College Composition and Communication, Vol. 39, No. 1, February 1988

Click here to view the individual articles in this issue at http://www.ncte.org/cccc/ccc/issues/v39-1

Schuster, Charles I. Rev. of The Structure of Written Communication: Studies in Reciprocity between Writers and Readers by Martin Nystrand pp. 89-91.

Stotsky, Sandra. Rev. of The Dynamics of Language Learning: Research in Reading and English by James R. Squire pp. 91-93.

Kneupper, Charles. Rev. of Actual Minds, Possible World by Jerome Bruner pp. 93-95.

Clark, Beverly Lyon. Rev. of Writing Groups: History, Theory, and Implications by Anne Ruggles Gere pp. 95-96.

Sudol, Ronald A. Rev. of Composition and the Academy: A Study of Writing Program Administration by Carol P. Hartzog pp. 97-98.

Sides, Charles H. Rev. of How to Teach Technical Editing by David K. Farkas pp. 98-99.

Clifford, John. Rev. of Write to Learn by Donald M. Murray pp. 99-101.

Weltzien, O. Alan. Rev. of Generating Prose: Relations, Patterns, Structures by Willis L. Pitkin, Jr. pp. 101-102.

Brent, Harry. Rev. of Literature and the Writing Process by Elizabeth McMahan, Susan Day, and Robert Funk pp. 102-103.

Schwartz, Helen J. “Writing with the Carbon Copy Audience in Mind.” CCC 39.1 (1988): 63-65.

McLeod, Susan H., and Laura Emery. “When Faculty Write: A Workshop for Colleagues.” CCC 39.1 (1988): 65-67.

Devet, Bonnie. “Stressing Figures of Speech in Freshman Composition.” CCC 39.1 (1988): 67-69.

Raymond, Richard C. “Reading and Writing on the ‘Nuclear Predicament.'” CCC 39.1 (1988): 69-74.

Madigan, Chris. “Applying Donald Murray’s ‘Responsive Teaching.'” CCC 39.1 (1988): 74-77.

Sommers, Jeffrey. “Behind the Paper: Using the Student-Teacher Memo.” CCC 39.1 (1988): 77-80.

Reynolds, Mark. “Make Free Writing More Productive.” CCC 39.1 (1988): 81-82.

Gordon, Helen H. “Clustering: Generating Ideas for Original Sentences.” CCC 39.1 (1988): 83-84.

Haviland, Carol Peterson, and Adele Pittendrigh. “Writing Discovery Journals: Helping Students Take Charge.” CCC 39.1 (1988): 84-85.

Veglahn, Nancy J. “Searching: A Better Way to Teach Technical Writing.” CCC 39.1 (1988): 85-87. </ph2

Swaim, Kathleen M. “Making a Virtue of Necessity.” CCC 39.1 (1988): 87-88.

Chaplin, Miriam T. “Issues, Perspectives and Possibilities.” CCC 39.1 (1988): 52-62.

Abstract:

This, a revision of the author’s 1987 CCCC Chair’s address, discusses how larger and complex social and economic problems are affecting the field of composition. The economic strain of recession has led students, who are increasingly independent and non-traditional, to demand serious, real-world applicable writing courses. Concerns about recruiting and retaining students in an era of dwindling enrollments has prompted national reports on the status of higher education, which have placed university curriculum, pedagogy, and teacher training under scrutiny. The push for accountability has led to the creation of objective, standardized tests to measure student progress, which many in composition argue do not effectively judge student writing development. The author argues that composition needs to change in various ways to accommodate and combat these larger social and political movements affecting the university, including expanding the types of writing taught, recognizing the diversity of student experiences in a given class, insisting on relevant assignments, not merely ones that fulfill a standard requirement, and opening up connections between the university and secondary schools.

Keywords:

ccc39.1 ChairsAddress Students Composition Teachers Education HigherEducation Writing Testing Experience Institutions Language Diversity Faculty

Works Cited

Association of American Colleges. Integrity in the College Curriculum: A Report to the Academic Community. 1985.

Britton, James. Language and Learning. Baltimore: Penguin, 1972.

Buber, Martin. Between Man and Man. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1947.

Kelly, George. “Man’s Construction of His Alternatives.” Clinical Psychology and Personality: The Selected Papers of George Kelly. Ed. Brandon Maher. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1969.

Odell, Lee. “A Maturing Discipline.” Chair’s Address. CCCC Convention. New Orleans, 13 March 1986.

Tuman, Myron C. “Class, Codes, and Composition: Basil Bernstein and the Critique of Pedagogy.” CCC 39.1 (1988): 42-51.

Abstract:

The author argues that composition scholars who are critiquing the process movement and raising questions about the connections between language, class, and academic success would be wise to consider the later essays of educational sociologist Byron Bernstein. Bernstein’s essays show that the freedom students are given in student-centered, process-oriented composition classrooms favor middle and upper-class students who possess cultural capital – the educational and social preparation needed to succeed in an environment without much explicit direction. Educational reform movements that don’t address the wider power and class structure of society do not help disadvantaged students succeed, and composition teachers need to reflect on how their pedagogical strategies may help and hurt all the students in their classes. The author argues that some pedagogical practices deemed too traditional and reactionary might better serve students from lower-income or disadvantaged homes.

Keywords:

ccc39.1 Writing BBernstein Curriculum Students Classrooms Pedagogy Process School Children Work Parents Family Education World Communication Power Critique Society LFaigley

Works Cited

Bartholomae, David. “Inventing the University.” When a Writer Can’t Write. Ed. Mike Rose. New York: Guilford, 1985. 134-65.

Bernstein, Basil. “Aspects of the Relations Between Education and Production.” Class, Codes and Control Vol. 3. 174-200.

—. “Class and Pedagogies: Visible and Invisible.” Class, Codes and Control Vol. 3. 116- 56.

—. Class, Codes and Control: Towards a Theory of Educational Transmissions. Vol. 3. 2nd ed. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977.

—. “Codes, Modalities, and the Process of Cultural Reproduction: A Model.” Language in Society 10 (1981): 327-63.

—. Introduction. Class, Codes and Control Vol. 3. 1-33.

—. “Language and Social Class.” Class, Codes and Control: Theoretical Studies Towards a Sociology of Language. 2nd ed. New York: Shocken, 1974. 61-67.

—. “The Role of Speech in the Development and Transmission of Culture.” Perspectives on Learning. Ed. C. L. Klept and W. A. Hohman. New York: Mental Material Center, 1967. 15-45.

Bizzell, Patricia. “College Composition: Initiation into the Academic Discourse Community.” Curriculum Inquiry 12 (1982): 191-207.

Bourdieu, Pierre. “The Economics of Linguistic Exchanges.” Social Science Information 16 (1977): 645-68.

Brannon, Lil, and C. H. Knoblauch. “On Students’ Rights to Their Own Texts: A Model of Teacher Response.” CCC 33 (1982): 157-66.

Chomsky, Noam. Language and Responsibility. New York: Pantheon, 1979.

Faigley, Lester. “Competing Theories of Process: A Critique and a Proposal.” College English 48 (1986): 527-42.

Giroux, Henry A. Theory and Resistance in Education: A Pedagogy for the Opposition. South Hadley, MA: Bergin & Garvey, 1983.

Gramsci, Antonio. Prison Notebook. Trans. Quentin Hoare and Geoffrey Smith. New York: International, 1971.

Heath, Shirley Brice. Ways with Words. New York: Cambridge UP, 1983.

—. “What No Bedtime Story Means: Narrative Skills at Home and School.” Language in Society 11 (1982): 49-76.

Lasch, Christopher. Haven in a Heartless World. New York: Basic, 1977.

Scollon, Ron, and Suzanne B. K. Scollon. “Cooking It Up and Boiling It Down: Abtrabaskan Children’s Story Retellings.” Coherence in Spoken and Written Discourse. Ed. Deborah Tannen. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. 17.3-97.

Brooke, Robert. “Modeling a Writer’s Identity: Reading and Imitation in the Writing Classroom.” CCC 39.1 (1988): 23-41.

Abstract:

This article uses student writing from a semester-long freshman reading and composition course and theoretical understandings of identity construction to argue for a new way of understanding the connection between reading, imitation, and writing. Students, the author argues, form their identity as a writer through imitation of specific, individual authors that they admire and respect, not through dry imitation exercises that focus on generic forms or patterns. The author goes on to argue that composition courses should be primarily concerned with developing writer identities, and the process of forming these identities is complex, drawing from the attitudes towards writing that a teacher models, students’ past histories and experiences, their stance towards reading and writing, and their interpretation of individual authors’ styles.

Keywords:

ccc39.1 Identity Students Writing Courses Experience Reading Imitation Models Writers

Works Cited

Applebee, Arthur. Tradition and Reform in the Teaching of English. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1974.

Aristotle. Rhetoric. Trans. W. R. Roberts. New York: Modern Library, 1954.

Berthoff, Ann. Forming/Thinking/Writing. Rochelle Park, NJ: Hayden, 1978.

Calkins, Lucy. Lessons from a Child. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1983.

Comley, Nancy, and Robert Scholes. “Literature, Composition, and the Structure of English.” Horner 96-109.

Elbow, Peter. Writing Without Teachers. New York: Oxford UP, 1973.

Erikson, Erik. Childhood and Society. New York: Norton, 1950.

—. Identity, Youth and Crisis. New York: Norton, 1968.

Goffman, Erving. Asylums. New York: Anchor, 1961.

—. Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoil Identity. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963.

Graves, Donald. A Researcher Learns to Write. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1984.

Heath, Shirley Brice. “Ethnography in Education: Toward Defining the Essentials.” Ethnography and Education: Children in and out of School. Ed. P. Gilmore and A. Glatthorn. Washington: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1982. 33-55.

—. “Ethnography and Education.” Seminar given at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, March 1986.

—. Ways with Words. New York: Cambridge UP, 1983.

Holland, Norman. 5 Readers Reading. New Haven: Yale UP, 1975.

—. The I. New Haven: Yale UP, 1985.

—. “UNITY IDENTITY TEXT SELF.” PMLA 90 (1975): 813-22. Rpt. in Reader Response Criticism. Ed. Jane Tompkins. Baltimore: John Hopkins, 1980. 118-33.

Horner, Winifred, ed. Composition and Literature: Bridging the Gap. Chicago: Chicago UP, 1983.

Kantor, Ken. “Classroom Contexts and the Development of Writing Intentions.”‘ New Directions in Composition Research. Ed. Richard Beach and Lillian Bridwell. New York: Guilford, 1984. 72-94.

Kantor, Ken, Dan Kirby, and Judith Goetz. “Research in Context: Ethnographic Studies in English Education.” Research in the Teaching of English 15 (1981): 293-309.

Kennedy, George. Classical Rhetoric and its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times, Chapel Hill: North Carolina UP, 1980.

Knoblauch, C. H., and Lil Brannon. Rhetorical Traditions and the Teaching of Writing. Upper Montclair, NJ: Boynton/Cook, 1984.

Laing, R. D. The Divided Self. London: Tavistock, 1960.

—. Self and Others, 2nd ed. New York: Penguin, 1969.

—. The Voice of Experience. New York: Pantheon, 1982.

Laurence, Margaret. A Bird in the House. Toronto: Seal, 1978.

Miller, J. Hillis. “Composition and Decomposition: Deconstruction and the Teaching of Writing.” Horner 38-56.

Plato. “Gorgias.” Trans. W. D. Woodhead. The Collected Dialogues of Plato. Ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns. Princeton: Bollington, 1961. 229-307.

Reither, James. “Writing and Knowing: Toward Redefining the Writing Process.” College English 47 (1985): 620-28.

Rose, Mike. “The Language of Exclusion.” College English 47 (1985): 341-59.

Young, Richard, Alton Becker, and Kenneth Pike. Rhetoric: Discovery and Change, New York: Harcourt, 1970.

Chase, Geoffrey. “Accommodation, Resistance and the Politics of Student Writing.” CCC 39.1 (1988): 13-22.

Abstract:

This article uses case studies of extended writing projects of three college seniors to show how students practice what Giroux terms accommodation, opposition, and resistance strategies when they are asked to adopt established academic discourse conventions in their writing. Through analyzing the students’ writing, the author argues that when instructors teach different discourse conventions, they need to allow students to both problematize the conventions themselves and understand the conventions within a greater social and historical context. This means broadening what teachers deem as “good” or “correct” writing and giving students the opportunity to compose purposeful texts that work towards a larger social goal instead of merely fulfilling an academic assignment.

Keywords:

ccc39.1 Conventions Project Students Discourse Writing Resistance Audiece History Discourse Communities HGiroux Forms Accommodation Community

Works Cited

Batsleer, Janet, et al. Rewriting English: Cultural Politics of Gender and Class. London: Methuen, 1985.

Bizzel1, Patricia. “College Composition: Initiation into the Academic Discourse Community.” Curriculum Inquiry 12 (1982): 191-207.

Bourdieu, Pierre, and Jean-Claude Passeron. Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture. Trans. Richard Nice. London: Sage, 1977.

Faigley, Lester, and Kristine Hansen. “Learning to Write in the Social Sciences.” CCC 36 (1985): 140-49.

Freire, Paulo. The Politics of Education. Trans. Donaldo Macedo. South Hadley, MA: Bergin Garvey, 1985.

Giroux, Henry A. Theory and Resistance in Education: A Pedagogy for the Opposition. South Hadley, MA: Bergin Garvey, 1983.

LeSueur, Meridel. The Girl. Minneapolis: West End, 1978.

Lusted, David. “Why Pedagogy?” Screen 27 (1986).