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…

Samuel Yette's "The Choice: The Issue of Black Survival in America" belongs to an honorable tradition of African American writing, a tradition which draws attention to a necessary distinction between the promise of freedom and democracy and what people actually experience in their everyday lives in the United States. Yette's language…

Professional and disciplinary rhetoric often breaks down when texts cross professional boundaries. An ethnographic study conducted in an Indiana courtroom during a civil trial demonstrates the failure of disciplinary rhetoric. Despite the fact that the plaintiffs in a personal injury case had demonstrated the negligence of the defendant according…

As material objects, texts are as much the product of visual semiotic codes as of linguistic ones. And throughout history, verbal texts have been combined with nonverbal, visual modes of presenting information, taking a stance toward information and readers, and organizing parts into wholes. The major challenge to creating multimodal texts in the…

The primary intent of this paper is to provide an ideological critique of one instance of "union talk," which the paper takes to be representative of organized labor discourse at large. To reach this goal, the question of the need for and value of unions is specifically addressed in the paper, and a review of the studies existing within…

A case study examined the processes by which girls and boys in their first month of primary school assume particular, highly gendered subjectivities within the school setting. Subjects, 28 children of diverse multicultural origins entering a suburban primary school in a large regional center in southern Victoria, Australia, were observed in the…

Composition classrooms are the place to talk specifically about the rhetoricity of writing in academic disciplines. Students can use personal experiences to understand what it means to see themselves as aggressive or passive participants of various institutions. Too often students do not understand themselves as having any authority, but are…

One intention that an instructor had for her new course called "Writing and Healing: Women's Journal Writing" was to make apparent the power of self-written text to transform the writer. She asked her students--women studying women writing their lives and women writing their own lives--to write three pages a day and to focus on change.…

At Syracuse University (New York), Writing 205 offers students an introduction to the principles of rhetoric and the concept of disciplinary discourse. The study of landscape and place serves as a conduit for students to explore design, intention, and audience--a rhetoric of place--in order to develop a comprehension which is then easily…