Education Commons^™

Place-Based Podcasting: From Orality To Electracy In Norfolk, Virginia, Daniel P. Richards, Michael J. Faris (Ed.), Courtney S. Danforth (Ed.), Kyle D. Stedman (Ed.)

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Generation(Al) Matters: Story, Lens, And Tone, Louise Weatherbee Phelps

English Faculty Publications

This essay tells a story of how “generation” came to matter in rhetoric and composition/writing studies; analyzes and advocates for “generation” as a lens through which to examine disciplinary studies and activities; and considers how we can productively engage in generational relations between individuals and groups. It adopts a framework of “hospitality” (adapted from Richard and Janis Haswell) to develop a concept of “cross-generational relations” as an aspirational category. An ethic of hospitality is proposed to facilitate respectful, productive relations among generational groups, which recognize and enact interdependence but allow for a wide range of stances and strategies of interaction …

Introduction: The Politics, Praxis, And Performativity Of Teacher Neutrality, Daniel P. Richards

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Full Disclosure / Now What?, Daniel P. Richards

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Between Smoke And Crystal: Accomplishing In(Ter)Dependent Writing Programs, Louise Wetherbee Phelps

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Historical Formation Of Academic Identities: Rhetoric And Composition, Discourse And Writing, Louise Wetherbee Phelps

English Faculty Publications

(First paragraph) This talk originated in my work as a consultant at the University of Winnipeg, where I spent six weeks on a Fulbright Specialist grant in Spring 2011. I was invited to advise the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Communications on its plans for “program architecture renewal,” which included critically assessing its programs, articulating levels of the curriculum, and charting future directions for the department. The grant had larger goals as well, charging me to study the development of writing and rhetorical studies in Canada as an emerging field seeking both definition and visibility. The Winnipeg faculty hoped that …

Listening For The Squeaky Wheel: Designing Distance Writing Program Assessment, Virginia M. Tucker

English Faculty Publications

Distance writing programs still struggle with assessment strategies that can evaluate student writing as well as their ability to communicate about that writing with peers at a distance. This article uses Kim, Smith and Maeng's 2008 distance education program assessment scheme to evaluate a single distance writing program at Old Dominion University. The program's specific assessment needs include the ability to determine how well students are developing expert insider prose and working together as a virtual community. Kim, Smith and Maeng's assessment scheme was applied to six courses within the writing program, revealing that programmatic assessment weaknesses included providing varied …

Liminal Practice In A Maturing Writing Department, Louise Wetherbee Phelps

English Faculty Publications

[First Paragraph]

In Spring 2011 I was awarded a Fulbright Specialist Grant to "consult, collaborate, and inform" on the future of the Department of Rhetoric, Writing, and Communications at the University of Winnipeg, located in the city of Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada. The Department of Rhetoric, Writing, and Communications department (hereafter, RWC) was a pioneer in writing instruction in Canada, where it became the first unit to establish itself independently as a department with a full-‐time faculty committed to both teaching and scholarship in writing and rhetoric. It remains a rare phenomenon on the Canadian higher education scene, where studies …

Making The Case For Disciplinarity In Rhetoric, Composition, And Writing Studies: The Visibility Project, Louise Weatherbee Phelps, John M. Ackerman

English Faculty Publications

In the Visibility Project, professional organizations have worked to gain recognition for the disciplinarity of writing and rhetoric studies through representation of the field in the information codes and databases of higher education. We report success in two important cases: recognition as an "emerging field" in the National Research Council's taxonomy of research disciplines; and the assignment of a code series to rhetoric and composition/writing studies in the federal Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP). We analyze the rhetorical strategies and implications of each case and call for continuing efforts to develop and implement a "digital strategy" for handling data about …

Learning About Scholarship In Action In Concept And Practice, Louise Wetherbee Phelps

English Faculty Publications

[First paragraph] In her inaugural year (2005), Chancellor Nancy Cantor announced her vision of Syracuse University as a campus that would be deeply engaged with the world, in activities and partnerships with communities that she named "scholarship in action." Recognizing the difficulty of fitting such public or community-engaged scholarship into the traditional framework for defining and evaluating faculty work, she called on the Academic Affairs Committee of the Senate (AAC) to study the issues related to implementing this vision. The Committee responded to this request by undertaking in Spring, 2005 a study of scholarship of action both as a concept …

Bringing "Abnormal" Discourse Into The Classroom, Virginia M. Tucker

English Faculty Publications

Assuming student discourse is prone to error, teachers have long implemented rules that ensure "safe" discourse, particularly in composition instruction. My fifth grade teacher taught me to place a comma in a sentence whenever I take a breath rather than teaching me the language of comma rules. To my dismay, many of my first-year composition students raise their hands in agreement that they too have been taught to place a comma wherever their lungs suggest. These students learn to call independent clauses a complete sentence, and to them an ellipsis is merely “dot, dot, dot.” In an attempt to reach …

Institutional Invention: (How) Is It Possible?, Louise Wetherbee Phelps

English Faculty Publications

(First paragraph) In this chapter I want to explore several broad questions with respect to higher education: Is institutional invention possible? What are the conditions that enable it, and how can they be created and sustained? What are the obstacles to institutional invention? How can academic leadership foster institutional invention?