Textual Carnivals


Book Description

In this study of the status of composition in English studies programs, Miller (English, U. of Utah) notes the institutional marginalization of composition and its teachers, and calls on her associates in composition to engage in a broader political interpretation of composition by persistently critiquing the current agendas of their discipline and reinterpreting its misdirected social history. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR




Textual Practice


Book Description

Since its launch in 1987 Textual Practice has established itself as a leading journal of radical literary theory. New approaches to literary texts are naturally a major feature, but in exploring apparently discrete areas such as philosophy, history, law, science, architecture, gender and media studies, Textual Practice pays no heed to traditional academic boundaries. As usual, this issue covers the full range of interests in the sphere of current critical and cultural activity in Britain and the USA. From the seventeenth century (Gary Taylor, Tamsin Spargo articles) to the Renaissance (Andrew Stott article), to the twentieth century (Stephen Heath, Tyrus Miller articles). The issue covers AIDS, politics, literature and feminism and features some of the foremost writers in these areas (Terry Eagleton, Stephen Greenblatt). Textual Practice is available both on subscription and from bookstores. For a Free Sample Copy or further subscription details please contact Trevina Johnson, Routledge Subscriptions, ITPS Ltd., Cheriton House, North Way, Andover SP10 5BE. UK.




Teaching in the 21st Century


Book Description

The essays in this book argue that the active learning strategies that teachers trained in composition use for their literature courses can be exported to other disciplines to enhance both teacher performance and student learning. The book provides and explains examples of those strategies and illustrates how they have been effectively used in other disciplines.




Crossing Borderlands


Book Description

On the surface, postcolonial studies and composition studies appear to have little in common. However, they share a strikingly similar goal: to provide power to the words and actions of those who have been marginalized or oppressed. Postcolonial studies accomplishes this goal by opening a space for the voices of “others” in traditional views of history and literature. Composition studies strives to empower students by providing equal access to higher education and validation for their writing. For two fields that have so much in common, very little dialogue exists between them. Crossing Borderlands attempts to establish such an exchange in the hopes of creating a productive “borderland” where they can work together to realize common goals.




Blotted Lines


Book Description

Blotted Lines rebuffs centuries of mythologization about the creative process—the idea that William Shakespeare "never blotted out line"—to argue that by studying how early modern writers faced the challenges of writing poetry, instructors today can empower their students' approaches to critical writing. Adhaar Noor Desai offers deeply researched accounts of how poetic labor intersected with early modern rhetorical theory, material culture, and social networks. Tracing the productive struggles of such writers as George Gascoigne, Philip Sidney, John Davies of Hereford, Lady Anne Southwell, and Shakespeare across their manuscripts, Desai identifies in their work instances of discomposition: frustration, hesitation, self-doubt, and insecurity. Inspired to unmake their poems so that they might remake them, these poets welcomed discomposition because it catalyzed ongoing thinking and learning. Blotted Lines brings literary scholarship into conversation with modern composition studies, challenging early modern literary studies to treat writing as both noun and verb and foregrounding the ways poetry and criticism alike can model for students the cultivation of patience, collaboration, and risk in their writing.




Writing Students


Book Description

This is a book about the usual teacher-student relationship in composition courses. It disrupts and rewrites the commonplace conception of the relationship by revealing the uneven ways in which power is deployed in and around the classroom. And it offers a responsible alternative. The author not only offers teachers a way of learning about power relations at their own specific sites, but also works towards a more equitable redistribution. Drawing from testimonials about teaching practice published in the journal College Composition and Communication, Helmers explores conventions in this form of writing that portray students in a negative light and show the teacher to be powerfully triumphant in his or her creative pedagogy. Several prevalent modes of representation are discussed in the book, all of which define the students as distinctly different from the teachers, in other words, as an other. The texture of the work is rich because Helmers takes an enormous amount of post-structuralist theory and recasts it in the sphere of the teacher-student relationship, itself an underexplored realm.




Viva Nuestro Caucus


Book Description

Viva Nuestro Caucus celebrates the history of the Latinx Caucus of the National Council of Teachers of English and of the College Composition and Communication Conference since its inception in 1968 as the Chicano Teachers of English. The Caucus emerged because of a lack of representation and support and today maintains its vision and agenda of advocating for Latino peoples. The impetus for Viva Nuestro Caucus began both from a lack of recognition amongst NCTE and CCCC and an acknowledgment that no written history exists of the Caucus. Its editors provide a partial history of the agendas, activities, and achievements of the Caucus from its formation to the present, set against the backdrop of changing times. It includes interviews with founding and current Caucus members, an annotated Caucus archive, and a working bibliography of publications by Caucus members.




Reimagining Process


Book Description

Reimagining Process explores how process and attending concepts such as reflection, care, power and portfolios might play a more prominent role in emerging writing studies research.




Preparing the Next Generation of Teachers for 21st Century Education


Book Description

As educational standards continue to transform, it has become essential for educators to receive the support and training necessary to effectively instruct their students and meet societal expectations. To do this, fostering education programs that include innovative practices and initiatives is imperative. Preparing the Next Generation of Teachers for 21st Century Education provides emerging research on innovative practices in learning and teaching within the modern era. While highlighting topics such as blended learning, course development, and transformation practices, readers will learn about progressive methods and applications of 21st-century education. This book is an important resource for educators, academicians, professionals, graduate-level students, and researchers seeking current research on contemporary learning and teaching practices.




Landmark Essays on Bakhtin, Rhetoric, and Writing


Book Description

The essays in this collection give voice to the plurality of approaches that scholars in the field of rhetoric and composition have when they set forth to assimilate Bakhtin for their varied purposes. The collection is arranged in three major sections. The first attempts to capture the most important theoretical extensions of Bakhtin's ideas, and does so with an emphasis on what Bakhtin might contribute to the present understanding of language and rhetoric. The next section explores the implications of Bakhtin's work for both disciplinary identity and writing pedagogy. The final section looks at how Bakhtinian thought can be used to bring new light to concerns that his work either does not address or could not have imagined addressing concerns ranging from writing across the curriculum to feminism, and from computer discourse to the writing of a corporation annual report. Together, these essays demonstrate how fruitfully and imaginatively Bakhtin's ideas can be appropriated for a context that he could not have anticipated. They also serve as an invitation to sustain the dialogue with Bakhtin in the future, so that researchers may yet come to realize the fortuitous ways that Bakhtin will continue to mean more than he said.