NCCRESt

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Writing (Composition)

• "Yes, We Eat Dog Back Home": Contrasting Disciplinary Discourse and Praxis on Diversity
  Analyzes literacy education's discourse conventions on diversity. Calls for advancing a critical democracy within the context of higher education which would disentangle the rhetoric on diversity from a colonizing agenda.
• All to the Center! Maintaining Equilibrium in the Collaborative Setting
  One of the issues a college writing instructor grapples with in teaching writing is how best to structure collaborative groups to maximize benefit for each student in a multicultural classroom where many students might fairly be considered "marginalized"--to create an environment in which they become "insiders.".
• Alternative Perspectives on Orality, Literacy and Education: A View from South Africa
  Examines theoretical concerns about discourses associated typically with what has come to be referred to as the oral tradition and discourses associated typically with academic contexts in order to see how these may relate to students' experiences of higher learning. Looks at the writing of students who are predominantly Xhosa speakers and analyzes the kinds of discourses they seem to display.
• Critical Pedagogy in the Computer Classroom: Politicizing the Writing Space
  Examines how computer-mediated communication and hypertext in a critical literacy pedagogy (focused on writing as the ideological problem to be examined) can (1) support a critical examination of how discursive-contexts-position authors in potentially oppressive ways; and (2) help highlight how discursive agency might be constructed so that students see cultural difference as potential for intervening into ideology. (SR).
• Cultural Composition: Stuart Hall on Ethnicity and the Discursive Turn
  Interviews Stuart Hall, a black public intellectual and an activist of the New Left. Discusses the growing disillusionment with cultural studies now that it is no longer in its ascendancy; the proliferation of pedagogical practices given a cultural studies tag; Hall's approval of the use of popular culture in the composition classroom; and the concepts of ethnicity and multiculturalism.
• Networking across Boundaries
  This theme issue focuses on the challenges and opportunities of online technology as it is used by teachers and students in rural classrooms in Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Mississippi, New Mexico, South Carolina, and Vermont.
• Pro-Claiming a Space: The Poetry of Sandra Cisneros and Judith Ortiz Cofer
  Examines three principles of the poetry of two Latinas, Sandra Cisneros and Judith Ortiz Cofer: the expression of dual language heritage, the highlighting of women's issues as a means of self-affirmation, and the importance of creating time and space for writing.
• Research, Writing, and Racial Identity: Cross-Disciplinary Connections for Multicultural Education
  Examined how white students in an undergraduate multicultural education course experienced difficult, emotional content about racism. Analysis of samples of students' reflective writing indicated that the coursework influenced students' racial identities.
• Taming Multiculturalism: The Will to Literacy in Composition Studies
  Presents a review of composition textbooks and professional discourse. Claims the transformative potential of multiculturalism is often subordinated to the task of reducing "cultural distance," and that acquiring multicultural literacy may demand a long, deep and compliant congruity with dominant-culture literacy education.
• Trends and Issues in English Instruction, 1999--Six Summaries. Summaries of Informal Annual Discussions of the Commissions of the National Council of Teachers of English
  This 16th annual report presents information on current trends and issues informally discussed by the directors of six National Council of Teachers of English commissions.
• Using Role Playing in Argument Papers to Deconstruct Stereotypes
  Describes a writing assignment through which students build an understanding of perspectives other than their own. Shows how students, using dice, can create the outlines of a character and, having thought about this character, can write a paper from that character's perspective.
• Voices in English Classrooms: Honoring Diversity and Change. Classroom Practices in Teaching English, Vol. 28
  This book presents a collection of classroom practices that view the personal experiences of diverse student populations as valuable resources for instruction. It offers teachers various responses to the challenges posed by students' cultural, linguistic, and social group affiliations.