A study examined the opinions of a substantial segment of the Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) community about gender exclusive language. Questionnaires were distributed at two large but diverse CEDA debate tournaments. A total of 180 usable surveys were returned to the 390 distributed. Survey respondents (112 men, 66 women) included…

Teachers' written responses to student writing cover a wide range, and through the kind and amount of response, they convey their values, beliefs, and priorities about language and learning, about the roles of teacher and student, and about the goals of writing. Researchers have found that students respond well to comments on concepts and…

The awakening of public interest in curriculum has come at a time when, within the education profession, the conventional wisdom about teaching and learning has itself undergone a major transformation. New Constructivist theories of knowing have emphasized the social nature of the construction of knowledge: students learn by "putting it into…

A graduate student who was the only composition person in a two semester teaching seminar experienced the dilemma of defining and establishing that identity in the midst of a classroom struggle between cultural studies and literary theorists on one side and creative writers on the other. The factious teaching seminar mirrored the fact that English…

A study explored what an outside-the-classroom, authentic literature discussion involved. Three book club discussions (involving a leaderless group consisting of members of varying professions meeting monthly to discuss fiction and nonfiction reading selections) were audiotaped, transcribed and coded. Results indicated that: (1) when allowed to…

This paper explores what it means, and what it might mean, to "achieve" in literacy. The paper points out that, although there is considerable concern over the misrepresentation of literate achievement by standardized tests, there has been substantially less demonstration of what is being left out, that is, exactly what of significance is achieved…

Holocaust denial, like hate speech in general, is reaching far larger audiences on the World Wide Web that it was ever able to do in the past. The Internet is the most free press imaginable, and Holocaust deniers can publish their works as widely as they like and construct their message in any way they choose--they have great latitude when…

Geographical thinking focuses on the extrinsic meanings of work in English, the meanings extracted from that work, intended or not, through mediating institutional forces, relationships, and modes of spatial organization. It considers how the effects of the work of English educators are mediated by the contiguity of their courses with other…

Numerous critics have repeatedly called for the use of curricular materials drawn from the learner's everyday world, and for many of today's students, one valuable source is the lyrics of contemporary rap music. In first-year writing courses at Michigan State University, the words to one rap song, "You Must Learn" by the group Boogie…

This paper discusses the rhetoric of American educators to show that rhetorical analyses can be used to highlight assumed concepts and values within educators' discourses, policies, and practices, and to suggest that greater awareness of their rhetoric can help educators make their communications congruent with their purposes. The paper describes…

"Rhetoric Review" ("RR") was founded in 1982 as an umbrella journal in composition studies with rhetoric, the most inclusive discipline in the humanities, at its center. Being editor of such a journal requires a working knowledge of production, layout, and design, besides handling other routine duties like correspondence and…

Since a discourse community may have its membership assigned both on the basis of speech or of writing, it follows that the concept of discourse community needs to be both medium-neutral and unconstrained by space and time. The defining characteristics of a discourse community might be (1) communality of interest, (2) mechanisms for…

An examination of the transformations that the concept of genius undergoes when viewed through the apparently incommensurable expressivistic and social views of composing helps to reconcile phenomenologically objective descriptions of composing with value-laden descriptions of the self in the act of writing. When the description of composition is…

This research draws a group of women physicists' experience in organizing a local network to investigate how individuals' career decisions are affected by their identity transformation. Poststructuralist feminist theories of identity and discourse are used to compare three women physicists' cases with data collected from in-depth interviews and…

Founded in 1854 as the Ashmun Institute, Lincoln University in southern Pennsylvania is the nation's oldest historically black university. Classical rhetoric and canonical literature were taught at Lincoln since its founding. Lincoln's writing program emerged fully and autonomously in 1978 and grew roughly at the same time that the discipline of…