Author: ksuchor

Kim D. Gainer, Radford University

Overview

J.D. Salinger died in January of 2010, but an intellectual property dispute centering on The Catcher in the Rye continues to wend its way through the federal court system. An unauthorized ‘sequel’ had been published in the United Kingdom in May of 2009 and was in the verge of being released in the United States when Salinger’s lawyers filed suit to stop its sale. A permanent injunction blocking publication in the United States was granted by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, but the author and publisher of the novel filed an appeal to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. This appeal was supported in an amicus brief by four major news organizations: The New York Times, The Associated Press, the Gannett Company, and the Tribune Company. Oral arguments in the case were heard in September of 2009, but a decision has not yet been handed down.

Background

Mr. Salinger’s interest in defending his intellectual property rights is well known and may in the past have discouraged what would arguably be fair use of his writings. An illustrative example is found at a web site largely targeted at secondary-level teachers of English. The owner of this website, a Catcher-enthusiast, has restricted his use of quotations from the novel for fear of legal repercussions. Describing a section of the site devoted to “intrinsic aspects” of The Catcher in the Rye, the owner writes,

This includes material basically concerning aspects of the novel itself—what scholars might call internal or intrinsic approach/criticism. Since everybody knows that Mr Salinger is not exactly keen on having people quote from CR, this section suffers from a certain handicap—there are so many things I would like to quote….
(Wahlbrinck)

This same site maintains a list of Salinger-related links. Of interest is the description of this one: “The Holden Server a CR site which explains why it does not exist any more [sic] (i.e. for legal reasons)—yet definitely worth visiting.” (This link is in fact broken, as is the link to the site described as follows:  “Salinger and copyright problems  Recommended  bananafish/Salinger.org subpage for anyone interested in Salinger’s insistence on his copyright in connexion [sic] with the internet.”)

The characterization of Salinger as a defender of his copyright prerogatives is something that he himself does not dispute, as he is described in his own court filings as “fiercely protective of his intellectual property” and as someone who “has never allowed any derivative works to be made using either The Catcher in the Rye or his Holden Caulfield character” (Complaint against ABP, Inc, John Doe, Windupbird Publishing Ltd, Nicotext A.B., 2; see also pp. 10-11)

The Current Case

Given the reclusive author’s reputation for maintaining tight control over the use of his writing, it is not surprising that Salinger should file suit to stop the publication of a book whose cover described it as a “sequel to one of our most beloved classics” (Complaint against ABP, 2). Written under the pseudonym J.D. California, the novel under dispute is entitled 60 Years Later: Coming through the Rye. As the title suggests, the book’s protagonist, Mr. C, is a septuagenarian.  He has fled from his nursing home, and a portion of the book is devoted to his experiences and thoughts as he wanders through New York City. The book also shows him confronting the character of J.D. Salinger, who continually attempts to kill off his creation in various fashions. The complaint asks that distribution of this novel in the U.S. be enjoined, arguing that this is an “unauthorized sequel” that “infringes Salinger’s copyright rights in both his novel and the character Holden Caulfield, who is the narrator and essence of that novel” (Complaint against ABP, 1). According to the brief,

The right to create a sequel to The Catcher in the Rye or to use the character of Holden Caulfield in any other work belongs to Salinger and Salinger alone, and he has decidedly chosen not to exercise that right.
(Complaint against ABP, 1)

Much of the brief is devoted to supporting the claim that the 60 Years Later is indeed a sequel and rejecting the notion that it is a parody. The brief points out that, in addition to the use of the word ‘sequel’ on the front jacket, the back cover featured this blurb: “Sixty years after his debut as the great American antihero, Mr. C is yanked back onto the page without a goddamn clue why” (Complaint against ABP, 13). The filing also adduces numerous parallels in language and incident.

The Defendants Respond

The author, now revealed as Fredrik Colting, co-owner of a small press, responded to the complaint by arguing that he wrote 60 Years Later “as a critical exploration of such themes as the relationship between J.D. Salinger, the famously reclusive author, and Holden Caulfield, his brash and ageless fictional creation” (Declaration of Fredrik Colting, 2). The character of Holden Caulfield, Colting stated, transcends the pages of the original book, and Salinger, like the character Colting bases on him, “has created a character that has become so culturally resonant that [Salinger] has lost control of him and cannot kill him off” (Declaration of Fredrik Colting, 3). Acknowledging that an early book cover and promotional materials refer to his novel as a ‘sequel’, Colting now characterizes “this description [a]s inaccurate” and reports that the U.S. edition will be free of such language (Declaration of Fredrik Colting, 8). His book, he writes,

is not designed to satisfy any interest the public might have in learning what happened next to Holden Caulfield or the other characters in Salinger’s book. Rather, it is intended to stand on its own as a critical examination of the character Holden Caulfield, the relationship between author and his creation, and the life of a particular author as he grows old but seems imprisoned by the literary character he created.
(Declaration of Fredrik Colting, 8)

In support of his claim that the book is not a sequel, Colting asserts that he neither copied nor appropriated the language of the book, beyond the use of certain catchphrases necessary to characterize Mr. C; that, beside the main character, only three characters from The Catcher in the Rye reappear in 60 Years Later; that the characters that do appear are reintroduced in order to further the critical exploration that is his stated goal; that he has created numerous characters independent of those created by Salinger; and that, “[e]ven more importantly, [his] book includes J.D. Salinger himself as the narrator/puppet master of the Mr. C character” (Declaration of Fredrik Colting, 10). As one reads 60 Years Later, he argues,

it becomes more and more clear that it is Salinger who is the most important character. His narrative starts and stops as he tries different ways to move the story forward. He even makes characters appear and disappear in front of Mr. C as the book progresses.
(Declaration of Fredrik Colting, 10).

In short, Mr. Colting is arguing that his is a transformative work, one that makes use of only that which is required for him to explore a premise that in large part centers upon Salinger himself. In additional filings this argument is explicitly supported by Robert Spoo, who had been asked to assist Colting’s attorneys in assessing the extent to which 60 Years Later had made “creative and transformative” use of The Catcher in the Rye (Declaration of Robert Spoo, 1) and by Martha Woodmansee, who describes 60 Years Later as a work of “meta-commentary” that

pursues critical reflection on J.D. Salinger and his masterpiece CR just as do the articles that literary scholars conventionally write and publish in literary journals, but[…]casts its commentary in an innovative “post-modern” form, specifically, that of a novel.
(Declaration of Martha Woodmansee, 3)

The Ruling of the Second District Court

In June of 2009 the Court issued a temporary restraining order to prevent the U.S. distribution of 60 Years Later, which was followed in July by the issuance of a preliminary injunction. Central to the ruling was Judge Deborah Batts’ examination of the question of whether 60 Years Later could be considered a parody or critique and therefore protected as fair use of material from Salinger’s copyrighted novel. With regard to Mr. Colting’s depiction of the septuagenarian version of Holden Caulfield, Judge Batts concluded that for most aspects of the character 60 Years Later was simply “rehashing one of the critical extant themes of Catcher” (Memorandum & Order, 16). In reaching the conclusion that in that regard 60 Years Later was neither parody nor a commentary, Judge Batts relied not only on the text of the novel but also the wording on the novel’s jacket and public statements by the Mr. Colting describing 60 Years Later as a tribute and a sequel. It was only after the suit was filed, the Judge pointed out, that Mr. Colting and his lawyers adopted the argument that the novel was commentary upon The Catcher in the Rye, and she dismisses their claims as “post hoc rationalizations employed through vague generalizations about the alleged naivete of the original” (Memorandum & Order, 11; see pp. 16-17, n. 2). As for the claim that the novel is transformative via its use of the character of Salinger, Judge Batts acknowledged that this was a “novel” element but stated that it “is at most, a tool with which to criticize and comment upon the author, J.D. Salinger, and his supposed idiosyncracies” (Memorandum & Order, 19). For Judge Batts, the gold standard for determining that a text is a parody that satisfies the standards for fair use is that the commentary or critique be focused on the original work itself.

Appeal to the Second Circuit

Judge Batts’ decision was immediately appealed to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, and an amicus brief was filed on behalf of Mr. Colting by, collectively, the American Library Association, the Association of Research Libraries, the Association of College and Research Libraries, The Organization for Transformative Works and the Right to Write Fund (Falzone).  In addition, an amicus brief was filed by four major news organizations: The New York Times, the Gannett Company, the Tribune Company, and The Associated Press. At first glance the involvement of the Associated Press in the filing of the amicus brief may seem ironic, given that organization’s determined efforts to control the use of its own intellectual property, efforts that in 2008 led to a controversy in the blogosphere when the organization tried to enforce a policy that would have required the purchase of licenses for quotations of as few as five words (Doctorow). In fact, in the brief the Associated Press and its fellows are at pains to emphasize the importance they place upon the protection of copyright. They are in the business of publishing copyrighted material and depend upon copyright law to protect their interests, especially in these days when “digital technologies make it ever easier for third parties to seize and repurpose the fruits of their costly newsgathering efforts” (Brief for Amicus Curiae The New York Times Company, et al., 4). However, a second concern common to news organizations trumps other issues in the case and causes them to make common ground with the author of 60 Years Later. That would be the issue of prior restraint, the practice of banning publication rather than seeking remedies after publication. This the brief describes as “the most offensive and least tolerable prohibition on speech” (Brief for Amicus Curiae, 5). The brief documents numerous instances of the courts coming down on the side of authors and publishers in opposition to prior restraint and argues that “[t]he Supreme Court’s consistent rejection of prior restraint reflects the ‘chief purpose’ of the Constitution’s  free-speech clause: ‘to prevent previous restraints upon publication’” (Brief for Amicus Curiae, 7). The brief uses the fact that the courts have not countenanced prior restraint in the face of libel or defamation or even, in the case of the Pentagon Papers, in the face of claims of national security, in order to argue that the injunction on the publication of 60 Years Later is inappropriate:

[…]in this case, where the only harm appears to be to the pride of a reclusive author in not having his desires fulfilled barring commentary about his iconic book and character, without any actual financial harm, the lower court saw fit to ban publication of a new boo. Such a result defies common sense, and is not—and cannot be—the law.
(Brief for Amicus Curiae, 1-2).

In the view of The Associated Press and its companion news organizations, the prior restraint visited upon 60 Years Later represented a radical remedy of last resort not justified by the facts of the case. The novel was arguably transformative, and it was premature to apply prior restraint at the stage of a preliminary injunction. There was, the brief argued, no evidence that publication of the novel would cause irreparable injury to the plaintiff. Moreover, should the novel be published and later be found to have infringed upon Salinger’s copyright, there were other steps that the copyright holder could pursue, such as suing for monetary damages, that would not raise First Amendment issues. This line of reasoning, the brief argues, was neglected by the district court, which, “[d]espite the dangers inherent in prior restraint[…]completely subordinates free speech interests and simply presumed the new publication would cause irreparable harm” (Brief for Amicus Curiae, 31).

According to reports of the oral arguments before the court of appeals, the justices repeatedly asked whether the district court had thoroughly examined the issue of fair use before it blocked the publication of the novel (Shanahan). The justices seemed at least willing to entertain the notion that the nature of the novel should be more thoroughly explored before an indefinite ban is placed upon its distribution in the U.S.

Works Cited

Brief for Amicus Curiae The New York Times Company, The Associated Press, Gannett Co., Inc. and Tribune Company on behalf of Defendants-Appellants. Downloaded from Anthony Falzone, “Confusion over Copyright Injunctions and Other Restraints of Speech.” The Center for Internet and Society 3 August 2009. Web. 28 Feb. 2008.

Complaint against ABP, Inc, John Doe, Windupbird Publishing Ltd, Nicotext A.B. Salinger et al v. John Doe et al. Federal District Court Filings and Dockets. 1 June 2009. Web. 28 Feb. 2010.

Declaration of Fredrik Colting. Salinger et al v. John Doe et al. Federal District Court Filings and Dockets. 15 June 2009. Web. 28 Feb. 2010.

Declaration of Martha Woodmansee Salinger et al v. John Doe et al. Federal District Court Filings and Dockets. 15 June 2009. Web. 28 Feb. 2010.

Declaration of Robert Spoo Salinger et al v. John Doe et al. Federal District Court Filings and Dockets. 15 June 2009. Web. 28 Feb. 2010.

Doctorow, Cory. “Associated Press Expects You to Pay to License Five-Word Quotations (and Reserves the Right to Terminate Your License).” BoingBoing 17 June 2008. Web. 28 Feb. 2010.

Falzone, Anthony. “Confusion over Copyright Injunctions and Other Restraints of Speech.” The Center for Internet and Society 3 August 2009. Web. 28 Feb. 2008.

Memorandum & Order. Salinger et al v. John Doe et al. Federal District Court Filings and Dockets. 2 July 2009. Web. 28 Feb. 2010.

Shanahan, Ed. “Second Circuit Panel Wonders Whether Judge Acted Hastily in Barring Book Based on ‘Catcher in the Rye’.” IP Law & Business. 3 Sept. 2009. Web. 28 Feb. 2008.

Wahlbrinck, Bernd. “The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger and Related Matters.” Teaching English: Worksheets Tests & More. 1999-2010. Web. 28 Feb. 2010.

Clancy Ratliff, Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Composition, Department of English, East Carolina University

OVERVIEW

In August of 2006, law professors William W. Fisher and William McGeveran of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard Law School, published “The Digital Learning Challenge: Obstacles to Educational Uses of Copyrighted Material in the Digital Age,” a white paper based on their research and two all-day workshops in which librarians, teachers, lawyers, and scholars gathered to discuss their encounters with copyright law. Their collective efforts and the publication of this white paper constitute one of the top intellectual property developments of 2006 because they have revealed and clarified four central problems related to the intersections among digital media, education, and copyright law:

• Unclear or inadequate copyright law relating to crucial provisions such as fair use and educational use;
• Extensive adoption of ‘digital rights management’ technology to lock up content;
• Practical difficulties obtaining rights to use content when licenses are necessary;
• Undue caution by gatekeepers such as publishers or educational administrators.

To illustrate these problems, Fisher and McGeveran present four case studies of digital educational endeavors that were delayed or jeopardized by copyright law. These include: 1.) a proposal to create a network for social studies teachers to share teaching materials; 2.) the use of movie scenes on DVD in film studies courses; 3.) the Database for Recorded American Music (DRAM), a repository of obscure music; and 4.) the conflict that arises when public broadcasters, who are allowed to use some third-party content in their programs, make programming available on the Web. In this review of Fisher and McGeveran’s white paper, I make connections between their case studies and situations faced in rhetoric and composition pedagogy, and I explain what composition scholars can do to help protect teachers’ rights to use third-party content for noncommercial, educational purposes.

Copyright: Common Ground Shared Among Rhetoric and Composition, Film Studies, Music, and K-12 History

Material from the first three case studies is particularly relevant for rhetoric and composition scholars who do work with digital media, and I focus on those three cases in my review. The first case is a proposed project by George Mason University’s Center for History and New Media called the History Teacher Network. The network, modeled on social software, was to be designed as a place where K-12 teachers can upload and share the learning materials they create, such as PowerPoint presentations or online modules. From the perspective of copyright law, the problem was that some of the learning materials may feature copyrighted third-party content: photographs, music, or video clips. That George Mason University would risk secondary liability for hosting these materials and enabling their distribution constituted an insurmountable obstacle, and the Center for History and New Media “has been forced to curtail its plans for a resource exchange component of the network because of the risk of secondary liability for copyright infringement” (Fisher and McGeveran 20). In rhetoric and composition studies, scholars have proposed similar networks for sharing teaching materials. In April of 2006, I attended a meeting in Los Angeles for Next/Text, a project of the Institute for the Future of the Book. The meeting was devoted to discussion of what rhetoric and writing textbooks could become if their authors used digital technologies creatively and innovatively. We imagined just such a network, composed of materials from teachers; textbooks could be curated by users’ creating various collections and arrangements of these materials. They could be tagged with categories of the users’ choosing, and they could be linked through a system similar to Amazon.com’s recommendations based on users’ tastes. We hadn’t gotten so far as to propose potential hosting sites for the network (though futureofthebook.org, the Institute’s domain, would have been an intuitive first choice), but a network of teaching materials in rhetoric and composition studies would almost certainly face the same secondary liability issues that thwarted the History Teacher Network. 

In their second case study, Fisher and McGeveran explain the pedagogical and legal dilemma faced by film studies teachers. In order to illustrate and teach techniques such as jump cutting, mise en scene, wipes, and split screen, they must be able to show scenes from films. A teacher may, for example, want to create a montage of scenes from eight to ten films to show the evolution of special effects over time. If she wants to do that, or if she wants to make a scene or two available to students for a homework assignment, she must circumvent copy protection technology on the DVDs she uses. Otherwise, she and the students must waste class time sitting through “forced watching,” as Fisher and McGeveran  put it – previews, advertisements, and copyright warnings. Such circumvention constitutes a violation of DRM, or Digital Rights Management, even though the teacher’s use of the content falls under fair use.

The result is what Fisher and McGeveran call an “uneasy equilibrium” in the violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Rhetoric and composition teachers may face the same dilemma as more rhetoricians – Joyce Irene Middleton’s work is one example – study film as rhetorical text, or when composition teachers wish to use film clips to illustrate issues of representation, including race and sexuality. In order to settle the dilemma for film teachers, Fisher and McGeveran argue that “[t]here should be no penalty under the DMCA when DRM systems are circumvented purely to enable uses of content that are educational, legally permitted, and noncommercial – perhaps with a proviso that reasonable efforts are made to avoid subsequent leakage of the content” (97). While their suggestion would relieve film teachers’ concerns about copyright law, it still does not address another major problem with copyright law: its labyrinthine complexity. Scholars such as law professor Jessica Litman have argued that copyright law should be easier for the general public to understand, which would cohere with copyright law’s ostensible concern for the public interest and help the public to respect it and take it seriously.

The third case study Fisher and McGeveran present is an effort by NewYork University and New World Records, a nonprofit record company, to create DRAM, or the Database for Recorded American Music. The database is devoted to obscure music and “underrecognized composers” (31), so the administrators of DRAM prioritized good financial compensation for the artists. Despite New World Records’ and NYU’s commitment to fair compensation, as well as the nonprofit educational nature of the use of the music, the rights clearance process proved to consume a prohibitive amount of money and time. Fisher and McGeveran report, “All told, rights clearance for DRAM consumed several years and enormous amounts of staff effort and expense. The small scale and nonprofit status of the initiative often made rightsholders or their intermediaries less interested in responding to those efforts” (34). The content industries had little to gain from DRAM, it seems. At least one project in rhetoric similar to DRAM exists: AmericanRhetoric.com, a repository of audio, video, and text transcripts of famous speeches. While much of the content on AmericanRhetoric.com consists of presidential and senatorial speeches, which are considered government documents and therefore are public domain, the site does feature some copyrighted content. The site has a fair use statement, an excerpt of which reads:

AmericanRhetoric.com contains copyrighted materials (html/pdf/flash text, audio, video, digital images), the use of which in many cases has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner(s). These materials include all of the artifacts in the “Movie Speeches” site area as well as various artifacts in the “Top 100 Speeches” and “Speech Bank” site areas. […]

The site is making such material available in the effort to advance understanding of political, social, and religious issues as they relate to the study and practice of rhetoric and public address deemed relevant to the public interest and the promotion of civic discourse.

AmericanRhetoric.com believes that the nature and use of the artifacts on this site not in the public domain or not the property of the owner of this site constitutes “fair use” of any such material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act. The material on this site is intended primarily for research and educational purposes, has been previously published, and is distributed without profit.

I do not know whether Michael E. Eidenmuller, the owner of AmericanRhetoric.com, has received cease-and-desist letters for his inclusion of copyrighted content, but I am speculating that the resource he has created has gone unchallenged due mainly to the fact that he maintains it individually and does not seem to have the endorsement of his institution, the University of Texas at Tyler. He features ads on the site, presumably to help cover hosting costs and domain name registration.

The Classroom Use Exception, the TEACH Act, and Digital Media

Each of these three cases has implications for projects proposed or already underway by scholars in rhetoric and composition. From their case studies, Fisher and McGeveran articulate several “obstacles to digital learning” (42). They explain the classroom use exception to fair use, which gives teachers additional freedom beyond fair use to make use of third-party content in classrooms for educational purposes. We’ve all, for example, probably heard about a loophole in copyright law that permits the photocopying of an article if the teacher is struck with inspiration to use it right before the class meeting. This understanding is correct; a spontaneity exception does exist, but the use of third-party content for digital materials — blogs, wikis, web-based class projects   is more legally fraught, even if the digital materials were only available to the students enrolled in the course.

The classroom use exception is intended for face-to-face teaching that takes place within the walls of classrooms, not necessarily for hybrid courses, online courses, or homework assignments for a face-to-face course. The TEACH Act of 2001 addressed the incompatibility of the classroom use exception by no longer requiring students to be in the same location to use third-party content distributed by teachers. However, the act stipulated that the content must be integral to the course objectives, and that only accredited, nonprofit institutions were covered. Fisher and McGeveran critique the boundaries of the freedoms (47):

This bias excludes, for example, an adult education class offered by a nonprofit but unaccredited institution; asynchronous instruction and discussion that occurs outside of class sessions at preset uniform times; and even access to material by students in other related classes at the same institution.

Also, Fisher and McGeveran suggest, it would seem that DRM and the DMCA would supersede the TEACH Act, which says that teachers have to make sure the content isn’t available after the class session, thereby preventing it from being disseminated, which is not architecturally possible to do in online environments. Fisher and McGeveran conclude that as far as the TEACH Act is concerned:

Congress might well need to start from scratch. In particular, the across-the-board exclusion of asynchronous teaching and learning sacrifices one of the principal benefits of digital technology. Likewise, the limited conceptualization of education as tied closely to highly traditional academic institutions limits the statute’s effectiveness in the decentralized digital environment (96).

I agree that education ought not be bound up with institutions, and their observation certainly acknowledges some of the educational efforts online, such as academic weblogs and wikis created by individuals or groups not affiliated with one particular university.

Libraries and Rights Clearance

The white paper also takes up the copyright issues associated with libraries and archives. Fisher and McGeveran identify statutory and actual damages as problems faced by libraries. It costs nearly one million dollars to defend a copyright case, and that cost may only cover the statutory damages (the pre-established charges that come in to play when calculating exact damages proves difficult).  Actual damages, if awarded, could be even higher. Additionally, the copyright holder might seek a trial by jury – which may result in more money being awarded in damages – instead of a hearing before a judge. The prohibitive cost of copyright infringement lawsuits has several consequences for libraries and universities, not to mention the collections of archives online that function as libraries but are not recognized as such: Educators often ask for licenses, or permission to use content, even when it is not legally necessary because their use would be protected under fair use. Because universities do not want to risk lawsuits (a risk aversion that Fisher and McGeveran feel may be unwarranted by actual lawsuit occurrence), they are “overly cautious” (85). They sink time and labor into a cumbersome rights clearance process to find that content industries don’t have any incentive to provide differential licensing of content for the benefit of educational institutions, teachers, and most important of all, students. They use closed content management systems for courseware, such as Blackboard and WebCT, instead of open access courseware. They institute and abide by university photocopying policies that are more stringent than the 1976 Guidelines for Classroom Copying. In other words, the law is actually more lenient than the universities.

The rights clearance process is made even more difficult by digital technology. For the Copyright Clearance Center and other intermediaries, there are strikingly different processes for comparable actions, like making thirty copies of a print article for classroom use as opposed to  making a digital copy available on an intranet site for 30 days (80). Permission costs, or royalties, can be costly, as anyone who has created a course pack for a composition course knows, but most rightsholders still do not see education as an important market or source of revenue. Thus, they don’t offer discounts, or reduced royalty fees, especially for digital content. Fisher and McGeveran argue that “many rightsholders are unsure about digital distribution formats, and their uncertainty translates into higher fees” (84). In the end, Fisher and McGeveran recommend a broadening of the definition of libraries and archives, so that “untraditional noncommercial entities and ‘virtual’ collections available online” may also be protected by the libraries and archives exceptions to copyright law. They also argue that the libraries and archives exceptions could be revised, particularly in light of digital technology, to address the “number of copies” limitation (94).” Fisher and McGeveran suggest two other measures to make the rights clearance process less arduous. First, they recommend the creation of a technological tool that would help to figure out whether or not permission to use the work is necessary. If it turned out that permission was needed, the software would search for licenses the institution has already secured and currently uses, such as blanket licenses and library consortia agreements, and it would search for similar material that was already cleared – Creative Commons licensed material, for example. Second, they recommend that universities and K-12 teachers get together and come up with a list of best practices – for figuring out whether something is fair use or not, for licensing negotiations, and deployment of DRM systems – all of these with specific illustrative cases that model the best practices.

Conclusion: How You Can Contribute to the Open Access Effort

Fisher and McGeveran conclude their white paper with several suggestions for what scholars can do to help bring about copyright reform, some of which connect to the work that the CCCC Intellectual Property Caucus is doing. Scholars in our field can contribute to open access by doing research about it. Fisher and McGeveran point to several areas for future research, and I have highlighted three that may be of particular interest to scholars in rhetoric and composition:

• Documenting how often educational users of content in fact are threatened with copyright infringement suits, and how often such suits are filed (the dearth of judicially decided cases in this area suggests that these numbers may turn out to be surprisingly low).
• Analyzing  how frequently rightsholders decline permission for educational uses of content and the typical reasons for such refusal.
• Updating empirical data concerning policies and guidelines adopted by universities and school districts concerning educational use of content.

These projects would make excellent master’s theses and dissertations for rhetoric researchers interested in legal discourse. Fisher and McGeveran also offer a series of recommendations for what kinds of action we can take to help the open access movement, and I end with these (quotations from pages 107-108 of the white paper are in italics):

1. The “some rights reserved” licensing schemes promoted by Creative Commons and Science Commons, which can be easily customized at their web sites.

Rhetoric and composition studies scholars are already using Creative Commons licenses on their weblogs, and several journals, including Kairos, Lore, The Writing Instructor, and Computers and Composition Online, allow authors to use Creative Commons licenses. Scholar and Feminist Online, while not a rhetoric journal, also allows Creative Commons licensing. Admittedly, these are all online journals and, as the common argument goes, they have nothing to lose by making this an option for authors. However, Parlor Press, which publishes print monographs, also has allowed for Creative Commons licensing. The move to license more scholarship under a some-rights-reserved model is still new, and it needs leadership within the discipline. Specifically, junior faculty and graduate students may be especially loath to ask publishers to give copyright back to them after a period of a few years, or to give them permission to archive a copy of the article or book on their personal web sites, or to use a Creative Commons license for the work. Junior scholars are in a position of vulnerability with publishers, which is why it is particularly important for senior colleagues in rhetoric and composition (as well as other fields) to publish their work in open-access journals that allow Creative Commons licenses and to state openly that access and copyright reform efforts led them to choose to publish in these journals.

Also, scholars can use the Author’s Addendum, published by the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition of the Association of Research Libraries, during copyright negotiations with publishers. The addendum is available at http://www.arl.org/sparc/author/addendum.html.

2. The Free Software Foundation’s GNU Free Documentation License, intended for use in “textbooks and teaching materials for all topics” and used as the license for Wikipedia entries;

In rhetoric and composition studies, Matt Barton’s open-access textbook comes to mind. He and students at St. Cloud State University co-wrote a rhetoric and composition textbook and published it at Wikibooks, and they continue to update it. The textbook is licensed under a GNU Free Documentation License. I would like to see more projects such as this one.

3. Numerous open access journals, such as those sponsored by the Public Library of Science (PLoS) (a list can be found at the Directory of Open Access Journals);

Open access journals in rhetoric and composition include Kairos, Enculturation, The Writing Instructor, Lore, Composition Forum, Across the Disciplines, and more. Support these journals by submitting work to them, reading them, linking to the articles on your weblogs, and citing their articles in your own work if applicable.

4. Efforts by universities, including the University of California and Harvard, to require their faculty to make copies of their scholarly articles available in open access repositories, and to provide the faculty technical assistance in doing so;

The University of Kansas has also joined the open access project with KU ScholarWorks, which “makes important research available to a wider audience and helps assure its long-term preservation” (online). The university passed a Resolution on Access to Scholarly Information in early 2005, and they strongly encourage faculty to keep copies of their publications in the repository.

5. Increased self-archiving by professors and other educators on personal or institutional web sites;
 
Several rhetoric and composition scholars already archive their publications on their personal sites; especially impressive examples are archives by Carolyn Miller, Charles Bazerman, and Michael Day. I would add that journal publisher Elsevier (whose general policies I am not endorsing) now allows authors to make and distribute copies of articles published in their journal for classroom use and for research colleagues. They also allow authors to post preprint copies of articles on their personal web sites, and they allow authors to post revised copies of articles on personal web sites as long as they are accompanied by a link to Elsevier’s web site. Authors have these rights automatically without having to ask Elsevier for them.

6. Multiple initiatives to make curricular materials, syllabi, and other educational content accessible to the general public, including Connexions, LionShare, MIT OpenCourseware, and the Berkman Center’s own H2O project; 
 
These initiatives are best carried out at the university level rather than the level of the discipline. However, rhetoric and composition scholars can contribute to this effort by serving on faculty senate and other university-level committees to set policy related to open access teaching materials.

7. Increased discussion of legal mandates for open access to research funded by government grants – effectively including most major biomedical research in the United States and Europe.

I would add that the Petition for Public Access to Publicly Funded Research in the United States, which would require open-access publication of all articles or books funded by the U.S. Federal Government, would help to create an archive of research available to the public. Over 24,000 people have signed the petition, available at http://publicaccesstoresearch.org.

RELEVANT SOURCES

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Reyman, Jessica. “Copyright, Distance Education, and the TEACH Act: Implications for Teaching Writing.” CCC 58:1 (2006): 30-45.

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Click here to view the individual articles in this issue at http://www.ncte.org/cccc/ccc/issues/v55-4

Swiencicki, Jill. Rev. of Teaching Youth Media: A Critical Guide to Literacy, Video Production, and Social Change, by Steven Goodman. CCC. 55.4 (2004): 762-765.

Waddell, Craig. Rev. of The Rhetoric of Risk: Technical Documentation in Hazardous Environments, by Beverly Sauer. CCC. 55.4 (2004): 766-767.

Juzwik, Mary M. Rev. of The Rhetoric and Ideology of Genre: Strategies for Stability and Change, by Richard Coe, Lorelei Lingard, and Tatiana Teslenko, eds. CCC. 55.4 (2004): 767-770.

Mortensen, Peter. Rev. of The Extraordinary Work of Ordinary Writing: Annie Ray’s Diary by Jennifer Sinor. CCC. 55.4 (2004): 771-773.

Cooper, Marilyn M. Rev. of Arts of Living: Reinventing the Humanities for the Twenty-First Century by Kurt Spellmeyer. CCC. 55.4 (2004): 773-778.

Yancey, Kathleen Blake. “Postmodernism, Palimpsest, and Portfolios: Theoretical Issues in the Representation of Student Work.” CCC. 55.4 (2004): 738-761.

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:

ccc55.4 Portfolios Print Students Representation Context Model Work Medium DigitalPortfolios Links Composition Space Information Curriculum

Works Cited:

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Allen, Michael, Jane Frick, Jeff Sommers, and Kathleen Yancey. “Outside Review of Writing Portfolios: An On-Line Evaluation,” WPA: Writing Program Administration (Spring 1997): 64-88.

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Cambridge, Barbara, ed., Electronic Portfolios: Emerging Practices in Student, Faculty, and Institutional Learning . Washington, DC: American Association of Higher Education, 2001.

Davidson, Michael. “Palimtexts.” Postmodern Genres. 1992. Ed. Marjorie Perloff. Norman: U of Oklahoma P, 1995.

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Golson, Emily. “Cognition, Meaning, and Creativity: On Reading Student Hypertexts.” DeWitt and Strasma, 155-77.

Harris, Joseph. Interview quoted in “New Media Live,” Todd Taylor and Scott Halbritter. CCCC New York City, 2003.

Jacobi, Martin. “Delivery: A Definition and History.” Delivering College Composition: The Fifth Canon . Ed. Kathleen Blake Yancey, forthcoming, Heinemann 2004.

Lanham, Richard. The Electronic Word: Democracy, Technology, and the Arts. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1993.

Leggett, B. J. “On Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.” 2000. Modern American Poetry. English Department at University of Illinois at Champaign, compiled and prepared by Edward Brunner, John Timberman Newcomb, and Cary Nelson. 18 Dec. 2003 <http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/s_z/stevens/blackbird.htm>.

May, Todd. Our Practices, Our Selves. University Park: Penn State UP, 2001.

McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding New Media. 1964. Cambridge: MIT P, 1999.

Piccello, Lizette. Conversation with author. Workshop, Virginia Beach, VA, 22 Jul. 2003.

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Selfe, Cynthia. ” Technology and Literacy: A Story about the Perils of Not Paying Attention .” CCC 50.3 (1999): 411-36.

Sellen, Abigail, and Richard Harper. The Myth of the Paperless Office. Cambridge: MIT P, 2001.

Stevens, Wallace. “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.” 2003. Representative Poetry Online , ed. Ian Lancashire. University of Toronto Libraries. 23 Jan. 2004 <http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poem2018.html>.

Tinberg, Howard. “Starting Where Students Are, but Knowing (and Letting Them Know) Where We Want to Take Them,” TETYC 30.1 (2002): 5.

Truer, Paul, and Jill Jensen, “Electronic Portfolios Need Standards to Thrive.” Educause Quarterly 26.2 (2003): 34-41. Van Bruggen, Coosje. Frank O. Gehry Guggenheim Museum Bilbao . 1997. New York: Guggenheim Museum Publications, 1999.

Vielstimmig, Myka. “Not a Cosmic Convergence: Rhetorics, Poetics, Performance, and the Web.” Kairos 3.2 (1998). 29 Sept. 03. <http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/3.2/features/myka/cosmic4.htm>.

Wickliffe, Greg, and Kathleen Blake Yancey. “The Perils of Creating a Class Web-Site: It Was the Best of Times, It Was the . . . .” Computers and Composition 18.3 (2001): 177-86.

Yancey, Kathleen Blake. “Looking for Sources of Coherence in a Fragmented World: Notes toward a New Assessment Design.” Computers and Composition 21.1 (2004): 89-102.

—. Reflection in the Writing Classroom. Logan: Utah State UP, 1998.

Yancey, Kathleen Blake, and Irwin Weiser. Situating Portfolios. Logan: Utah State UP, 1997.

Micciche, Laura R. “Making a Case for Rhetorical Grammar.” CCC. 55.4 (2004): 716-737.

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:

ccc55.4 Grammar Students Language Writing Teaching Work GrammarInstruction RhetoricalGrammar Thinking Analysis Sentence Composition Discourse Skills Meaning

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Young, Vershawn Ashanti. “Your Average Nigga.” CCC. 55.4 (2004): 693-715.

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 ghetto-to-middle class identity conflict as I facilitated classroom interactions with a black male student from the ghetto.

Keywords:

ccc55.4 Students School Ghetto Language Class Race StandardEnglish Identity Teachers AfricanAmerican English

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Hawisher, Gail E., Cynthia L. Selfe, Brittney Moraski, and Melissa Pearson. “Becoming Literate in the Information Age: Cultural Ecologies and the Literacies of Technology.” CCC. 55.4 (2004): 642-692.

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:

ccc55.4 Ecology CulturalEcology Literacy Computers DigitalLiteracy Access Technology Practice Students Web Online

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Popken, Randall. “Edwin Hopkins and the Costly Labor of Composition Teaching.” CCC. 55.4 (2004): 618-641.

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:

ccc55.4 EHopkins Faculty Composition Teaching Labor Writing Students Work History

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Submitted by Jessie Borgman, Western Michigan University, Lake Michigan College

This example addresses OWI Principle 4: “Appropriate onsite composition theories, pedagogies, and strategies should be migrated and adapted to the online instructional environment.”  More specifically, the practices suggested below relate to items 4.1 and 4.6 from the position statement: “When migrating from onsite modalities to the online environment, teachers should break their assignments, exercises, and activities into smaller units to increase opportunities for interaction between teacher and student” (4.1) and “Teachers should incorporate redundancy (e.g., reminders and repeated information) in the course’s organization. Such repetition acts like oral reminders in class” (4.6). I try to highlight here the ways in which my online practice is not just effective in and of itself, but how it derives in many ways from my onsite teaching practice.

Explanation of effective practice

The effective practice that I use in my online writing classrooms involves course clarity, in particular, easy course navigation. Clarity and ease of navigation are an extension of my face-to-face instruction, thus the connection to OWI Principle 4 regarding the migration of onsite pedagogies to the online environment.

I use elements from my face-to-face courses that were successful and re-think them to work in the online setting. In my face-to-face courses, I was a very organized instructor. On the first day of class, I handed out all of the course documents (syllabus, calendar, assignments, points breakdown) and students would have a clear picture of what they needed to do and when to do it, maximizing their chances for success in the course.

I spent the entire first class explaining all of the assignments and going over the due dates for the writing assignments. I would also discuss the course policies outlined in the syllabus. Many of these practices migrated from my face-to-face courses into my online courses. 

How to implement this practice

I have always felt that my ability to present my face-to-face writing courses early on to students from what I’d call the global perspective–i.e. how the course works as a whole–has been one of my strengths as an onsite teacher.  Laying out the guiding organizational principles for the course, in addition to delineating clear expectations early on, has helped my face-to-face students to see how smaller assignments scaffold major assignments and ultimately to stay on track in the course.  I have thus been very conscious of how to migrate these aspects of my teaching to the online environment.  I strive to create clarity and easy course navigation in my online writing courses in the following ways:

Visual Layout: I make sure that the visual layout  of each page is intuitive and does not include too many options; I keep it simple. Students can be easily overwhelmed in an online course, so I do everything that I can to simplify navigation. I do not include too many areas of the class, so students are not diverted from the major course modules. I also clearly label each area in the course menu.  In my community college courses, I use the labels “Home,” “Announcements,” “Modules,” and “Grades.”  In my four-year college courses, I use a course introduction and 3 modules. In my experience, four to five course menu items work well. The limited number of menu items keep relevant information accessible without overwhelming students with too many menu options (screenshots 1a and 1b).

Screenshot 1a – Clearly Labelled Areas of the Course

Screenshot 1b – Course Menu Items

Making Information Available from Beginning of the Term: I prefer to make all of the information for the course available at the start of the term, including due dates for assignments and points values, just as I did in my face-to-face teaching.  This practice helps to establish clear expectations early on, which is as important in the online environment as it is face-to-face, perhaps even more so.  Further, making expectations and due dates explicit early helps students feel prepared, and thus, I believe, more confident.  Finally, setting due dates for the entire semester allows students to  manage time effectively.  In the online setting, we do not have regular physical meetings to keep students  on track so I am not able to use face-to-face classroom time to ensure students  have completed coursework to that date.  Giving students materials early enables them to better schedule  their time while taking a course online (screenshot 2).

Screenshot 2 – Due Dates, Assignments, Point Values Visible at the Start of Term

Content Clarity:  I aim for clarity in online course materials (syllabus, calendar, assignments) by using basic formatting techniques, like chunking text.  I used these techniques to produce handouts that I would use for my face-to-face classes, but online, I was not just providing documents to students.  Instead, they were getting content in the LMS itself; therefore, I made the conscious choice to use features of the LMS editor to present information as clearly as possible (screenshot 3).

Screenshot 3 – Chunked Text in a Course Syllabus

Welcome Video: To replicate what I do in a face-to-face class on the first day to welcome students and orient them to the course, I use a welcome video in my online courses.  The video walks students through the course (where things are, what to click on) in order to  give them  a  tour  of  the layout. Here is a link to one of the welcome videos from one of my community college courses.

Color Coding: I color code the course calendar based on the activity the students are being asked to complete. I use orange for tasks like working on rough or final drafts of the writing assignments or researching for a paper.  I use green for reading assignments.  Pink indicates a discussion assignment.  Color coding is another way in which I can use the LMS to help students “see” aspects of the online class to replace the onsite practice of discussing individual assignments face-to-face and walking students through what happens when.  I want online students to feel as comfortable as face-to-face students do in terms of knowing exactly what is being asked of them (screenshots 4 and 5).

Screenshot 4 – Color-coded Course Calendar

Screenshot 5 – Color-coded Course Calendar

Organize Around Major Assignment Modules: In designing face-to-face classes, I organized a term around major essay assignments.  Students could identify how what we were doing in any individual class was related to a major assignment. Each activity would align vertically so that students would understand the connection between minor assignments and the larger course projects (helping to reduce the feeling that smaller projects were “mere busy-work”). Instead, my course design helps them to see how a discrete activity (like learning to use a database, for example) connects to the major assessment/assignment we are working towards.  I try to design and present my online classes using the same basic principle: organizing course modules around major assignments (screenshot 6).

Screenshot 6 – Use of Modules to Delineate Materials for Each Writing Assignment

Submitted by Danica Hubbard, Professor of English, College of DuPage

This example addresses OWI Principle 3: “Appropriate composition teaching/learning strategies should be developed for the unique features of the online instructional environment.” The blog is a platform for ongoing conversation and reflection related to individual student research projects throughout a course. This in-practice example has been used in a community college setting in an online, primarily asynchronous, first-year composition course being delivered through Blackboard 9.1.

Explanation of effective practice

My practice involves having students in our first-year research writing course each start a blog in our course management system (Blackboard) early in the term to introduce themselves. Students are then required to revisit and update their blog as a way of collecting research material and reflecting on that material as the course unfolds. In addition to keeping their own research blog, students are required to view and comment on other student blogs. My use of the blog tool in this way helps students to keep research material organized, allows them to reflect on the research process as it unfolds, and helps to foster a sense of community in the online environment.   

In my experience, the blog tool is a good way for online students to collect, organize and reflect on research material. The blog commenting feature also makes it possible for students to read and respond to each other so that they can share research successes and frustrations. As such, blogs seem ideally suited to the online environment. They provide a kind of portfolio tool for students who could never otherwise deliver a physical portfolio to me as an instructor. Nor could they feasibly share a physical portfolio with others in the class. The blog tool allows them to do just this.

Since we use the blog on an ongoing basis throughout the course, I make it easily accessible from the main course menu in the course management system. This screenshot shows my online writing course menu in Blackboard. The link to student blogs is highly visible, rather than buried deeper in the course architecture (in a folder or individual unit in our course, for example).

Figure 1 – Link to Blogs in Course Menu

Early in the course, students are required to do an introductory post.  The assignment asks a series of five questions about their interests. The relatively informal questions tend to invite candid responses and students often discover shared interests with others in the class. The first blog post assignment also asks students to post a picture of themselves or an avatar image (a picture representing who they are in this class). The blog tool allows students to insert video or audio clips about their interests and include links to favorite websites. We are not necessarily focused on research just yet, but that will follow in subsequent blog assignments.

Below is a series of screenshots showing the “Introduce Yourself” blog entry assignment. Below the assignment instructions you can see a student’s introductory post and then an instructor comment.

Figure 2 – First Blog Post Assignment

Figure 3 – Student “Introduce Yourself” Blog Entry

Figure 4 – Instructor Comment

After the initial introductory post, assignments that require students to return to their blogs become much more focused on each student’s developing research project.

These blog assignments recur throughout our course, affording students the opportunity to update their research progress and to check in with one another to discuss research-related discoveries and frustrations. I will ask questions like these: Did your initial search yield too many general sources? Were you able to secure an interview with a professional in your field of research interest? Was the academic journal language difficult to understand?

Here is a screenshot of a typical assignment that asks students to return to their blog.

Figure 5 – Assignment Directing Students to Use Their Blog

This assignment occurs relatively early in the course, a couple of units after the “Introduce Yourself” assignment. It moves us beyond that introductory post and begins to focus students on questions about research and sources. These questions help me to uncover what students’ past experience with research is and what some of their biases might be.

This assignment, like others in the course, includes the invitation to students to read what classmates have written and respond: “What do you think? Why?” Again, the blog tool is well-suited to this kind of discussion-oriented approach to keeping a research portfolio. A more private research journal, for example, would only be viewable by an individual student and the instructor. It might organize entries effectively, but would not allow me to have students engage in dialog with each other about their research.

The following tips can help instructors to encourage active student blogging:

1. Establish a rubric or sample blog for students to view.
2. Assign points or credit for each blog response or a series of blog responses.
3. Award “best blog comments” at the end of the semester.
4. Utilize multiple venues to promote the research blogs such as the Announcement, Discussion Board and all class e-mail.  
5. Emphasize brevity and simplicity — blogs should be informal and authentic. 
6. Share graphics and links about the importance of student blogging.
7. Emphasize digital citizenship — sharing and helping one another locate obscure source material, reviewing citations or changing research topic directions strengthens the class community.

The blog tool as I use it helps students to see how their writing and research progress and helps them to reflect on hurdles they face, like finding a topic. The fact that the blogs are open for viewing and commenting to each student means that research challenges can be shared. Sometimes students will share what they think is a useful research source, for example. In other cases, the commenting feature of the blog simply allows students to support one another and express shared experience.

Below is a screenshot that shows some back and forth dialog between students who have used the  “Comment” feature of the blog. The comments are not particularly long, nor are they written in a formal academic tone. On the contrary, they are friendly and supportive.

In an initial blog post, a student has mentioned the challenge of a research project seeming overwhelming, especially in the early stages. What follows is the commenting pictured below. One student comments that she also finds that research can sometimes feel “overwhelming” and suggests that taking frequent breaks can help make getting through material a bit easier. A student then responds with a quick “Thanks” and offers a suggestion for using a search engine effectively. This is followed by a comment in response, a final “Thanks” and the student indicates she may try the search advice provided by the earlier commenter.

Figure 6 – Blog Comments

The research advice is not necessarily profound. And there is no mechanism in the course to require the final commenter to actually try out the search advice provided by the earlier commenter. But this is not really the point. The idea is more to get students talking to each other, exchanging ideas, and building that sense of community that comes from sharing successes and challenges. Using the blog tool  enhances our sense of community in the online environment.

Here is a final series of screenshots that show a student post and then comments from classmates. At this point in the course, students are still refining their topics, paying particular attention to narrowing their research from broad topics down to manageable theses. They are also actively evaluating sources, differentiating fact from opinion, and considering what sources might be applicable to their topics. (One requirement for the research assignment is that students must use video/film of some kind, which is what this post begins with.)

Figure 7 – Blog Post About Ongoing Research

Figure 8 – Blog Post Comment

Figure 9 – Blog Post Comment

Here the commenter notes that finding specifically focused research material can be challenging–a challenge seemingly shared by others in the course. The student suggests using “specific keywords” when searching. Perhaps more valuable than this specific piece of research advice, however, is that via the blog tool and its commenting feature, students see that their individual research challenges are shared by others.

Challenge this practice addresses

The blog tool as I use it allows students to organize research material and reflect on it throughout our composition course. The blog acts in the way a physical research portfolio might but offers us the digital equivalent, ideal for use in the entirely online setting.

More than just acting as a digital portfolio, though, the blog tool as I use it facilitates discussion among online students: discussion that becomes more focused on each student’s developing research project as our course unfolds. I find the Introduction blog a great starting point to open the lines of communication and get the class “buzzing.” Communicating online can be difficult because students may feel vulnerable, experience writer’s block or believe they do not have common experiences to share. However, the blog reinforces my commitment to encouraging group interaction. Students contribute constructively to the group and share some of their personal experience – this forms an important bond of trust. Once the discussion begins, students often reveal their research-related hurdles and successes as they progress from assignment to assignment in the course. In other words, in addition to the blog allowing a student to develop a nicely organized research portfolio, it also affords the opportunity for students to become part of a community–not necessarily an easy thing to do in the entirely online environment.

The practice of establishing and maintaining an Introduction Blog is within the theoretical framework of the Community of Inquiry (CoI). The CoI Model presents a process of creating a deep and meaningful (collaborative-constructivist) learning experience through the development of three interdependent elements:  social, cognitive and teaching presence. Social presence is “the ability of participants to identify with the community, communicate purposefully in a trusting environment, and develop inter-personal relationships by way of projecting their individual personalities” (Swan, 2009). Teaching presence is “the design, facilitation and direction of cognitive and social processes for the purpose of realizing personally meaningful outcomes. Cognitive presence is the extent to which learners are able to construct and confirm reflection and discourse” (Anderson, Rourke, Garrison & Archer, 2001).

Anderson, T. Rourke, L., Garrison, D.  R., & Archer, W. (2001). Assessing teaching presence in a computer conferencing context. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 5(2), 1-17.  Retrieved September 6, 2011 from  http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.95.9117&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Anderson, T. (2007).  Social and cognitive presence in virtual learning environments. [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved September 6, 2011 from http://www.slideshare.net/terrya/social-and-cognitive-presence-in-virtual-learning-environments

Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), 87-105.

Garrison, R. Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2003). A theory of critical inquiry in online distance education. In M.G. Moore & W.G. Anderson (Eds.), Handbook of Distance Education, 113-127. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
http://communitiesofinquiry.com/model

Garrison, D. R., & Anderson, T. (2003). E-learning in the 21st century: A framework for research and practice. London: Routledge/Falmer.

Swan, K., Garrison, D. R. & Richardson, J. C. (2009). A constructivist approach to online learning: the Community of Inquiry framework. In Payne, C. R. (Ed.) Information Technology and Constructivism in Higher Education: Progressive Learning Frameworks. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 43-57.

How to implement this practice

How to Create a Blog

Creating and Editing a Blog Entry

When creating a blog, start by asking interesting open-ended questions that allow for feedback and reflection.

To begin a new blog:

1. Click on the tab “Create Blog Entry.”  Each blog entry will be time stamped and dated for ease in archiving. 
2. Use the “Blog Instructions” tab to insert instructions for students including a possible due date, expectations and examples.  You can start the thread to establish the conversation or encourage students to begin the thread. 
3. Manage the posts by using the “delete” and “availability” tabs in Blackboard.  You can change the Blog settings at any time. 
4. Provide comments to your students and encourage feedback amongst your students.  Students can view each post by default or you can change the privacy or group settings.  You can also categorize the blog posts in order for students to easily find the posts they are most interested in. 
5. Insert links within blog posts for reference to related websites or references.  You may also provide a picture library to store photos or images of interest.

Blackboard 9.1 includes a blog tool as do most learning management systems. No additional tools, accounts, or applications are required.  There are, however, many stand-alone blogging tools available, most of them free but requiring account creation and sign-up. Some of these blog tools include Google’s Blogger or open source software WordPress.

What do our students believe it means to be a college- and career-ready writer?
National and state policies are being implemented based on a particular vision of what it means to be college and career ready. It appears that these policies haven’t been informed by important statements from our professional community (see the Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing) or by the actual experiences and expectations of college students themselves. We need to change that….

CCCC, CWPA, and TYCA invite you to participate in a national “Listening Tour” with incoming college writers at the start of the fall term. Below you’ll find details describing how you can host a listening tour session on your campus and share the results so they make an impact nationally. Thanks for doing your part to get the voices of writing students and those who advocate on their behalf into the national discussion!

NOTE: THE DEADLINE HAS BEEN EXTENDED TO MONDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2013.

Listening Tour Introduction

The professional organizations for teachers of college writing are attempting to build a portrait of the experiences and expectations of incoming college composition students. By including the voices of college writers who are just starting on the higher education journey, we’d like to add another dimension to the national discussion about what it means to be college- and career-ready. We appreciate your participation in building this composite by hosting discussions on your campus. Please use this list as a discussion guide. You could choose to do this as part of a regular class session or more informally, outside of class. After the discussion, please note what you learned by recording your summary of the responses on this survey form. We will incorporate your responses into a public presentation about this project that we will share with the media no later than the National Day on Writing (October 20); please host your session and forward your impressions no later than September 30, 2013. NOTE: THE DEADLINE HAS BEEN EXTENDED TO MONDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2013.

If you would prefer to forward a video or audio capture of your students’ discussion or write a summary of their discussion rather than using the survey form, please forward these items to CCCC Liaison Kristen Suchor (ksuchor@ncte.org). If submitting a video or audio capture, please complete a subject release form(s) and/or a video/audio release form and return to Kristen (subject release forms are needed for all video captures and any audio captures that identify individuals by name). Please contact Kristen with any questions about these forms and their use.

We realize that students bring different experiences to the classroom and may have little background with the subject of some of the questions below; feel free to eliminate or modify those that seem inappropriate for your class. We are interested in the issues associated with preparation for successful writing in college and the workplace, but don’t want to signal “right” answers to these questions or imply that there are problems if students don’t have background knowledge or experiences in some of these areas. Feel free to return to these questions later in the term or at any point in the future if you find them helpful. Thanks very much for participating in this initiative!

• Latest CCCC News

• NCTE Blog

• CCCC Position Statements

• All NCTE Position Statements

• The James R. Squire Office of Policy Research in the English Language Arts

• Career Opportunities

 

Overview of the Issues

The labor resolutions at the Houston conference built on the Indianapolis Resolution, itself stemming from the landmark Wyoming Resolution passed in 1986. Each of these resolutions addresses concerns about the working conditions and path for career progression for college writing teachers.

Compensation: Though challenges with staffing and creating equitable teaching positions within college writing programs vary, a primary concern has been around compensation of instructors. In particular, contingent and/or part-time instructors in many institutions are paid significantly less than tenure-line instructors. The Committee on the Academic workforce’s portrait of contingency reports: “The median pay per course, standardized to a three-credit course, was $2,700 in fall 2010 and ranged in the aggregate from a low of $2,235 at two-year colleges to a high of $3,400 at four-year doctoral or research universities. While compensation levels varied most consistently by type of institution, part-time faculty respondents report low compensation rates per course across all institutional categories” (Coalition)¹.

Position Stability: Contingent and part-time faculty positions are often held as a ‘buffer’ for enrollment fluctuations, and courses that don’t fill may be cancelled abruptly; new sections can be added; or courses assigned to cover tenure-line or full-time instructor sections that are cancelled because of low enrollment. Last-minute hiring may result in a lack of time to prepare courses, or an unacceptable number of class preparations that make quality instruction difficult.

Resource Access: As a report from the Associated Departments of English demonstrates, less than a third of non-tenure track instructors represented in the survey data could count on travel funding; less than a quarter are guaranteed funds for ongoing professional development, and just 10% could expect to find support for their own research projects.² Other concerns are instructor access to private or shared office space, regular pay increases, and library borrowing privileges.

Autonomy: The professional authority to make independent decisions based on disciplinary expertise may be limited for non-tenure track faculty. Many NTT faculty, including graduate students, are required to teach from a standard template or syllabus, leaving very little room for independent course design and/or implementation. These requirements can lead to intellectual and pedagogical stagnation.

Representation: Access to shared governance or union representation is mixed for non-tenure track and contingent faculty, with some experiencing participation in what the Associate of Governing Boards defines as shared governance, an organizational practice that “align the faculty, board, and administration in common directions for decision-making regarding institutional direction, supported by a system of checks and balances for non-directional decisions.”³  Depending on the structure of the institution, NTT faculty may or may not have representation within a bargaining unit or institutional senate.

¹ Coalition on the Academic Workforce, “A Portrait of Part-Time Faculty Members.” June 2012.  http://www.academicworkforce.org/CAW_portrait_2012.pdf
² Associated Departments of English. “Rethinking the Master’s Degree in English for a New Century.” Modern Language Association. June 2011. https://www.mla.org/content/download/25406/1164106/2011adhocrpt.pdf. Accessed 31 July 2017.
³ Bahls, Steve. “What Is Shared Governance.” Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges. https://www.agb.org/blog/2015/12/22/what-is-shared-governance

The following position description was drafted and finalized in Summer 2017:

Position Description: The CCCC labor liaison is a contact point and resource for questions associated with the labor of composition instruction. The liaison communicates with CCCC members who have questions about labor practices associated with writing instruction, providing guidance on strategies, resources, and activities. The liaison is also charged with developing and maintaining resources that can be useful for members, using the NCTE/CCCC domain as a source for these resources. The liaison should aggregate existing NCTE/CCCC resources, draw together resources from other organizations or sources that might be useful, and to create resources that can help members use these resources to their best advantages.

In addition to providing resources and disseminating information, the liaison will, as able, collect and communicate trends in feedback from CCCC members on labor and writing instruction to CCCC leadership (the officers and Executive Committee), seek to collaborate with other CCCC Standing Groups and caucuses (particularly but not exclusively the Labor Caucus) and constituent task forces and committees of the CCCC.

The labor liaison will also participate in the Action Hub or other public spaces at CCCC, staffing a table or booth for members to communicate with them.  

The liaison(s) will provide a report on their activities to the CCCC Executive Committee twice each year: once for the November meeting and once for the spring meeting. The liaison(
s) will be appointed for a three-year term. New liaisons will be selected by the CCCC officers and ratified by the Executive Committee. The officers and EC will look to the existing liaisons for recommendations and to develop a process for this selection.

In the event of the formation of an interorganizational labor board, the CCCC labor liaison will serve as CCCC representative to the board.

White Papers, Professional Statements, and Reports

Contingent and Adjunct Positions

• Center for Community College Student Engagement (2014). Contingent Commitments: Bringing Part-Time Faculty Into Focus (A special report from the Center for Community College Student Engagement). Austin, TX: The University of Texas at Austin, Program in Higher Education Leadership.
• “A National Survey of Part-time/Adjunct Faculty,” American Academic, American Federation of Teachers, March 2010.
• Tipple, Robert, “Effective Leadership of Online Adjunct Faculty.” Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, vol. 14, no. 3, Fall  2011.

Workforce Data

• American Association of University Professors. The Employment Status of Instructional Staff Members in Higher Education, Fall 2011.
• Academic Workforce Data Center: The Academic Workforce Data Center presents Department of Education (DOE) data about the composition of the academic workforce at 4,246 colleges and universities in the United States. Users can look up statistics on part-time, full-time, tenure-track, and non-tenure-track instructors at each institution and compare data from 2009 and 1995.
• Background Facts on Contingent Faculty, American Association of University Professors
• Chapman, Diane. “Contingent and Tenured/Tenure-Track Faculty: MOtivations and Incentives to Teach Distance Education Courses.” Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, vol. 14, no.3, Fall 2011.
• Desrochers, Donna, and Rita Kirshstein. “Labor Intensive or Labor Expensive? Changing Staffing and Compensation Patterns in Higher Education.” Delta Cost Project at American Institutes for Research, Feb. 2014.
• Education in the Balance: A Report on the Academic Workforce in English, MLA, 2008.
• Faculty Compensation Survey, American Association of University Professors
• Feal, Rosemary. “Contingent Faculty Members: More Alike than Different?” MLA Newsletter, vol. 42, no. 2, 2010, pp. 5-6.
• Gere, Anne Ruggles. “Initial Report on Survey of CCCC Members.” James R. Squire Office of Policy Research in the English Language Arts. 2009.
• A Portrait of Part-time Faculty Members: A Summary of Findings on Part-Time Faculty Respondents to the Coalition on the Academic Workforce Survey of Contingent Faculty Members and Instructors. The Coalition on the Academic Workforce, June 2012.
• McClelland, Ben W. “Part-Time Faculty in English Composition: A WPA Survey.” WPA: Writing Program Administration, vol. 5, no. 1, 1981 pp. 13–20.
• Summary of Data from Surveys by the Coalition on the Academic Workforce, MLA, American Historical Association, and CAW, 1999.
• US Government Accountability Office. Report to Congressional Requesters. “Contingent Workforce: Size, Characteristics, Compensation, and Work Experiences of Adjunct and Other Non-Tenure-Track Faculty.” October 2017.

Preparation Recommendations

• Rethinking the Master’s Degree in English for a New Century, ADE Ad Hoc Committee on the Master’s Degree, June 2011.

Working Conditions Recommendations

• Council on Writing Program Administration. “‘The Portland Resolution:’ Guidelines for Writing Program Administrator Positions.” WPA: Writing Program Administration  16.1/2 (Fall/Winter 1992): 88-94.
• MLA Issue Brief: The Academic Workforce (2009): The MLA Executive Council created this issue brief to inform members of the profession and the general public of the circumstances faced by the academic workforce in the humanities. It provides background information and explains the council’s working assumptions. The brief then lays out an agenda and recommends a course of action to improve working conditions for the academic workforce.
• Professional Employment Practices for Non-Tenure-Track Faculty Members: Recommendations and Evaluative Questions Committee on Contingent Labor in the Profession, June 2011.
• Statement on Non Tenure Track Faculty Members, Modern Language Association, 2003.
• Statement on Working Conditions for Non-Tenure-Track Writing Faculty, Conference on College Composition and Communication, April 2016.
• One Faculty Principles, American Association of University Professors
• Tenure and Teaching-Intensive Appointments, American Association of University Professors, 2009.
  • Recommendations from Report
• Contingent Appointments and the Academic Profession, American Association of University Professors 2003, updated 2014.
• The Employment Status of Instructional Staff Members in Higher Education, Fall 2011.
• Connected Academics, Preparing Doctoral Students of Language and Literature for a Variety of Careers, Modern Language Association, website.

News Stories and Columns

• Adjunct activism in CUNY system, Inside Higher Ed, July 2017
• “A Tenure Track for Teachers?,” Chronicle of Higher Education, May 2017.
• “Fixing Our Job Market Problem,” column by Kevin Gannon, Chronicle of Higher Education.
• “Faculty Member Critics Lose Jobs at Sierra Nevada,” Inside Higher Ed, July 2017
• “Bad Idea About Writing: Anybody Can Teach It,” column advocating for non-tenure track faculty support, Inside Higher Ed, August 2017
• “Negotiations Required,” NLRB ruling on compensating adjuncts based on credit hours, Inside Higher Ed, 2016
• “A Kinder Campus for Adjuncts?,” Questions for colleges to consider regarding teaching conditions for adjunct faculty, Inside Higher Ed, July 2016
• “The No-Jobs Myth,” advocating for faculty involvement in governance, Inside Higher Ed, June 2016.
• “Contracts Up Close,” focusing on contract provisions for adjuncts that go beyond better pay, Inside Higher Ed, April 2015
• “New Model of Tenure,” argument for new model of tenure by Michael Berube, Inside Higher Ed, March 2015
• “Full time, Off Tenure Track,” reporting on a survey of job satisfaction among adjunct faculty, Inside Higher Ed, September 2015.
• “Supporting Online Adjuncts,” results of a study on online adjunct instructors and program coordination, Inside Higher Ed, November 2015.
• Flaherty, Colleen. “Withering Humanities Jobs: Full-time jobs in English and languages continue to decline, reaching a new low, says preliminary annual jobs report from the Modern Language Association.” Inside Higher Ed 21 November 2017.
• Kelsky, Karen. “How the Tenured Are to the Job Market as White People Are to Racism.” The Professor Is In, 1 Jan. 2014.
• Barlow, Aaron. “To My Tenured Colleagues.” Academe Blog, 14 Oct. 2013.
• Ruth, Jennifer. “When Tenure-Track Faculty Take on the Problem of Adjunctification.” Social Science Spaces, 16 July 2013.
• Patton, Stacey. “New MLA President Pledges to Improve Conditions on the Nontenure Track.” Chronicle of Higher Education, 26 January 2012.
• Schmidt, Peter. “Faculty Leaders at American U. Seek Old-School Rights for a New Work Force.” Chronicle of Higher Education, 12 June 2011.
• “When Adjuncts Push for Better Status, Better Pay Follows, Study Suggests.” Chronicle of Higher Education, 1 Nov. 2009.
• Street, Steve. “Why Don’t We Insist on Equity?,” Chronicle of Higher Education, 2 Dec. 2010. 
• “Surge in Adjunct Activism is Spurred by Bad Economy and Hungry Unions.” Chronicle of Higher Education, 14 Dec. 2009.
• June, Audrey Williams. “An Activist Adjunct Shoulders the Weight of a New Advocacy Group.” Chronicle of Higher Education, 10 Sep. 2009: A1.
• Jaeger, A., and M. K. Eagan. “Effects of Exposure to Part-Time Faculty on Community College Transfer.” Research in Higher Education, vol. 50, no. 2, 2009,  168–88. .
• Jaschik, Scott. “The Adjunctification of English.” Inside Higher Ed, 11 Dec. 2008.
• “Part-Time Faculty Members Try to Organize Nationally.” Chronicle of Higher Education, 26 Jan. 2001: A12–A13
• Wilson, Robin. “‘Chronicle’ Survey Yields a Rare Look into Adjuncts’ Work Lives.” Chronicle of Higher Education, 18 Oct. 2009.

Disciplinary Scholarship (Historical, Contemporary) on Labor

• Adler-Kassner, Linda. The Activist WPA: Changing Stories About Writing and Writers. Logan: Utah UP, 2008. .
• Bartholomae, David. “Teaching On and Off the Tenure Track: Highlights from the ADE Survey of Staffing Patterns in English.” Pedagogy, vol. 11, no. 1, 2011, pp. 7-32.
• Connors, Robert. “Overwork/Underpay: Labor and Status of Composition Teachers since 1880,” In Composition in the Twenty-First Century: Crisis and Change, edited by Lynn Z. Bloom, Donald A Daiker, and Edward M White, Southern Illinois UP, 1996, pp. 47-63.
• Corbett, Edward P.J. “Teaching Composition: Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Going,”
• College Composition and Communication, vol. 38, no. 4, 1987, pp 444-52. 
• Holbrook, Sue Ellen. “Women’s Work: The Feminizing of Composition Studies.” Rhetoric Review, vol. 9, 1991, pp. 201-229.
• Klausman, Jeffrey. “Not Just a Matter of Fairness: Adjunct Faculty and Writing Programs in Two-Year Colleges.” Teaching English in the Two-Year College, vol. 37, no. 4, 2010, pp. 363-71.
• Robertson, Linda R., et al. “The Wyoming Conference Resolution Opposing Unfair Salaries and Working Conditions for Post-Secondary Teachers of Writing.” College English, vol. 49, no. 3, 1987, pp. 274-80.
• Sledd, James. “Disciplinarity and Exploitation: Compositionists as Good Professionals.” Workplace: A Journal of Academic Labor, 4.1 (2001).
• —. “Return to Service.” Composition Studies, 28.2 (Fall 2000): 11-32. Web.
• —. “Why the Wyoming Resolution Had to Be Emasculated: A History and a Quixotism.” Journal of Advanced Composition,11.2 (Fall 1991): 269-281. 
• Soliday, Mary. “Symposium: English 1999, Class Dismissed.” College English. 61.1 (July 1999): 731-741.
• Trimbur, John and Barbara Cambridge. “The Wyoming Conference Resolution: A Beginning.” Writing Program Administration, v. 12, no. 1-2, Fall/Winter 1988, 13-

Labor Focused Scholarship and Critique in Writing Studies

• Bérubé, Michael. “The Blessed of the Earth.” Will Teach for Food: Academic Labor in Crisis, edited by Cary Nelson, U of Minnesota P, 1997, pp. 153-78.
• Bousquet, Marc Tony Scott, and Leo Parascondola, eds. Tenured Bosses, Disposable Teachers: Writing Instruction in the Managed University. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 2004.
• Bousquet, Marc. “The Rhetoric of ‘Job Market’ and the Reality of the Academic Labor System.” College English, vol. 44, no..2, 2003: 207–28.
• College Composition and Communication, Special Issue on Political Economies of
  Composition. Vol 68, No. 1, September 2016.
• Cox, Anicca, et al. “The Indianapolis Resolution: Responding to Twenty-First-Century Exigencies/Political Economies of Composition Labor,”  vol. 68, no. 1, Sept. 2016, 2016, pp. 38-67.
• Fulwiler, Megan, and Jennifer Marlow. Con Job: Stories of Adjunct and Contingent Labor. Computers and Composition Digital Press/Utah State UP, 2014.
• Hansen, Kristine. “Face to Face with Part-Timers: Ethics and the Professionalization of Writing Faculties.” Resituating Writing: Constructing and Administering Writing Programs, edited by Joseph Janangelo and Kristine Hansen, Boynton/Cook, 1995, pp. 23-45.
• Harris, Joseph. “Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss: Class Consciousness in Composition. College Composition and Communication, 52 (2000): 43-68.
• Hassel, Holly, and Joanne Baird Giordano. “Occupy Writing Studies: A Redefinition of College Composition by the Teaching Majority.” College Composition and  Communication on “The Profession.” 65.1 (September 2013): 117-139. Print.
• Kahn, Seth, William Lalicker, and Amy Lynch-Biniek. Contingency, Exploitation, and Solidarity: Labor and Action in English Composition. WAC Clearinghouse, 2017.
• Kezar, Adrianna. “Spanning the Great Divide Between Tenure-Track and Nontenure-
  Track Faculty.” Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, November–December
  2012.
• Lamos, Steve “Credentialing College Writing Teachers: WPAs and Labor Reform.” WPA: Writing Program Administration, 35.1 (Fall/Winter 2011): 45-72. Print.  
• Lamos, Steve. “Toward Job Security for Teaching-Track Composition Faculty: Recognizing and Rewarding Affective-Labor-in-Space.” College English, 78.4 (March 2016): 362-386.
• McClure, Randall, Dayna V. Goldstein, and Michael A. Pemberton. Labored: The State(ment) and Future of  Work in Composition. Parlor Press, 2017.
• McMahon, Deirdre, and Ann Green. “Gender, Contingent Labor and Writing Studies.” Academe, vol. 94, no. 6, 2008, pp. 16-19.
• Mendenhall, Annie S. “The Composition Specialist as Flexible Expert: Identity and Labor in the History of Composition.” College English, vol. 77, no. 1, 2014, pp. 11-31.
• Miller, Thomas. “Why Don’t our Graduate Programs Do a Better Job of Preparing Students for the Work that We do?” WPA: Writing Program Administration. 24.3 (Spring 2011): 41-58. Print.
• Murphy, Michael. “New Faculty for a New University: Toward a Full-Time Teaching-Intensive Faculty Track in Composition.” College Composition and Communication, 52.1 (Sept. 2000): 14-42.
• Nelson, Cary. “Between Crisis and Opportunity: The Future of the Academic Workforce.” Will Teach for Food: Academic Labor in Crisis, edited by Cary Nelson, U of Minnesota P, 1997, pp. 3-31.
• Penrose, Ann. “Professional Identity in a Contingent-Labor Profession: Expertise, Autonomy, and Community in Composition Teaching.” Writing Program Administration, v. 35, no. 2, Spring 2012, pp. 108-126.
• Ritter, Kelly. “‘Ladies Who Don’t Know Us Correct Our Papers’: Postwar Lay Reader
  Programs and Twenty-First Century Contingent Labor in First-Year Writing.” College
  Composition and Communication, 63.3(2012): 387-419.
• Schell, Eileen. Gypsy Academics and Mother-Teachers: Gender, Contingent Labor, and Writing Instruction. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers, 1998.
• Schell, Eileen and Patricia Lambert Stock. Moving a Mountain: Transforming the Role of Contingent Faculty in Composition Studies and Higher Education. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 2001. Print.
• Schell, Eileen. “The Cost of Caring: ‘Feminism” and Contingent Women Workers in Composition Studies.” Feminism and Composition: In Other Words, edited by Susan Jarratt and Lynn Worsham. MLA, 1998, pp. 74-93.
• Tirelli, Vincent. “Adjuncts and More Adjuncts: Labor Segmentation and the Transformation of Higher Education.” Social Text, vol. 51, 1997, pp. 75–91.

Sources on Higher Education, Labor, and Advocacy

• Baldwin, Roger G., and Matthew R. Wawrzynski. “Contingent Faculty as Teachers: What We Know; What We Need to Know.” American Behavioral Scientist, vol. 55, no. 11, 2011, pp. 1485-509.
• Benjamin, Ernst, and Michael Mauer, eds. Academic Collective Bargaining. New York: MLA, 2006.
• Benjamin, Ernst. “How Over-Reliance On Contingent Appointments Diminishes Faculty Involvement in Student Learning.” Peer Review, vol. 5, no. 1, 2002, p. 4.
• Berry, Joe. Reclaiming the Ivory Tower: Organizing Adjuncts to Change Higher Education, Monthly Review P, 2005.
• Cross, John G., and Edie N. Goldenberg. “Why Hire Non-Tenure-Track Faculty?” Peer Review, vol. 5, no. 1, 2002.
• Eagan, M. Kevin, et al. “Supporting the Academic Majority: Policies and Practices Related to Part-Time Faculty’s Job Satisfaction.” The Journal of Higher Education, vol. 86, no. 3, 2015, pp. 448-80.
• Ehrenberg, Ronald and Liang Zhang. “Do Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty Matter?” Cornell Higher Education Research Institute Working Paper #53, 2004.
• Gavaskar, Vandana. “Can the Subaltern Speak? Contingent Faculty and Institutional
  Narratives.” Forum, College Composition and Communication, vol. 64, no. 1, 2012, pp. A1-A3.
• Gilbert, Daniel A. “The Generation of Public Intellectuals: Corporate Universities, Graduate Employees and the Academic Labor Movement.” Labor Studies Journal, vol. 38, no. 32, 2013, pp. 32-46.
• Grigs, Claudine. “Off the Tenure Track: The Tenuous Act of Adjuncting.” Forum: Issues about Part-Time and Contingent Faculty, vol. 12, no. 1, 2008, pp. A3-A5.
• Hammer, Brad. “The ‘Service’ of Contingency: Outsiderness and the Commodification of Teaching.” Forum, College Composition and Communication, vol. 64, no. 1, 2012, pp. A3-A7.
• Hammer, Brad. “From the Editor: The Need for Research in ‘Contingency Studies.’ Forum: Newsletter for Issues about Part-Time and Contingent Faculty, vol 14., no. 1, 2010, pp. A1-A3.
• Jacoby, Daniel. “Effect of Part Time Faculty Employment on Community College Graduation Rates.” The Journal of Higher Education, vol. 77, no. 6, 2006, pp. 1081- 103.
• Maisto, Maria. “Adjuncts, Class, and Fear.” Working-Class Perspectives, 23 Sept. 2013.
• Mattson, Kevin. “How I Became a Worker.” Steal This University: The Rise of the Corporate University and the Academic Labor Movement, edited by Benjamin Johnson et al. Routledge, 2003, pp. 87-96.
• Maynard, Douglas C., and Todd Allen Joseph. “Are All Part-Time Faculty Underemployed? The Influence of Faculty Status Preference on Satisfaction and Commitment.” Higher Education: The International Journal of Higher Education Research, vol. 55, no. 2, 2008, pp. 139-54.
• Nardo, Anna K. “Our Tangled Web: Research Mandates and Staffing Practices.” Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture, vol. 11, no. 1, 2010, pp. 43-50.
• Schell, Eileen.  “Toward a New Labor Movement in Higher Education: Contingent Faculty and Organizing for Change.” Workplace. N.p., 2001 (4.1). Web. 8 Nov. 2009.
• Street, Steve. “Don’t Pit Tenure Against Contingent Faculty Rights.” Academe, vol. 94, no. 3, 2008, pp. 35-37.
• Thedwall, Kate. “Nontenure-Track Faculty: Rising Numbers, Lost Opportunities.” New Directions for Higher Education, vol. 143, 2008, pp. 11–19.
• Torgovnick, Marianna. “How to Handle an Adjunct.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 33, no. 4, 1982, pp. 454-56.
• Wyche-Smith, Susan and Shirley K. Rose. “One Hundred Ways to Make the Wyoming Resolution a Reality: A Guide to Personal and Political Action.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 41, no. 3, October 1990, pp. 318-324.