Logan, Shirley Wilson. “Changing Missions, Shifting Positions, and Breaking Silences

Logan, Shirley Wilson. “Changing Missions, Shifting Positions, and Breaking
Silences.” College Composition and Communication 55 (2003): 330-342.

Summary: “An earlier version of this article was delivered as the Chair’s Address at the Opening General Session of the CCCC Convention in New York, March 2003. I review the current mission and position statements of the organization by calling attention to the ways in which our current social and political climate challenges our ability to meet our goals and support our positions. I weave into my text the “voices” of historical black women who called for response in their own time and even in ours” (330).

Methodology: Discourse Analysis
Citation: Executive Committee CCCC, CCCC, hooks, Hurston
Provocative Quotes:
“Our revised mission statement, as approved by the EC, reads as follows:
CCCC, as a conference of NCTE, supports and promotes the teaching and study of college composition and communication by (1) sponsoring meetings and publishing scholarly materials for the exchange of knowledge about composition, composition pedagogy, and rhetoric; (2) supporting a wide range of research on composition, communication, and rhetoric; (3) working to enhance conditions for learning and teaching college composition and to promote professional development; and (4) acting as an advocate for language and literacy education nationally and internationally.

We are living up to some aspects of this mission better than others. We do sponsor meetings, and we support and publish the results of a wide range of research in rhetoric and composition. The last two goals, however, are much more difficult to accomplish and sustain” (332).

“What we are doing is substituting some version of “diversity” for the hard work of acting affirmatively to correct the consequences of past discrimination and denial of rights, particularly of African Americans” (334).

“CCCC needs to play an active role in overturning such legislation as that passed by the ESEA, requiring English language learners to take standardized tests in English within three years of entering the school system” (334).

“At my own University of Maryland, all preservice English teachers are required to take a course designed to help them understand the challenge of teaching diverse learners in the English classroom, mainly ESL learners but, in fact, all students, since, as I was recently reminded, “Everyone learns a new dialect when learning to write.” (336).

“What are we doing with our rhetorical skills that makes a difference? Does anybody know we’re here?” (337).

“I strongly believe that we can respect linguistic differences and teach our students various dialect options, particularly the option of edited American English (EAE)-the dialect power and privilege-at the same time” (339).

Schau, Mark. “Beyond These Shores: An Argument for Internationalizing Composition

Schau, Mark. “Beyond These Shores: An Argument for Internationalizing
Composition.” Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature,
Language, Composition, and Culture 3 ( 2003): 85-98.

Summary: “We must maintain the prominence of international themes in our courses and continue to rethink the status of composition globally, precisely because we are in danger of returning to isolationist thinking in our classrooms. In this essay I argue that as professionals we should investigate ways to internationalize the discipline of composition by expanding our conception of the field, by making efforts to internationalize our academic conferences, and by developing opportunities for writing-related faculty and student programs or exchanges overseas. As writing instructors, moreover, we should investigate ways to internationalize our composition courses and programs, such as expanding writing assignments to encompass international interests and themes and revising syllabi to reflect a more global perspective” (86).

Methodology: Advocacy, defining, explaining, classifying, comparing
Citation: Connor, Ula, Mastuda, Muchiri, Zamel, Silva

Provocative Quotes:
“I believe that Muchiri et al. are correct in their judgment that compositionists
on the university level are overly focused on the American context. I
also agree with their charge that those in the U.S. composition community
remain largely ignorant of college writing overseas.We compositionists, both
in the United States and overseas, are in a position to change the perception
of composition as something by and for Americans; however, we must become
cognizant not only of developments abroad but of the brevity of our own
history” (86).

“The CCCC continues to be largely unknown outside North America” (87).

“My point is that our own professional networks, organizations, and supporting businesses (like textbook publishing) do not seem to concern themselves with overseas contexts” (87).

“There is a disconnect between composition in the United States and the rest
of the world.We Americans continue to behave as if composition were truly
universal.We do have a lot of knowledge about writing instruction that could
benefit the rest of the world. However, we may have even more to learn about
it from those outside this country” (91).

“those who teach writing in Malaysia or Finland or central Cairo have something to offer
writing specialists and administrators in America” (91).

“To summarize how the field of composition can expand its horizons beyond North America, I suggest the following:

1. Acknowledge the hegemony of English.

“But native-language illiteracy relative to English-language literacy is dismaying, to
say the least. Thus we should attempt to be sensitive to the linguistic background of
those of our students whose native languages are not English. In addition, we could do
a better job of putting certain issues and texts into appropriate contexts in the
classroom. When discussing a translation from a language other than English, for
example, we could engage the issue of language competition” (92).
2. Become better acquainted with overseas research and perspectives.
“In the melting pot of America, we ought to know a lot about diversity: its benefits and also its challenges. Yet we have much to learn about it from our colleagues overseas, where diversity means different things and has different effects in writing classrooms” (93).
3. Make conferences in the United States more inviting to overseas participants.

“One way to make U.S. composition conferences more international in scope is to
provide financial assistance to participants from developing countries or from
institutions less well-off than the AUC” (94).

Internationalizing the classroom:

“Indeed, internationalization allows one to teach concepts like audience and purpose
more extensively, by leading discussions on what it means to write to audiences outside the United States” (95).

Here are several ways to make our writing classrooms more global:

1. Widen the scope of our textbooks and assignments.
2. Investigate contrastive rhetoric.
3. Develop an exchange with an overseas class.

“We in the United States teach in one of the most multicultural nations in history, but it remains isolated and self-centered in a global sense.
We can change this, slowly, and we can begin now” (97).

Conference on College Composition and Communication. “CCCC Statement on Second Language Writers and Writing.”

Conference on College Composition and Communication. “CCCC Statement on Second Language Writers and Writing.” College Composition and Communication 52
(2001): 669-74.

Summary: This is CCCC’s position statement on second language writers and writing where it, taking into accounts the increasing presence of international students (ESL writers) in all levels of writing courses, appeals all the writing teachers and programs across the country to recognize and address the concerns and special needs of ESL writers. It then provides some guidelines for writing programs’ policies on placement, assessment, class size, teacher preparation and teacher support so as to enable them to address the concerns of ESL writers. Then follows a selected bibliography of ESL scholarships.

Area cluster: 108 Langauge
Methodology: Definition, classification, enumeration/listing
Most important citation: none
Provocative Quotes:
“Second-language writers are found in writing programs at all levels- from basic writing and first-year composition to professional writing and writing across the curriculum-as well as in writing centers. Although providing additional linguistic support in the forms of intensive language programs and special second-language sections of writing courses may be helpful they will not remove the responsibility of writing teachers, researchers, and administrators to address second-language issues because the acquisition of a second language and second-language literacy is a time-consuming process that will continue through students’ academic career and beyond” (669).

“For these reasons, we urge writing teachers and writing program administrators to recognize the regular presence of second-language writers in writing classes, to understand their characteristics, and to develop instructional and administrative practices that are sensitive to their linguistic and cultural needs. We also urge graduate programs in writing-related fields to offer courses in second-language writing theory, research, and instruction in order to prepare writing teachers and scholars for working with a college student population that is increasingly diverse both linguistically and culturally” (670).

“Second-language writers-who have come from a wide variety of linguistic, cultural, and educational backgrounds-may have special needs because the nature and functions of discourse, audience, and persuasive appeals often differ across linguistic, cultural and educational contexts” (670).

“Decisions regarding the placement of second-language writers into writing courses should be based on students’ writing proficiency rather than their race, native-language background, nationality, or immigration status. Nor should the decisions be based solely on the scores from standardized tests of general language proficiency or of spoken language proficiency” (670).

“We also stress the need for further investigations into issues surrounding second-language writing and writers in the context of writing programs. Since those issues permeate all aspects of writing theory, research, and instruction- from textual features and composing processes to collaborative strategies and writing assessment, we encourage scholars and researchers of writing to include second-language perspectives in developing theories, designing studies, analyzing data, and discussing implications” (670).

Smitherman, Geneva. “CCCC’s Role in the Struggle for Language Rights”

Smitherman, Geneva. “CCCC’s Role in the Struggle for Language Rights.” CCC 50.3 (1999): 349-375.

Summary: Smitherman reflects on the Conference on College Composition and Communication’s 1974 resolution, “Students’ Right to Their Own Language” (SRTOL). Smitherman (who played a seminal role in the conception, writing, and passing of SRTOL) uses this narrative of reflection to look at how CCC has been a place for scholars and activists to “raise up the issue of langauge rights” (349). Her primary aim is a reflection of SRTOL and the 1988 National Language Policy, her article provides an extensive overview on both “articles and commentaries” (349) that have appeared in CCC.

Area Cluster: 103-Theory, 104-History, 108-Language

Methods: Historiography through extensive literature/citation review

Most Valuable Citations: Lloyd, Ball and Lardner, Greenbaum, McPherson, “Students’ Rights”

$Money$ Quotes

“Clearly, from the jump, then, CCCC was a forum for linguistic debates and language issues of various kinds. To a great extent, this is attributable to the parallel development of Composition-rhetoric and Linguistics in the 1950s and 1960s, as both fields sought to reinvent themselves and stake intellectual claim to distinct identities among the established disciplines of the academy” (351)

“Many people in the language arts field (and, I would wager, most of those outside the filed) erroneously credit NCTE with the “Students’ Right” resolution. I have repeatedly heard this from numerous people over the years since CCCC passed its resolution. This misattribution continues today” (37c ).

“The other major reason that CCCC language policy pronouncements have not had broad-based impact has to do with the need to publicize these policies. One must do something, somehow actively engage in the process of language attitude change, organize language discussion panels and program events outside ivory–and ebony–towers, go out int o the vienyards and speak the truth to the people, wherever one finds them–in the churches, the streets, the bars and pubs, at block club and other kinds of community meetings, on television talk shows, in one’s personal social ife , and on and on” (372).