Category: Uncategorized

The following resolutions were passed at the CCCC Annual Business Meeting held on Saturday, March 17, 2001, in Denver, CO:

Resolution 1: Honoring John Lovas

WHEREAS John Lovas has demonstrated a longstanding commitment to teaching in a two-year college, has assumed prominent leadership roles in TYCA, and has fostered stronger ties between two-year and four-year faculty to form a more extensive yet inclusive vision of the profession;

WHEREAS he has proven himself to be a great innovator by making creative and informative revisions to the CCCC’s convention proposal form and program format, by welcoming newcomers with a special breakfast, and by encouraging conversation clusters among the convention participants;

WHEREAS he has had the good fortune of selecting an able assistant, Krista Hiser, who persisted in shouldering her responsibilities in the face of personal challenges;

BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED that the 2001 Conference on College Composition and Communication thank John Lovas for creating a program that invites each of us to compose our own professional sense of community and take that renewed professionalism back to the communities in which we work and live.

Resolution 2: Honoring Margaret Whitt and the Local Arrangements Committee

WHEREAS Margaret Whitt has organized a dedicated and energetic committee to welcome us to the Mile High City and ensure that we enjoy its extensive cultural riches;

WHEREAS she has demonstrated an extraordinary talent for showcasing local authors and local sites;

WHEREAS she has supported writing instruction in Denver Public Schools by encouraging us to provide pencils and notebooks for the young composers of the new millennium;

WHEREAS she has warmed our stay with her graciousness and humor;

BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED  that the 2001 Conference on College Composition and Communication thank Margaret Whitt and the entire Local Arrangements Committee for their generous hospitality.

Resolution 3: Endorsing U.S.-Canada Equity Week

WHEREAS the exploitive working conditions–including inadequate salaries, contracts, benefits, and professional development opportunities–of part-time and non-tenure-track writing faculty remain a major concern of our membership;

WHEREAS U.S.-Canada Equity Week (October 2001) will entail a series of locally, regionally, and nationally organized events that will call attention to the exploitive working conditions of part-time and non-tenure-track faculty;

WHEREAS U.S.-Canada Equity Week will draw attention to the link between part-time and non-tenure-track-faculty’s working conditions and the provision of quality instruction;

WHEREAS concerned part-time and full-time faculty, students, labor activists and labor unions, professional associations, and community activists will band together to organize campus events and activities (teach-ins, rallies, lectures, street theater performances, petition drives, letter and editorial writing campaigns) that call attention to the academy’s increasing use of part-time and non-tenure-track faculty and to the issues of salary equity, contractual stability, and professional working conditions;

BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED that the Conference on College Composition and Communication join with the Coalition on Contingent Academic Labor, the California Part-Time Faculty Association, the American Association of University Professors, and other professional and labor organizations to endorse U.S.-Canada Equity Week.

The following resolutions were passed at the CCCC Annual Business Meeting held on Saturday, March 23, 2002, in Chicago, IL:

Resolution 1: Honoring Shirley Wilson Logan

WHEREAS Shirley Wilson Logan has demonstrated a longstanding commitment to diversity, equity, and opportunity in the profession;

WHEREAS she has emphasized the urgency of addressing the needs of the various publics we serve by connecting the text and the street;

WHEREAS she has had the practical wisdom to choose the capable and calm Maurice Champagne as her program assistant;

BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED that the 2002 Conference on College Composition and Communication thank Shirley Wilson Logan for creating a program that challenges us to see our work in the context of community.

Resolution 2: Acknowledging and Applauding Deborah Holdstein and the Local Arrangements Committee

WHEREAS Deborah Holdstein and the Local Arrangements Committee have not once but twice welcomed us to the streets of Chicago;

WHEREAS this visit has allowed us to further explore the extraordinary jazz and blues, wonderful food, and eclectic neighborhoods of the Windy City;

WHEREAS Deborah’s tremendous energy, sense of humor, and imagination have kept her young;

BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED that the 2002 Conference on College Composition and Communication acknowledge and applaud Deborah Holdstein and the Local Arrangements Committee for their warm and generous hospitality.

CCCC is inviting applicants for the position of CCCC Policy Fellow for the 2014-15 academic year. This position will work with the CCCC/NCTE staff to help coordinate follow-through actions in support of reports filed by the CCCC state-based network of higher education policy analysts, and will provide research summaries and expert testimony/insights drawn from research and professional practice to public policy decision-makers about high priority higher education issues for CCCC and NCTE (these will be identified in consultation with the CCCC/NCTE Washington DC office and CCCC Chair).

The Policy Fellow will do the majority of their work on behalf of CCCC from their home institution, but will have funding (up to $5,000) to travel to Washington, D.C. a few times a year to make presentations, provide testimony, and work on specific initiatives. When appropriate, the Fellow will work with DC office staff to compose “calls to action” that might be issued to members in specific states where a strategic grassroots response from our community is needed. The Fellow will maintain ongoing contact with CCCC/NCTE executive staff leadership and will create reports about progress to-date for the CCCC Executive Committee to consider during their governance meetings in November and March.

CCCC will provide the Policy Fellow with a small honorarium ($3,000) and travel funds (up to $5,000) to help support the activities outlined above. The position is a one-year appointment (with the possibility of a second year renewal) beginning in July 2014 and ending June 30, 2015, and will be appointed by the CCCC Chair and Executive Secretary-Treasurer.

Applicants should submit a letter of interest, a CV, and any relevant published work to cccc@ncte.org by Friday, May 30, 2014. Interviews will take place in early June and applicants will be notified of their status by early July.

The following resolutions were passed at the CCCC Annual Business Meeting held on Saturday, April 15, 2000, in Minneapolis, MN:

Resolution 1: Honoring Wendy Bishop

WHEREAS Wendy Bishop has distinguished herself as a poet, ethnographer, compositionist, and teacher,

WHEREAS she has provided us with the space and energy to explore provocative, radical, and exciting options so that we can reinvent ourselves for the new millennium,

WHEREAS she has succeeded in inventing a conference that moved us beyond the mainstream and helped us educate the imagination and reimagine education,

BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED, that the fifty-first meeting of the Conference on College Composition and Communication celebrate and commend Wendy Bishop for an exciting and thought-provoking program.

Resolution 2: Honoring Lisa Albrecht and the Local Arrangements Committee

WHEREAS Lisa Albrecht and the entire Local Arrangements Committee have kept their promise to the attendees of the fifty-first CCCC Convention of providing us with an invigorating, intellectual event,

WHEREAS she has shared with us diverse communities of local writers, artists, and musicians,

WHEREAS her work in the areas of social justice and civil rights, with special emphasis on racism and homophobia, inspires us all,

WHEREAS her infectious humor in the face of her daunting organizational responsibilities has made us feel welcome and at home in the Twin Cities in ways that would make her mother proud,

BE IT THEREFORE RESOLVED that the 2000 Conference on College Composition and Communication acknowledge and applaud Lisa Albrecht and the entire Local Arrangements Committee for their wonderful efforts.

Submitted by Jason Snart, Professor of English, College of DuPage

The example provided here addresses OWI Principle 11: “Online writing teachers and their institutions should develop personalized and interpersonal online communities to foster student success.” I use this technique in online and in hybrid freshman composition courses. We use Blackboard Version 9.1.

Sample Video of Welcome Announcement

Explanation of effective practice

Using the free Logitech software included with my webcam, I record a short video of myself talking to students. I include these kinds of informal videos throughout a term, but the initial (one time) “Welcome” video I find particularly important. In the “Welcome” video, I discuss things like course content, I welcome students to a new semester, and I remind students about due dates—in short, I use video as a medium for being “present” for online students.

Once the video is recorded, I upload it to my YouTube account and then embed the HTML code that YouTube provides into an announcement in the “Announcements” area in the Blackboard LMS. Since “Announcements” is the landing page for all of my courses, the videos are the first thing students see when they log in.

Challenge this practice addresses

This practice allows me to be more present for my online students so they can see and hear me. Because many teachers and students affectively feel a distance in asynchronous courses particularly, seeing my face and hearing my voice can remind them that I am human, aware of them as people, and generally there for them. In short, this video increases presence awareness in an asynchronous setting. In addition to the course information I provide and the constant reminders to stay on task, I think some students are more engaged when they experience themselves as part of a class community with an instructor they can see. Being visible for online students has helped me to make teaching online a less isolating experience than it otherwise can seem to be for students. Ideally, they feel more connected to me and, thus, responsible to the course. I know that I certainly feel more connected to them, just by virtue of being more obviously present in the class.

How to implement this practice

• Instruction guide in Word format (docx)
• Instruction guide in PDF format (pdf)

 

 

 

The Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) Executive Committee follows the principles of knowledge-based governance, a decision-making model that encourages careful study of relevant information and full dialogue and deliberation about the consequences of action before policy is established. When contemplating an issue, we ask:

• What do we know about how this issue may effect our members and stakeholders?
• What do we know about how trends–educational, demographic, economic, or cultural–are changing this issue?
• What do we know about NCTE’s capacity to act, alone or in alliance with others, on this issue?
• What are the ethical dimensions of our choices?

The following are motions passed by the CCCC EC around their yearly strategic issues:

2012 Vision Statement

12.E.06 MOTION (Anson/Pough) CARRIED: That we approve the vision statement in principle with the understanding that further revision will take place, attentive to the further discussion at the March EC meeting, leading to a final draft to be put to an Executive Committee vote by the end of our November meeting.

By 2022, CCCC will be a clear, trusted public voice for the teaching and learning of writing, rhetoric, and literacy in all higher education contexts. We will have fostered, in academic and in informal learning settings, the conditions in which students, the general public, and teachers engage in civil deliberative discourse about what it means to be literate. We will support the delivery of quality literacy instruction through sustainable, relevant, and ethical models of teaching and learning.

In order to support this, CCCC will be an organization that values members who represent a diversity of races, cultures, languages, identities, institutions, and institutional roles, and will create multiple access points for participation among our various constituents. We will work at the leading edge of shifting notions and new definitions of writing, rhetoric, and literacy through valuing and creating space for a wide and vibrant range of scholarship.

In all circumstances, we will advocate for language use as a fundamental human activity that empowers individuals and communities.

2012: Leadership Group

12E.09 MOTION (Selfe/Rodrigo) CARRIED:  That CCCC create more opportunities for SIGs and caucuses to meet at times throughout the Annual Conference.

12E.10 MOTION (Selfe/Journet) CARRIED: That CCCC create opportunities for more interactive sessions available throughout the Conference.

12E.11 MOTION (Selfe/Moore) CARRIED: That the EC leadership group, in collaboration with Committee on the Status of Graduate Students and the Graduate Student SIG, develop a nomination and election process that will add (a) graduate student(s) to the EC.

12E.12 MOTION (Selfe/ Rodrigo): CARRIED: To advise the Chair to form EC form an Engagement Committee to work in conjunction with the Newcomers committee to engage and retain experienced CCCC attendees and emerging leaders.

2010: Dual-Credit/Concurrent-Enrollment Focus Group

10E.24 MOTION (from the committee) CARRIED: To establish a task force to develop a position statement outlining best practices, policies, and procedures for instituting dual-credit/concurrent-enrollment programs.

2009: Research

09E.20 MOTION (Fleckenstein/Glenn) CARRIED without dissent: That CCCC develop a multi-year research program/agenda that addresses key concerns voiced by the membership.

09E.21 MOTION (Strasma/Young) CARRIED: That CCCC should develop a research advocacy committee to coordinate CCCC research interests with other national policy-making organizations and articulate research opportunities to membership.

2008: Building a More Diverse CCCC

08E.16 MOTION (Fitzgerald) CARRIED: That CCCC design a means of assessing the 2009 piloted diverse presentation formats and continue to pilot and assess other formats in 2010.

2008: Technology, Globalization/Interconnections, and Changes in Student Populations

08E.17 MOTION #1 on Technology was withdrawn and will be referred to the Committee on Research.

08E.18 MOTION #2 (Fleckenstein) CARRIED: To prepare the membership for the growing challenges and opportunities posed by globalization, we move that the CCCC Chair establish a task force to explore issues related to the nature, scope, and implementation of globalization/internationalization for the writing classroom and postsecondary education. This process may culminate in a policy statement that articulates potential local and organizational responses to globalization. If created, the policy statement may be published on the NCTE Web site and disseminated throughout the membership by November 2009.

08E.19 MOTION #3 (Fleckenstein) CARRIED: Because the majority of postsecondary composition teachers lack formal preparation in addressing the challenges posed by the increasing diversity of students, particularly multilingual writers, we move that CCCC advocate for changes in writing teacher preparation, culminating in a set of guidelines for teacher preparation. Furthermore, by March 2010, CCCC will widely distribute those guidelines to school administrators’ organizations, accrediting agencies, national media, and K-postsecondary teacher organizations. Finally, CCCC will collect annual data from the membership through NCTE survey initiatives to ascertain the formal preparation of writing teachers to address the diverse needs of their multilingual students, beginning in 2011 and continuing through 2017.

2008: Connecting with Literacy, Composition, and/or Rhetoric Educators in Nontraditional Settings

08E.21 MOTION (Anokye/Day) CARRIED: That the Chair of CCCC appoint a committee to create a position statement that validates literacy work by academics in non-academic settings and to present the statement at the Executive Committee meeting in March 2009.

08E.22 MOTION (Calhoon-Dillahunt/Devitt) CARRIED: That CCCC support the work of non-traditional literacy educators by publishing the Position Statement in its journals and on the NCTE website and plan a session on this topic for CCCC Convention March 2010.
The motion above was originally tabled and revisited later in the meeting.

08E.23 MOTION (Anokye/Day): CARRIED: Because the intellectual and professional contributions of college writing teachers who are publicly engaged in nontraditional writing settings are not always considered in the evaluation process for tenure, promotion, or merit, we move that the chair of CCCC appoint a committee to create a position statement that validates as intellectual contributions to literacy by college writing teachers in nonacademic settings, and to present the statement at the EC meeting in November 2009.

2007: Membership Study

07E.30 MOTION (Moneyhun for Membership Focus Committee) CARRIED. By March 2009, CCCCs will know the reasons that cohorts (for example, by age, gender, minority status, job status, institutional type, career stage) give for not joining or renewing and for not attending the convention.

07E.31 MOTION (Powell/Young) CARRIED (divided vote):  To amend the motion to insert “and institutional and individual participation in community outreach and/or service learning” after paren following “administrative.”

07E.32 MOTION (Moneyhun for Membership Focus Committee) CARRIED AS AMENDED.  By November 2010, CCCC will have easily upgradeable databases about the profession in general and about our membership.  The faculty/administrative databases should include at least age, gender, race, institutional type, career stage, salary, degrees, classes taught, graduate school specialization (comp/rhet or lit), job status (full-time tenure track or tenured, full-time non-tenure track, adjunct or part-time, full-time administrative, part-time administrative) and institutional and individual participation in community outreach and/or service learning.  Institutional information should include class size in writing courses for undergraduate and graduate programs.

2007: Allies and Public Policy

07E.33 MOTION (Roen for Focus Committee) CARRIED on a divided vote:  We move that CCCC develop mechanisms for communicating with allies (such as TYCA, WPA, NWP, IWCA, NCTE, NCA, AAAL, AERA, NABE, TESOL, AAC&U, MLA, RSA, IRA) who share common concerns.  This should be done as soon as possible.

07E.34 MOTION (Roen for Focus Allies and Alliances Committee) CARRIED: To position CCCC as an authoritative source for public policy, we move that CCCC review and, where necessary, revise policy statements, guidelines, best practices, and position statements to maximize their clarity, consistency, continuity, currency, and completeness.  This review should begin as soon as possible.

2007: Leadership

07E.35 MOTION (Fleckenstein for Leadership Focus Committee) CARRIED: We move that CCCC will develop within the next year a policy statement concerning leadership opportunities and experiences.  Such a statement should address the importance of 1) personal and professional networks, 2) consistent and ongoing mentoring, and 3) intellectual, practical, and emotional support during leadership positions.

Submitted by Jodi Whitehurst, Instructor at Arkansas State University-Beebe

The example provided here addresses OWI Principle 3: “Appropriate composition teaching/learning strategies should be developed for the unique features of the online instructional environment.” The setting in which I implemented Screencast feedback was in an all online first-year freshman composition course that utilized Blackboard 9.1 as its course management system.

Introduction

A screencast is a digital video recording that captures actions taking place on a computer screen. It also can include audio and video of the presenter. Developing writers, especially English language learners, benefit from clear and specific feedback on assignments. By creating screencast videos for feedback, online writing faculty are able to indicate specific needs for revision within student assignments, discuss possible approaches for revising, display assignment rubrics to specify criteria that are and are not being met, direct writers to online resources, and give “voiced” affirmations to developing writers.

I have received an overwhelming amount of unsolicited positive feedback from my students since I started using screencast videos for feedback on process papers. For example, one nontraditional student commented that this was the first time an online instructor had shown her how specific errors in her paper impacted her writing features scores on the rubric. She further explained that she was usually unable to understand what parts of her writing led to lower scores or how to improve those in the future. 

Before describing the use of screencasts for assignments, it is important to note that I only use this for high-stakes process assignments, like essays. I do this for two specific reasons. First, creating a screencast video for every student does take more time than providing general feedback on assignments. My goal is to provide valuable feedback to students while keeping my workload manageable. Next, high-stakes process assignments (as opposed to say short reader responses) are typically worth more points in an overall class grade. By focusing on these assignments and allowing them to revise, students are given specific tools to be successful in the class.

Explanation of effective practice

Example Student Feedback Video: Jodi Whitehurst

First, I open and read the student paper, making mental notes of aspects to highlight during the video. Then, I open and minimize the assignment rubric, my assignment example paper, and any other webpages or files that I think may be useful during the video. Next, I open the screencast software.

During the video, I follow these steps:

1. Give a short general greeting, which usually includes thanking the student for sharing his or her paper with the learning community. I do this because my students post their rough drafts to a discussion board and discuss revision possibilities with their peers before I offer feedback. I give clear guidelines for respectfully discussing student work, and I try to model respect for student ownership of writing in my screencast feedback as well. 
2. Indicate 2-3 specific skills in the paper that were executed well and briefly refer to examples.
3. Indicate 2-3 specific skills in the paper that could be improved, referring to some specific examples. I select those skills that most need improvement and avoid pointing out all errors. My main goal is to specifically point out an error pattern and demonstrate how to correct those errors.
4. Maximize the example paper given with the assignment to show a specific example of the skill.
5. Briefly maximize the assignment rubric to show how these improvements would better meet the criteria.
6. Indicate any other websites or resources that might help the student improve on those 2-3 specific skills.
7. Give general closing remarks that again usually include gratitude for sharing his or her writing.

After completing the video, I save it to an external drive as an MP4 file. The file sizes vary based on the length of the video. I have sent videos as long as 15 minutes (the limit for a video created using the free version of Screencast-O-Matic), but usually the video feedback ranges from 6-8 minutes, which creates an MP4 file size of around 18,000 KB. Finally, I send the student an e-mail through our course management system with the screencast video attached. In any given semester, I usually have between one and three students unable to open the files. In these cases, I make other arrangements, usually phone conferences, to provide assignment feedback.
It takes about one minute for a video to send in Blackboard 9.1, so I usually open two tabs—one to send the e-mails and one to continue to the next student paper. In this way, I can move quickly through student papers. If delivering screencast videos due to file size becomes difficult, there are options for storing and sharing through internet cloud services like Dropbox, which allows you to share files with certain people. Another option is to upload the video to youtube and select “private,” which will allow you to type in users allowed to view the video.

Challenge this practice addresses

Offering specific text-based feedback within student papers can prove very labor intensive. Often online faculty members cope with this challenge by offering less feedback or vague feedback, like “Needs improvement in conventions.” Using screencast feedback allows faculty member to give specific feedback without a great amount of typing. Providing detailed text-based feedback for all student papers can be quite labor intensive. For example, I started using screencast feedback when I developed carpal tunnel syndrome in my hands, primarily due to endless hours of typing for my online classes.  

Most importantly, using screencasts for feedback allows students to view actions on a screen. As opposed to a lengthy and often confusing text-based explanation of how to improve a paper, students are able to view a screen where their instructor discusses and models ways to improve assignments.

How to implement this practice

Screencast software can be downloaded free online.

Video Tutorial: How to Download, Record, and Save a Video Using Screencast-o-Matic

I use Screencast-O-Matic, but there are other options as well. I have provided a list of free screencast software below along with a place where each can be downloaded.

Screencast-O-Matic
http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/

Open Broadcaster Software   (for advanced users)
http://obsproject.com/

CamStudio
http://camstudio.org/

The National Language Policy is a response to efforts to make English the “official” language of the United States. This policy recognizes the historical reality that, even though English has become the language of wider communication, we are a multilingual society. All people in a democratic society have the right to education, to employment, to social services, and to equal protection under the law. No one should be denied these or any civil rights because of linguistic differences. This policy enables everyone to participate in the life of this multicultural nation by ensuring continued respect both for English, our common language, and for the many other languages that contribute to our rich cultural heritage.

Read the full statement, CCCC Guideline on the National Language Policy (March 1988, updated 1992, revised March 2015)

In the context of two contradictory movements, one that emphasizes a liberal education and a second that works to compress curricula and learning into narrow indicators of teacher accountability and student achievement, and in response to a call for writing instruction to move outward from its traditional emphasis on academic contexts, this statement calls into action all those who share CCCC vision of a future in which an expansive writing curriculum, backed by ample resources, attends unyieldingly to the difficult work of helping students use good words, images, and other appropriate means, well composed, to build a better world.

Read the full statement, CCCC Statement on the Multiple Uses of Writing (November 2007)

The Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) Executive Committee votes on the future site for each annual convention five or six years before the convention takes place. This is necessary to secure convention meeting space and sufficient hotel rooms to accommodate several thousand attendees. Before the Executive Committee votes on a future site, CCCC members are polled about possible sites. NCTE staff investigate (through research and site visits) several feasible cities, based on the results of this poll, location of recent conventions, geographic parity, opportunities for attractive costs, and other factors. Several options are then presented in a report to the Executive Committee that includes information about hotel costs, Internet access, travel options, meeting space, and tourism. Additionally, consideration is made for the number of session rooms available at each convention facility, favoring those sites that may provide more favorable conditions for higher attendance.

In discussing siting options, the Executive Committee takes into consideration not only these detailed reports but also factors that could be objectionable to participants, including legislation that is hostile to various groups or in opposition to the values of the organization. After thorough discussion and consideration, the Executive Committee votes on a future site. Following this vote, CCCC enters into contractual agreements with the convention center, hotels, and other entities. These agreements carry heavy penalties for withdrawal, usually amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars of lost financial resources. The closer the proposal of withdrawal is to the convention date, the more complicated and expensive it becomes to move the convention to another city.

Because siting is done far in advance of each convention, it is not possible to predict future state or local legislation that could be objectionable to attendees. As a result, calls may be made to break the contractual arrangements and move the convention. Withdrawing from a location is advocated as a form of protest that harms the state’s economy and expresses the collective voice of thousands of CCCC members through the decision of their elected Executive Committee members.

At the same time, withdrawing from a future site (1) can negatively affect hundreds of service workers who rely on conventions for their livelihood; (2) may have little impact on the state if another organization takes the space vacated by the CCCC; and (3) results, through the organization’s absence, in silence on the issues of concern. This silence is particularly problematic for an organization devoted in part to the study and pedagogy of communication as a form of civic engagement and deliberation about issues involving fairness and the humane treatment of all groups of people.

For these reasons, the CCCC Executive Committee has approved the following guiding principles for future convention siting with respect to hostile legislation:

In principle, CCCC will work to change state or local policies in host convention cities that diverge from established CCCC positions or otherwise threaten the safety or well-being of our membership. We will do so by consulting closely with local groups who share our principles and arranging activities and opportunities for members to support those who are disadvantaged by offensive policies or otherwise to use their presence in the offending state as a vehicle for nonviolent protest. We will vigorously communicate the methods of support and/or protest to the media, convention and tourist bureaus, and local and state government officials, with the avowed purpose of provoking policy change or supporting current policies threatened by hostile change. In general, we will follow this strategy of engagement rather than abrogating or cancelling contracts for future conventions as a method of protesting existing or future legislation.

November 2013, revised March 2019