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2006 Convention Program: "Building Community, Culture, Coalitions"

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Appendix A: Definitions and Acronyms

Following are key definitions and how they are used in the specific context of OWI for the purposes of this document.

  • Accessible: An information technology system that is accessible is one that can be operated in a variety of ways and does not rely on a user’s single sense or ability. For example, a system that provides output only in visual format may not be accessible to people with visual impairments, and a system that provides output only in audio format may not be accessible to people who are deaf or hard of hearing. Some individuals with physical and/or learning disabilities may need accessibility-related software or peripheral devices in order to use systems that comply with Section 508 (Guide to Disability Rights Laws). For the purposes of this document, accessibility issues also include those that affect multilingual writers and writers with socioeconomic inequality for whom literal access to technology has or can be problematic.
  • Assistive technology or devices: Assistive technology is “any item, piece of equipment, or product system, whether acquired commercially off the shelf, modified, or customized, that is used to increase, maintain, or improve the functional capabilities of individuals with disabilities” (29 U.S.C. Sec 2202[2]). Examples include screen reader software, screen magnifiers, adapted keyboard and alternative input/ output devices, mobility devices, assistive hearing devices, and can include learning software, among many other things.
  • Asynchronous: Referring to a learning modality that permits participants to communicate over flexible time periods; typically, there is a significant time lag (non-real-time) between and among interactions. Most often, asynchronous interactions occur through text although one-way voice and video communications also can be asynchronous.
  • Digital environment: A learning setting that is computer-based or that uses other integrated technologies that can be accessed anywhere and anytime.
  • Disability: According to the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), “the term ‘disability’ means an individual has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of his/her major life activities or there is a record of such an impairment or an individual is regarded as having such an impairment.” Caused by injury, disease or medical condition, or neurological, chemical, or developmental factors, severe disabilities affect about 12% of the U.S. population.
  • Distributed environment: A learning setting that is linked through a computer network while being geographically dispersed.
  • Fully online: Any writing course that meets in a completely online-based setting through computer mediation with no scheduled face-to-face interactions among or between students and faculty.
  • Hybrid: Sometimes called “blended,” any writing course that meets in both a distance-based or computer-mediated setting and in a traditional onsite classroom.
  • Learning Management System (LMS): Also known as a “Course Management System” (CMS). Some of the most common examples are Blackboard, Moodle, Angel, and Sakai. These are online sites that house the course’s content and facilitate communication among teacher and students.
  • Massive Open Online Course (MOOC): Also known as scalable online educational experience (SOE2). College classes that are (1) extremely large with as many as 50,000 or more participants, (2) open access to all who can pay when they are not free, (3) online with potential for both asynchronous and synchronous components, and (4) courses that enable various set-ups such as credit, noncredit, drop-in, or enrolled participants.
  • Multimodal: Strategically using modes of communication beyond traditional alphabetic text, for example, still image, motion video, and sound.
  • Online environment: A learning setting that is Internet-based (e.g., through the World Wide Web) or Intranet-based (e.g., through a common server).
  • Online: Referring to any communication or activity, such as instruction, that is mediated by digital, Internet-connected technologies. In most contexts, the word online refers to text-based technologies (e.g., discussion boards, emails, blogs, chat), but it also can refer to other media, such as audio (e.g., podcasts) and video (e.g., video presentations, live video meetings).
  • OWC: Online writing course.
  • OWI: Online writing instruction.
  • OWL: Online writing lab or online writing center
  • Synchronous: Referring to a learning modality that permits participants to communicate in real time or nearly in real time. Many real-time synchronous interactions occur through two-way voice or voice and video. Many near-real-time synchronous interactions transpire using text in a chat-based scenario.
Back to Main Page: A Position Statement of Principles and Example Effective Practices for Online Writing Instruction (OWI)

CCCC Position Statement Guidelines

A position statement is a document that asserts the official position of an organization (in this case, CCCC) on a particular issue or set of issues. The position statement is itself a genre. However, effective position statements should make possible the creation of other genres intended for other audiences through their clear and cogent presentation of position, relevant evidence and/or data, and implications.

CCCC position statements should address issues associated with writing or literacy activities (including instruction, instructors, research, use, or other activities). These statements should be written with clear and explicit purposes and audiences in mind. They should synthesize positions or stances that reflect research/research-based best practices, and outline implications of this work for action.

Position Statement Guidelines

Position statements should:

  • Be no longer than 4 pages (excluding appendices)
  • Include an executive summary
  • Clearly identify the purpose(s) of and audience(s) for the statement
  • Include a clear statement of no more than 1–3 sentences of the goal or thesis of the statement
  • Outline research-based actions associated with the position and implications
  • Use language that is direct and accessible to an educated audience

Position statements may:

  • Outline the exigency for the statement as part of the purpose
  • Position the point(s) advanced in the statement as an alternative to the exigency
  • Include a synthesis of research with citations or references to additional information
  • Use concise, descriptive headings to help organize the statement

Position statements should avoid:

  • Buried leads—putting the primary argument of the position statements deep in the document
  • Becoming articles—documents that include levels of exploration of subjects appropriate for a group of researchers rather than other audiences (unless appropriate for the audience)
  • Include resolutions or advocate for CCCC action outside of the established resolution process.

How Position Statements Come About

The genesis of CCCC position statements can come from a resolution or sense-of-the-house motion passed at an Annual Business Meeting; from a strategic governance motion; from a committee or task force; or from the CCCC Executive Committee or officers. (See /cccc/resources/positions/creation.) Position statements cannot, however, be generated by or from an individual.

The Executive Committee and/or Officers will authorize a group of people to create position statements. The authorization will include a charge, broad parameters for the statement (i.e., the broad issue/s it should address), and a timeline for submission of a draft statement. Statements will then be reviewed by a working group of the Executive Committee. Comments will be returned to the primary author/chair of the authoring task force by the CCCC liaison. Each statement will also have an Executive Committee liaison, who will work with the task force to coordinate recommended revisions and guide the statement through the EC approval process. Once the Executive Committee approves the statement, it will be posted on the CCCC web site.

Models:

http://legacy.ncte.org/positions/statements/contingent_faculty
/cccc/resources/positions/writingassessment
/cccc/resources/positions/promotionandtenure
/cccc/resources/positions/secondlangwriting

Resources:

Frameworks Institute materials on framing messages about education (P–16):
All education: http://www.frameworksinstitute.org/issues-education.html
Higher ed: http://www.frameworksinstitute.org/higher-education.html

SPIN Works! (Strategic Press Information Network guide to writing, frame changing, op-ed pieces, and more): http://spinacademy.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/SPIN-Works.pdf

The Op Ed Project (Resources on writing and pitching op eds): http://www.theopedproject.org/

CCC Podcasts–Steven Fraiberg

A conversation with Steven Fraiberg, author of “Pretty Bullets: Tracing Transmedia/Translingual Literacies of an Israeli Soldier across Regimes of Practice” (17:15).

Steven Fraiberg is an assistant professor in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures at Michigan State University. His research focuses on multilingual literacy practices in classrooms, communities, and workplaces. He has published in CCC, Kairos, Computers and Composition, Israel Studies Review, and Technical Communication Quarterly. His forthcoming book (coauthored with Xiaoye You and Xiqiao Wang) published by Utah State University Press is titled Inventing the World Grant University: Chinese International Students’ Mobilities, Literacies, and Identities.

 

 

 

The Community College Writer: Exceeding Expectations

Studies in Writing & Rhetoric (SWR) series. 157 pp. 2010. College. NCTE/CCCC and Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN 978-0-8093-2956-4.

Listen to the Podcast Interview with authors Howard Tinberg and Jean-Paul Nadeau and interviewer Brandon Alva:

Book Description

The Community College Writer: Exceeding Expectations is an informative study on the challenges, expectations and adjustments facing first semester, two-year college students…more (PDF)

Author Information

Howard Tinberg, a professor of English at Bristol Community College, Massachusetts, is the author of Border Talk: Writing and Knowing in the Two-Year College and Writing with Consequence: What Writing Does in the Disciplines and is a coeditor of What Is “College-Level” Wriitng?; What Is “College-Level” Writing? Volume 2: Assignments, Readings, and Student Writing Samples; and Deep Reading: Teaching Reading in the Writing Classroom.

Jean-Paul Nadeau, a coauthor of Foundations for Learning, is an assistant professor of English at Bristol Community College.

Review

http://crw.sagepub.com/content/39/2/201.full.pdf+html

Purchase The Community College Writer from Southern Illinois University Press.

SWR Interview with Rhea Estelle Lathan

Rhea Estelle Lathan is an assistant professor of English rhetoric and composition at Florida State University and author of the SWR Series book Freedom Writing: African American Civil Rights Literacy Activism, 1955-1967.

In this conversation with Telsha Curry, Lathan talks about different types of literacy and social activism, how the ideas of gospel consciousness manifest in Lathan’s pedagogy, as well as how they relate to current movements such as Black Lives Matter. (1:30:12)

 

SWR Interview with Kathleen Blake Yancey and Stephen J. McElroy

In this conversation with Brett Keegan, Yancey and McElroy talk about the genesis of their edited collection Assembling Composition and the growing interest in scholarship on assemblage theory. (32:01)

 

 

Kathleen Blake Yancey is Kellogg W. Hunt Professor of English and Distinguished Research Professor at Florida State University. She has served in several elected leadership positions: as president of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE); chair of the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC); president of the Council of Writing Program Administrators (CWPA); and president of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association (SAMLA). Immediate past editor of College Composition and Communication, she co-founded the journal Assessing Writing and coedited it for seven years: she also co-founded and co-directs the Inter/National Coalition for Electronic Portfolio Research; and she is the lead investigator for the Transfer of Transfer Project, a cross-institutional research study of the efficacy of the Teaching for Transfer (TFT) writing curriculum.

Stephen J. McElroy is director of the Reading-Writing Center and Digital Studio at Florida State University. He has pursued his broad interest in visual rhetoric, multimodal design, and digital composing—in terms of both theory and practice as well as both past and present—recently in the Computers and Composition article “Assemblage by Design: The Postcards of Curt Teich & Company,” which examines the design and production of picture postcards in the early twentieth century, focusing specifically on cards produced by Teich & Company and depicting scenes of Key West, Florida. Examining microhistories of design and production through the lens of assemblage, he argues, helps us better attend to and better theorize our current composing practices.

SWR Interview with Leigh Ann Jones

Leigh Ann Jones is an assistant professor of English at Hunter College of the City University of New York, where she teaches rhetorical criticism and history, composition, and pedagogy in the undergraduate and graduate programs. She also codirects Hunter’s first-year writing course. In addition to her work on rhetorics of national masculinity, Jones has published on performative epistemology, a multimodal approach to composition pedagogy. She is the author of the SWR book From Boys to Men: Rhetorics of Emergent American Masculinity.


In this conversation with Vincent Portillo, Jones talks about the book’s focus on national organizations for boys and young men, including the Boy Scouts of America, the Sigma Chi college fraternity, and the US Army; the interdisciplinary nature of her book (it draws from history, political science, and rhetoric); the work of transforming a dissertation into a book; and some possibilities for political intervention in the rhet/comp classroom. (22:14)

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