College Composition and Communication, Vol. 55, No. 4, June 2004

Table of Contents

• In Memoriam: Marilyn Sternglass

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  Abstract: Colleagues, students, friends, and members of the profession mourn the loss of Dr. Marilyn Sternglass, a tireless advocate of educational access and the study and teaching of literacy, and a major contributor to the development of composition studies.

  Keywords: College

• From the Editor

  Marilyn Cooper

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  Abstract: Digital writing is a prominent topic in this issue of CCC, addressed by Gail Hawisher and Cindy Selfe and their coauthors Brittney Moraski and Melissa Pearson, by Kathleen Blake Yancey, and by the new CCCC Position Statement on Teaching, Learning, and Assessing Writing in Digital Environments.

  Keywords: College, Writing

• Edwin Hopkins and the Costly Labor of Composition Teaching

  Randall Popken

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  Abstract: Using a “historical case study” of Edwin M. Hopkins, this article explores what Bruce Horner calls the “material social conditions” of teaching writing early in the twentieth century. It shows how Hopkins’s own attitude and response to the demands of being a writing teacher serve as a backdrop for understanding his local and national crusade to improve labor conditions for faculty.

  Keywords: College, Writing

• Becoming Literate in the Information Age: Cultural Ecologies and the Literacies of Technology

  Gail E. Hawisher and Cynthia L. Selfe with Brittney Moraski and Melissa Pearson

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  Abstract: In this article, we discuss the literacy narratives of coauthors Melissa Pearson and Brittney Moraski, who came to computers almost a generation apart. Our goal is to demonstrate the importance of situating literacies of technology—and literacies more generally—within specific cultural, material, educational, and familial contexts that influence, and are influenced by, their acquisition and development.

  Keywords: College, Literacy, Technology

• Your Average Nigga

  Vershawn Ashanti Young

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  Abstract: “Your Average Nigga” contends that just as exaggerating the differences between black and white language leaves some black speakers, especially those from the ghetto, at an impasse, so exaggerating and reifying the differences between the races leaves blacks in the impossible position of either having to try to be white or forever struggling to prove they’re black enough. In this essay I recount how I negotiated my own black ghettoto- middle class identity conflict as I facilitated classroom interactions with a black male student from the ghetto.

  Keywords: College, Diversity, Language

• Making a Case for Rhetorical Grammar

  Laura R. Micciche

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  Abstract: Rhetorical grammar analysis encourages students to view writing as a material social practice in which meaning is actively made, rather than passively relayed or effortlessly produced. The study of rhetorical grammar can demonstrate to students that language does purposeful, consequential work in the world—work that can be learned and applied.

  Keywords: College, Language, Writing

• Postmodernism, Palimpsest, and Portfolios: Theoretical Issues in the Representation of Student Work

  Kathleen Blake Yancey

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  Abstract: What we ask students to do is who we ask them to be. With this as a defining proposition, I make three claims: (1) print portfolios offer fundamentally different intellectual and affective opportunities than electronic portfolios do; (2) looking at some student portfolios in both media begins to tell us something about what intellectual work is possible within a portfolio; and (3) assuming that each portfolio is itself a composition, we need to consider which kind of portfolio-as-composition we want to invite from students, and why.

  Keywords: College, Writing

• Review: Teaching Youth Media: A Critical Guide to Literacy, Video Production, and Social Change

  Jill Swiencicki

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  Abstract: “Should we make our tape about police brutality and youth crime or about how to become a hip-hop star?”(23). For Steven Goodman, founder of New York’s Educational Video Center (EVC), this question reveals a conflict that low-income minority students face when representing their experiences in collaborative, inquiry-based video projects.

  Keywords: College

• Review: The Rhetoric of Risk: Technical Documentation in Hazardous Environments

  Craig Waddell

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  Abstract: Beverly Sauer has spent a decade in the United States, Great Britain, and South Africa analyzing the ways in which the hazards of coal mining are documented and, consequently, the ways in which these hazards are or might be reduced.

  Keywords: College

• Review: The Rhetoric and Ideology of Genre: Strategies for Stability and Change

  Mary M. Juzwik

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  Abstract: In The Rhetoric and Ideology of Genre, the editors have assembled a collection of new essays about genre, rhetoric, and writing that are relevant for scholars with a diverse range of interests in composition studies, including rhetoric, professional and scientific communication, computers and writing, writing- across-the-disciplines, literacy studies, and literacy education. The engaging editorial introduction recalls Donald Murray’s suggestion that writers ask of drafts, “Does it work?”

  Keywords: College

• Review: The Extraordinary Work of Ordinary Writing: Annie Ray’s Diary

  Peter Mortensen

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  Abstract: “Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That any person who is the head of a family . . . shall . . . be entitled to enter one quarter section or a less quantity of unappropriated public lands, upon which said person may have filed a preemption claim . . . .” So begins the Homestead Act of 1862, signed into law on the 20th of May by President Abraham Lincoln. The work of this extraordinary piece of writing is well known: more than 270 million acres of public land were parceled out to private citizens before the act’s repeal in 1976. Famously, the Homestead Act encouraged widespread Euramerican settlement of the western states and territories, but in so doing, it accelerated the infamous expropriation of land from native peoples and intensified federal initiatives that hastened their relocation, confinement, and genocide.

  Keywords: College

• Review: Arts of Living: Reinventing the Humanities for the Twenty-First Century

  Marilyn M. Cooper

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  Abstract: In this intriguing and sometimes frustrating book, Kurt Spellmeyer argues that “the humanities must change” (3), that they have become “isolated from the life of the larger society” (4) and instead need “to offer people freedom, and beyond that, to express real solidarity with the inner life of ordinary citizens” (223). His argument has many intriguing facets: it rejects the trickle-down vision of culture; it questions the value of Professionalization of academic disciplines; it excoriates the “prepackaged analytical systems”

  Keywords: College

• Guidelines for the Ethical Conduct of Research in Composition Studies

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  Abstract: Composition specialists share a commitment to protecting the rights, privacy, dignity, and well-being of the persons who are involved in their studies. These guidelines are intended to assist them in fulfilling this commitment.

  Keywords: College, Research

• CCCC Position Statement on Teaching, Learning, and Assessing Writing in Digital Environments

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  Abstract: Approved by the CCCC Executive Committee February 25, 2004 Increasingly,classes and programs in writing require that students compose digitally. Such writing occurs both in conventional “face-to-face” classrooms and in classes and programs that are delivered at a distance. The expression “composing digitally” can refer to a myriad of practices. In its simplest form, such writing can refer to a “mixed media” writing practice, the kind that occurs when students compose at a computer screen, using a word processor, so that they can submit the writing in print (Moran). Such writing may not utilize the formatting conventions such as italics and bold facing available on a word processor; alternatively, such writing often includes sophisticated formatting as well as hypertextual links.

  Keywords: College, Assessment, Technology, Writing

• CCCC News

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  Abstract: Summary of CCCC news, awards and new projects.

  Keywords: College

• Announcements and Calls

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  Abstract: Calls for papers, search for journal editors, and awards.

  Keywords: College

• CCC Reviewers

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  Abstract: The most valuable work done in connection with the journal is the reviews T of manuscripts in progress. It is in these reviews that questions and methods in the field of composition studies are critiqued, developed, revised. Thanks to the readers who read so carefully and offered many useful suggestions.

  Keywords: College

• Index to Volume 55

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  Abstract: Index of authors, titles and books reviewed from Volume 55.

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