The previous report in this series discussed how collaborative tools can be used in the development of formal and non-formal online communities. The current report describes the specific development of an online community advocacy group.

This article presents a two-round discussion that centered around the question: "How well has UNESCO framed its own proposed role in meeting Education for All objectives as well as the roles of other UN organizations, national governments, and civil society actors?" The participants reviewed the most recent draft of UNESCO's "Global Action Plan"…

Several strands of research in applied linguistics have increasingly focused their attention on the application of genre theory to the classroom. In advanced academics, the genres of disciplinary communities serve gate-keeping functions that students must negotiate in order to succeed in their academic endeavors. Often without explicit…

In death-averse American society, the field of thanatology is often socially and academically isolating. The purpose of this article is to describe the experiences of a group of death scholars and share insights gained as members of an interdisciplinary team. They discuss the ways in which they have created a special "safe" space for death study…

Through reading and reflecting on the words of Atwell, Rief, Moffett, and Graves, Maltese began to think like a teacher-researcher, and questioned her writing workshop practices. Once she began to consider audience as a motivating factor, writing became more meaningful for her students, encompassing a wide range of possibilities. Working from a…

Foucault's notion of "regimes of truth" (MacNaughton 2005, 30) provides an understanding of how some discourses operate and network together to reinforce a particular powerful view of the world. These can be in oral or written forms. Early childhood education practices are drawn on the discourse of a document developed by the National Association…

Little empirical research is currently available on Jewish distance learning, a nascent but growing field of practice. By way of qualitative case study methodology, this research explored the learning experience of a group of adult learners participating in a Jewish education Master's degree program that is offered by way of videoconferencing…

A study administered a 12-item questionnaire to 35 (15 males, 20 females) African-American students (recent high school graduates with a mean age of 17.5 years) enrolled in a university summer enrichment program to examine how their language in casual conversation differed from that of adults. The questionnaire was administered after the final…

As his students filed through the classroom door, one college writing instructor thought of everything he did not do. "Too much judge, not enough coach; too much talking, not enough listening." He felt that he had played it safe that first semester--neither hurting his students nor profoundly moving them. For a new instructor, it is hard…

Defining risk communication as the "interactive process of exchange of information and opinion among individuals, groups, and institutions,...involving multiple messages about the nature of risk," this Digest argues that risk communication has much to offer instructors of cultural studies composition who want to revive students' sense of…

Months after the conclusion of a course, a writing teacher still receives electronic mail messages from former students, referring to the class or asking for advice. The implications of this post-course e-mail could cause a refiguration of traditional concepts of the boundaries of the classroom and of the academic term itself. What kind of…

This digest argues that whole language theorists and adult education theorists have much in common, much to say to one another, and much to learn from one another. The digest first defines and discusses "whole language," then defines and discusses "andragogy," (the learning of adults) and finally asks educators to recognize…

When composition educators talk about either "theory" or "practice," they are not referring to a monolithic and unified field, but instead to any number of competing, ideologically charged metacommentaries. The "problem with practice" refers to its own socially complex and temporally diffuse nature. Applications of…

The Cartesian/Newtonian vision of human existence is outmoded because modern quantum physics has rendered it inaccurate. Quantum theory has demonstrated that the world cannot be reduced to independent and separate elements. The notion that there is an external, objective reality "out there," separate from the self, to be classified, measured,…

The double entry journal, first suggested by Ann Berthoff in "Forming/thinking/writing," offers a way to break out of the one-way discourse and single-voiced thinking that predominates in traditional rhetoric and academic writing. Typically, double-entry journals are set up so that students quote from a source in the left-hand margin and…