a bagel!

Kevin

Getting Ready for the Fall

2005-07-19T16:00:00.000-05:00

Well it's official. I'm in planning mode for the fall. Yesterday I
reserved the rooms for the Composition Conversations. They will be held
every Wednesday from 12noon until 1pm in Lytle 207. While the first
meeting is generally introductory, if anyone has any ideas of topics
they would like to cover over the course of the semester, I'm all ears.

Also, I've made copies of several articles for the Composing reading
group and placed them in a 3-ring binder in the mailroom. Anyone is
free to take a look at them and make suggestions about the order of the
readings over the course of the semester. Most of the articles are also
available on eReserve (see link on this blog)...the remained of the
articles should be available on eReserve by the end of July.

I am also planning a meeting the week before the semester begins for all
new and returning faculty who are teaching ENG 022, Introduction to
College Composition in the fall. Linda Cullum will be helping out with
this meeting and bring some suggestions for assignments and exercizes
that may be useful for those new to 022.

On another note, I've gone a little blog happy. I've created blogs for
all my courses and just loaded a new English Department News blog this
morning. At the very least, these blogs will provide some useful sites
for the Blog project Aaron and I (and Jen??) will be undertaking this
fall.

I'm on . . .

2005-06-27T11:45:00.000-05:00

Just created the account. Though I don't know what happened to my last name. But it was a snap and took all of 2 seconds. So, what's the scoop at KU Composing?

JB

Great!

2005-06-24T14:37:00.000-05:00

Sounds good to me.

A little Introduction

2005-06-24T13:52:00.000-05:00

In order to see how well blogging works for connecting faculty with each other around issues of teaching, theory, writing, I thought we could run this little experiment.

I hope this will be a place to have on-going discussions about teaching and other issues related to writing, rhetoric, teaching, etc.

Kevin