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Downloadable PDF of the full report.

Introduction to the 2018 Annual
Clancy Ratliff

In Memoriam: TyAnna Herrington
The rhetoric and composition community, and especially the close-knit group who studies copyright and intellectual property, experienced a sad loss in the summer of 2018: the passing of TyAnna Herrington, one of our leading lights. She was in the forefront of scholars who demonstrated the importance of copyright issues to rhetoric, composition studies, and technical communication. She was a kind and generous person who welcomed new scholars and teachers into our community and whose legacy will be remembered and treasured. Read on (full report).

Table of Contents

1 Introduction to the 2018 Annual
Clancy Ratliff

5 “Blockbuster Sermons” and Authorship Issues in Evangelicalism
T J Geiger

10 Plagiarizing a Pushcart Prize
Lanette Cadle

16 Sue for Mario Bros.: Nintendo vs. Emulation
Kyle D. Stedman

21 “Cockygate”: Trademark Trolling, Romance Novels, and Intellectual Property
Devon Fitzgerald Ralston

27 A (Zombie) Legislative Proposal with Implications for Fair Use and Remix Culture
Kim D. Gainer

33 Contributors

A conversation with Rachael W. Shah, author of “The Courage of Community Members: Community Perspectives of Engaged Pedagogies” (13:51).

 

 

Rachael W. Shah is an assistant professor of English at University of Nebraska–Lincoln, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in community literacy, public rhetoric, and teacher education. Her current book project explores community perspectives of university-community partnerships. Former director of the Wildcat Writers program, she now coordinates a similar program called Husker Writers in Nebraska.

 

 

A conversation with Joyce Olewski Inman and Rebecca A. Powell, authors of “In the Absence of Grades: Dissonance and Desire in Course-Contract Classrooms” (12:59).

 

 

Joyce Olewski Inman is an assistant professor of English and director of composition at The University of Southern Mississippi, where she teaches first-year to senior-level composition courses, as well as graduate courses on theories and pedagogies of composition. Her research interests include legal discourse analysis, basic writing pedagogies, literacy politics, and the ways space and locale can influence writers, their identities, and their texts.

Rebecca A. Powell is an assistant professor of English at The University of Southern Mississippi, where she teaches preservice teachers and writing students. Her research interests include adolescent writing experiences, K–16 writing pedagogy, community literacy, and place studies. Current projects include researching the circulation of writing experiences through people’s lives and communities and the implications of place studies for teacher education and assessment.

 

 

A conversation with V. Jo Hsu, author of “Reflection as Relationality: Rhetorical Alliances and Teaching Alternative Rhetorics” (15:04).

 

 

V. Jo Hsu is an assistant professor of English and the associate director of the Program in Rhetoric and Composition at the University of Arkansas. Their research and teaching focus on the interrelations among identity, narrative writing, and struggles for social justice. Their current project examines intergenerational narratives among queer Asian Americans and considers what these archives can teach us about our cultural and academic institutions, as well as how they might help us envision more inclusive pedagogical theories and practices. Jo has yet to find a third-person pronoun that feels entirely like home.

 

 

A conversation with Zhaozhe Wang, author of “Relive Differences through a Material Flashback” (11:59).

 

 

Zhaozhe Wang is a doctoral candidate in the Department of English at Purdue University, where he teaches first-year writing and the graduate practicum in oral English proficiency. His research focuses on theories of difference, multilingual writers’ identity and literacy practices, second language writing, and writing assessment. His work on translingual writing has appeared in Composition Forum.

 

 

A conversation with Jerry Stinnett, author of “Using Objective-Motivated Knowledge Activation to Support Writing Transfer in FYC” (16:20).

 

 

 

Jerry Stinnett is assistant professor of writing at Grand Valley State University. His research, which has appeared in College English and Literacy in Composition Studies, currently focuses on the intersections of rhetorical theory, writing-related transfer, and the limits of rhetorical flexibility.

 

 

 

A conversation with James Rushing Daniel, author of “‘A Debt Is Just the Perversion of a Promise’: Composition and the Student Loan” (12:32).

 

 

 

James Rushing Daniel is a lecturer in the Interdisciplinary Writing Program at the University of Washington. His research has appeared in College English, Philosophy & Rhetoric, and Composition Studies, among other venues.

 

 

 

 

A conversation with Ira J. Allen, author of “Composition Is the Ethical Negotiation of Fantastical Selves” (19:46).

 

Ira J. Allen is assistant professor of rhetoric, writing, and digital media studies at Northern Arizona University, and formerly assistant professor of rhetoric and composition at the American University of Beirut (where he directed the Writing Center and Writing in the Disciplines). He publishes regularly on rhetoric, democracy, ethics, and writing and has translated works by Nietzsche, Walter Benjamin, and Werner Hamacher, among others. His book The Ethical Fantasy of Rhetorical Theory explores the meanings and utility of rhetorical theory for scholars across the humanistic disciplines.

 

 

The following resolutions were passed at the CCCC Annual Business Meeting held on Friday, March 15, 2019, in Pittsburgh.

Resolution 1

Whereas Vershawn Ashanti Young invited us to consider, theorize, and practice performance-rhetoric and performance-composition in a call for proposals that broke the rules, enacting performance in the very call to convene;

Whereas Dr. Vay’s own website performs the theorizing he calls us to by understanding and naming his in-person scholarly performances as appearances;

Whereas he has served in various capacities at the secondary and postsecondary level, and he has committed himself to consulting and training teachers to think about language and diversity and to have an awareness of interpersonal and intercultural communications;

Whereas he has challenged members of CCCC to include consideration of performance and communication in our work, moving beyond a focus on writing, and has instilled his passion for multidisciplinarity and inclusivity, cultivating a convention that has reflected how teaching and learning itself is interdisciplinary;

Whereas he blurs the boundaries of language, scholarship, and disciplines in his own work as an artist, scholar, teacher, and attorney; and

Whereas he models for all of us the importance of blending the personal and the professional, refusing to compartmentalize work and family, the academy and the real world;

BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED that the 2019 Conference on College Composition and Communication thanks Vershawn Ashanti Young for his many contributions to us and to the profession.

Resolution 2

Whereas Brenda Whitney, in spite of the limited support generally afforded non-tenure-track faculty, and members of the Local Arrangements Committee have made significant contributions to support new attendees and returnees and to enhance the convention experience;

Whereas Brenda Whitney and the Local Arrangements Committee created a vibrant, inviting, and comprehensive guide to Pittsburgh that covered the various sections of this reinvigorated steel city and its local history;

Whereas they worked diligently to provide attendees with detailed information about opportunities for shopping, sightseeing, and attending cultural events in the Pittsburgh area, including attention to low-cost options;

Whereas they provided accessibility avenues so that almost every attendee of every ability was able to participate fully in the convention;

Whereas Local Arrangements Committee members were ever-present in the Convention Center helping to guide conference attendees to registration and events, making recommendations for nearby restaurants, and generally welcoming more than 3,000 visitors; and

Whereas Brenda Whitney and the Local Arrangements Committee somehow managed to provide seventy-degree weather in Pittsburgh in March, and created a welcoming Mr. Rogers’s Neighborhood feel for the convention;

BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED that the 2019 Conference on College Composition and Communication expresses our deepest appreciation to Brenda Whitney and the Local Arrangements Committee by applauding their energy and efforts.

Resolution 3

WHEREAS CCCC has position statements articulating the importance of substantive arguments for faculty in tenure or promotion processes (e.g., community-based research/teaching/service; crediting the work of developing technologies as scholarly contributions; the policy on disability);

WHEREAS non-tenure-track (NTT) colleagues are engaged in many of the same practices, and face many of the same workplace climate issues (e.g., accessibility; bullying; harassment) as tenured/tenure-track faculty; and

WHEREAS the growing cadre of NTT faculty could benefit from organizational support arguing for contract renewals and promotions in much the same way that tenure-track faculty need support arguing for tenure and promotions;

BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED that:

1. CCCC works to include NTT representation on committees and task forces producing and revising position statements;
2. CCCC revises current position statements that may facilitate renewal and/or promotion; and
3. CCCC generates guidelines for ethical practices of renewal and promotion for NTT faculty.

Resolution 4

WHEREAS CCCC members approved a resolution in 2011 resolving that: (1) CCCC consults with the hotel workers union and other labor organizations to schedule meetings and conferences in hotels and convention halls with fair labor practices or contract with vendors that practice fair labor practices; and (2) CCCC commits to offering housing at convention rates in at least one hotel with fair labor practices at every meeting; and

WHEREAS CCCC has already established policies for responding to hostile legislation at convention locations, as well as protocols for respecting and responding to safety concerns on behalf of members, including strong consideration of moving or canceling the entire 2017 conference;

BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED that:

1. CCCC works with the Labor Caucus to update “CCCC Convention Siting and Hostile Legislation: Guiding Principles” to include language governing labor disputes; and
2. CCCC agrees to encourage the Conference Chair, the NCTE staff, and the Local Arrangements Committee to work with the Labor Caucus to increase visibility and availability of labor-friendly local venues, including the provision of a labor-friendly lodging option at convention rates.

CCCC is calling on its members to take part in our Wikipedia Initiative. As one of the five most visited websites in the world, Wikipedia has emerged within living memory as a key knowledge-broker and perception-shaper for readers and writers worldwide. Writing expert knowledge into Wikipedia is one important way we can address knowledge gaps, imbalances, and misinformation online.

Established in 2019, the CCCC Wikipedia Initiative proceeds from the conviction that it matters to edit Wikipedia, especially for academics committed to knowledge equity as a fundamental groundwork for social justice. CCCC Wikipedia Initiative is working to develop skills, cultivate inclusive community, and build structures of support and recognition for for past, present, and future CCCC members who recognize the importance of engaging with Wikipedia as a form of global public humanities scholarship.

The core goal of the CCCC Wikipedia Initiative is to foster the cultural shift, community building, and collaboration necessary for our profession to develop high-quality Wikipedia articles that expand the audiences of our research and scholarship to broad publics. To this end, we aim to:

• Expand Wikipedia’s coverage of topics related to writing research and pedagogy to be comprehensive and current with major conversations in published scholarship;
• Verify that article content is based on reliable secondary sources and represents disciplinary controversies and consensus with attention to issues of knowledge equity;
• Revise and edit toward article quality measures for Good Article or Featured Article status.

Learn about the work of the CCCC Wikipedia Initiative Committee.

Get Support for Teaching with Wikipedia

Interested in teaching with Wikipedia? The Wiki Education Foundation offers training modules as well as editing/tech support for you and your students. Wikipedia-based writing and research assignments can be amazing opportunities to make student writing valuable beyond the classroom in both graduate and undergraduate courses. The information and ideas you teach deserve a global audience. Apply here.

Resources

• CCCC Wikipedia Initiative online: Programs and Events dashboard, Meetup page, WikiProject Writing
• Wikipedia Help: Overview, How should experts engage with Wikipedia?
• Community: The Signpost
• Research: Wikimedia Research Showcase