Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Mimesis: Foot Washing From Luke To John, Keith L. Yoder

Keith L. Yoder

Mapping Errors And Expectations For Basic Writing : From The "Frontier Field" To "Border Country"., Bruce Horner

Bruce Horner

No abstract provided.

Expectations, Interpretations And Contributions Of Basic Writing., Min-Zhan Lu, Bruce Horner

Bruce Horner

This essay argues that Basic Writing students, teachers, and scholarship are crucial to enabling colleges and universities to live up to their ideals of diversity, interdisciplinarity, and student-centered learning. BW scholars and teachers have developed ways to work with students to better understand the different perspectives they bring to their writing and learning, and to use those perspectives to break down barriers between academic and non-academic worlds and develop "borderland" knowledge and perspectives. The authors call for more research exploring the potential of basic writing students to develop such perspectives, and for research exploring the implications of BW scholarship for …

English Only And U.S. College Composition., Bruce Horner, John Trimbur

Bruce Horner

In this article, we identify in the formation of U.S. college composition courses a tacit policy of English monolingualism based on a chain of reifications of languages and social identity. We show this policy continuing in assumptions underlying arguments for and against English Only legislation and basic writers. And we call for an internationalist perspective on written English in relation to other languages and the dynamics of globalization.

James Slevin And The Identifying Practices Of Composition., Bruce Horner

Bruce Horner

No abstract provided.

Ideologies Of Literacy, "Academic Literacies," And Composition Studies., Bruce Horner

Bruce Horner

In my contribution to this symposium, I take up the call of this journal in its mission statement for “new interactions between Literacy and Composition Studies.” From the framework of competing ideologies of literacy, I explore points of intersection as well as divergence between strands of what’s known as “composition studies” and what has come to be identified as the “academic literacies” approach to academic literacy. My focus on “academic literacies” rather than the broader area of literacy studies signals at least three of my biases: first, I wish to counter the tendency to allow the cultural norm for academic …

Relocating Basic Writing., Bruce Horner

Bruce Horner

I frame the continuing value of basic writing as part of a long tradition in composition studies challenging dominant beliefs about literacy and language abilities, and I link basic writing to emerging--e.g."translingual"--approaches to language. I identify basic writing as vital to the field of composition in its rejection of simplistic notions of English, language, and literacy; its insistence on searching out the different in what might appear to be the same and the familiar; and its commitment to work with students consigned by dominant ideologies to the social periphery as in fact central, leading edge. These positions enable basic writing …

Unbalancing Acts: Plagiarism As Catalyst For Instructor Emotion In The Composition Classroom, Ann E. Biswas

Ann E. Biswas

In this essay, the author reflects on her experiences while researching composition instructors’ emotional responses to plagiarism. The research found that instructors faced a variety of complex and competing feelings when students plagiarized, and those responses threatened to upset relationships, power structures, and professional identities in the classroom. The author considers how and why her own emotional labor was altered in light of these findings and what this might suggest about the need for increased professional conversation in our discipline regarding the impact of emotions in the writing classroom.

Translinguality, Transmodality, And Difference : Exploring Dispositions And Change In Language And Learning., Bruce Horner, Cynthia Selfe, Tim Lockridge

Bruce Horner

This collaborative piece explores the potential synergy arising from the confluence of two growing areas of research, teaching, and practice in composition (broadly defined): multi- (or trans-)modality, and trans- (or multi-) linguality.

“Students’ Right,” English Only, And Re-Imagining The Politics Of Language., Bruce Horner

Bruce Horner

Argues that a lack of language legislation is indicative of a pervasive, tacit policy of "English Only" in composition and of a constellation of assumptions about languages, and language users that continues to cripple public debate on English Only and compositionists' approaches to matters of "error." Proposes an approach to language and "error" considering the relations of language to power.

Toward A Multilingual Composition Scholarship : From English Only To A Translingual Norm., Bruce Horner, Samantha Necamp, Christiane Donahue

Bruce Horner

Against the limitations English monolingualism imposes on composition scholarship, as evident in journal submission requirements, frequency of references to non-English medium writing, bibliographical resources, and our own past work, we argue for adopting a translingual approach to languages, disciplines, localities, and research traditions in our scholarship, and propose ways individuals, journals, conferences, and graduate programs might advance composition scholarship toward a translingual norm.

Composing In A Global-Local Context : Careers, Mobility, Skills., Min-Zhan Lu, Bruce Horner

Bruce Horner

When composition students look to their teachers for vocational guidance, both groups should acknowledge that the contexts of such terms as career, mobility, and skills have radically changed. In particular, the economy now links the global with the local, and capitalism has shifted from the fordist model, dominant through much of the twentieth century, to a newer, “fast” model.

Introduction : Translingual Work., Min-Zhan Lu, Bruce Horner

Bruce Horner

This issue both reflects and builds on the efforts prompted by the 2011 College English essay “Language Difference in Writing: Toward a Translingual Approach,” by Bruce Horner, Min-Zhan Lu, Jacqueline Jones Royster, and John Trimbur. Contributions to this symposium contextualize the emergence of a translingual approach, explore the tension and interconnections between a translingual approach and a variety of fields, and explore the viability of a translingual approach in light of existing academic structures.

Working Rhetoric And Composition., Bruce Horner, Min-Zhan Lu

Bruce Horner

Given the multiple meanings of rhetoric and composition, as well as the vexed history of institutional relationships between these two terms, it is important for scholars to trace how they are “worked”—that is, how they materially function—in a variety of specific circumstances.

Students, Authorship, And The Work Of Composition., Bruce Horner

Bruce Horner

Reviews the dominant pedagogical strategies compositionists have devised in response to the dilemma posed by the author/student writer binary. Reviews Raymond Williams's analysis of the approaches to the "sociality" of authorship. Describes the contradictions in which dominant composition pedagogies have become entangled.

The Problematic Of Experience : Redefining Critical Work In Ethnography And Pedagogy., Min-Zhan Lu, Bruce Horner

Bruce Horner

Explores the convergence between projects in ethnographic research and composition pedagogy that emphasize the critical power of experience. Argues that critical ethnography and pedagogy need to redefine "experience" and its function for research and teaching and that composition can help this redefinition by looking for ways to build and constructively use a tension between teaching and research practices.

Language Difference In Writing : Toward A Translingual Approach., Bruce Horner, Min-Zhan Lu, Jacqueline Jones Royster, John Trimbur

Bruce Horner

Arguing against the emphasis of traditional U.S. composition classes on linguistically homogeneous situations, the authors contend that this focus is at odds with actual language use today. They call for a translingual approach, which they define as seeing difference in language not as a barrier to overcome or as a problem to manage, but as a resource for producing meaning in writing, speaking, reading, and listening.

Discoursing Basic Writing., Bruce Horner

Bruce Horner

No abstract provided.

Introduction : Cross-Language Relations In Composition., Bruce Horner

Bruce Horner

No abstract provided.

Translingual Literacy, Language Difference, And Matters Of Agency., Min-Zhan Lu, Bruce Horner

Bruce Horner

We argue that composition scholarship’s defenses of language differences in student writing reinforce dominant ideology’s spatial framework conceiving language difference as deviation from a norm of sameness. We argue instead for adopting a temporal-spatial framework defining difference as the norm of utterances, and defining languages, literacy practices, conventions, and contexts as always emergent, ongoing products of iterations, and thus manifestations of writer agency. Using the “White Shoes” essay from David Bartholomae’s “Inventing the University,” we show how such a framework addresses the writer’s agency iterating the “same,” and how it resolves concerns to meet students’ need and right to learn …

Rewriting Composition : Moving Beyond A Discourse Of Need., Bruce Horner

Bruce Horner

This essay argues that calls to end, move beyond, or expand composition participate in a discourse of need that accepts and reinforces the legitimacy of dominant, and restricted, definitions of not only composition but also alternatives to it: what we are led to believe is “new,” “different,” and therefore “better” than composition as conventionally defined. I analyze the operation of this discourse in David Smit’s The End of Composition Studies, Sidney Dobrin’s Postcomposition, and calls to make up for composition’s ostensible lacks by supplementing it with rhetoric or multimodal composition or by renaming it “writing studies.” Drawing on J. K. …

Traditions And Professionalization : Reconceiving Work In Composition., Bruce Horner

Bruce Horner

The derogation of the “traditional” in the discourse of academic professionalism in composition studies overlooks practices within tradition that may be counter or alternative to the hegemonic. Aspects of the Amherst College “tradition” of English 1–2 illustrate, in idealized form, alternative practices drawing from residual elements of dominant culture.

Of Frogs & Rhetoric: The Atrazine Wars, Carol Reeves

Carol Reeves

In a scientific dispute over the effects of atrazine on amphibians, chemical industry–funded and publically funded scientists present stunningly contrasting constructions of atrazine's environmental concentrations, persistence, and potential to harm. Considerable scientific uncertainties and variable ranges allow authors to construct preferred versions of the story of atrazine. These incommensurate rhetorical constructions, more the result of competing economic and environmental interests than of any paradigmatic misalignments, have prolonged the dispute not only over atrazine's effects but also over whether its sales should be banned.

The Briseno Dilemma, T. Alper, S. Rudenstine

Ty Alper

No abstract provided.

The Briseno Dilemma, T. Alper, S. Rudenstine

Ty Alper

No abstract provided.

Freedom Is A Good Book And A Sugar High, Meredith Doench

Meredith Doench

This is a creative nonfiction piece about reading literature with an inmate.

Good Enough Evaluation, Peter Elbow

Peter Elbow

For inclusion in a collection honoring Ed White. I have to revise this by mid month and would welcome any feedback if someone is moved to give it

Familiar Strangers: International Students In The U.S. Composition Course, Elena Lawrick, Fatima Esseili

Fatima Esseili

This chapter presents selected findings from our study of a well-established ESL writing program at a U.S. university with a large population of international undergraduate students. The study was conducted in all 13 writing sections. The instruments included demographic data from university registrars; one instructor survey, administered at the end of the semester; and two student surveys, one administered at the beginning of the semester and one at the end. The instructor survey response rate was 100% (13 teachers); the student survey response rates were 82.5% (161 students) and 88% (171 students), respectively.

The reported findings inform five areas: an …

"I Second That Emotion": Minding How Plagiarism Feels, Ann E. Biswas

Ann E. Biswas

It stands to reason that when writing teachers believe their students have plagiarized, they will experience strong emotions that impact their relationships with students, their pedagogy, and their sense of professional identity. Far from being a threat to reason, understanding and acknowledging writing teachers’ emotional responses to plagiarism can lead to a deeper wisdom of its true impact. By examining the literature on emotion from psychology, sociology, education, and writing studies as well as findings from a pilot study of writing teachers’ emotional responses to plagiarism, this article argues that the work involved in managing the emotions of plagiarism reflects …

Calling All Rebels!: Taco Bell Fights Fast Food Breakfast Fascism: A Rhetorical Analysis Of The “Routine Republic” Commercial Using Narrative Criticism And Intertextuality, Sharine Borslien

Sharine Borslien

No abstract provided.