Department of Writing and Rhetoric

The task of defining the work of cultural critics is considerably simpler in composition studies than it is in the English department as a whole because of the narrower focus of composition studies' cultural criticism. The field of cultural studies has become so diverse that giving it a clear definition is nearly impossible, and, for some, because of the limiting effect of a definition, undesirable. Cultural studies of the compositionists can be referred

In this article, we argue that writing instructors might support students in messy problem-exploring through multimodal composition assignments like video composition, and in particular, through careful attention to assessment practices. Through reflective analysis of one teacher's experiences with video composition in first-year writing, we suggest that ongoing formative reflection might be useful for prompting and extending problem-exploring within digital composition. We reflect specifically on Angie's interpretations of her students' experiences with problem-exploring through video, we narrate how we came to see the limitations of product-focused assessment, and we offer a revised model of ongoing formative assessment.

Responding to a need in rhetoric and composition for more attention to digital methodologies and methods, this paper offers one detailed example of the interdependent, messy process of designing, conducting, and continually reconceptualizing digital writing research that uses video. I begin by reviewing research that uses video methods within the field. Then, I narrate how processes of gathering data with video cameras, analyzing data with a video editor, and presenting multimodal products have caused me to rethink and rearticulate my own methodology and methods in a way that better acknowledges the complexity of the research scene and the researcher's interdependent role in the co-construction of meaning. I urge all digital writing researchers to more consciously participate in a similar critical reflective process about their own methodology and methods.

Consider the recording studio. Its walls absorb and release sound waves, filtering and reflecting them. It is filled with electronics that further direct and diffract sound: mics, processors, audio workstations, converters, mixing boards, speakers, and headphones. It brings together band members who hit drums, strum guitars, adjust mics, sing, move bodies, and flip switches. Such a recording studio is an entangled ecology, an actor-network where energy ebbs, flows, and is continually transformed through interactions among objects, environments, and humans. In other words, the recording studio is a quasi-object where movements, relationships, energy, and actions intermingle and coproduce new and changed versions of themselves. In Resounding the Rhetorical: Composition as a Quasi-Object, Byron Hawk provides glimpses into sonic sites like the recording studio that function as compositional quasi-objects. Hawk draws from philosopher Michel Serres to theorize quasi-objects as partial objects that are "part relation and part material specificity," and "moving, emergent, composed events that are slowed down and partially stabilized by relations" (28). Arguing that rhetoric and composition's object of study-composition-is most usefully understood as a quasi-object, Hawk guides us to rethink what composition is and how it functions. Hawk then utilizes sound in general and musical composition in particular to illustrate vital, ecological, and relational composing practices. He tunes our ears and bodies toward sound in part because the field of composition and rhetoric is already listening there, as he points out through summarizing work that melds sound studies with writing and rhetoric by

Research and Teaching Interests composition studies • new media • first-year writing • digital and multimodal rhetoric • qualitative and audiovisual research methods • new literacies • technical and professional communication • writing program administration • secondary English education

Recent research in writing studies has highlighted meta-awareness as valuable for student learning in courses such as first-year writing (FYW); however, meta-awareness needs to be further theorized and its components identified. In this article, I draw on a case study of six students in two FYW courses that is informed by Gregory Schraw’s model of metacognition and Anthony Giddens’s theory of practical and discursive consciousness to outline four writing/rhetorical concepts within which meta-awareness about composition is observable. These concepts include 1) process, 2) techniques, 3) rhetoric, and 4) intercomparativity, and they provide a preliminary framework for meta-awareness about composition that others might expand upon as we continue to build knowledge of how writers learn. First-year writing (FYW) is often considered to be at the heart of writing studies. Thousands of instructors teach FYW each semester in colleges and universities across the nation, seeking to prepare stu...

O n a Tuesday afternoon in March, students in Elizabeth's Basic Writing course gathered around computer screens to workshop each other's videos. They were a diverse group that included students from China, Mexico, and the Middle East; African Americans; and White Americans. Many spoke English as a second language. In small groups, they had conducted research and drafted short videos about different on-campus resources. On this day, each group played their video draft for another group and received verbal feedback based on criteria written on the board. The literacy practices involved in this work were multiple: conducting primary research; writing collaboratively; giving, receiving, and applying feedback from audiences; and representing ideas multimodally. Two groups rolled their chairs over to student Gerry's laptop to view the video he had composed with D'mitria. 1 Gerry sat in front of the laptop, working the keyboard. D'mitria sat next to him, ready to take notes in a notebook. The other group scooted close as Gerry pressed play. The video included footage of Gerry and D'mitria's interview with a First-Year Advising Center employee, layered with loud, upbeat music. "What do you think?" Gerry asked. "Pretty cool, " one classmate replied. "Just turn the music way down because I didn't hear anything you said. " "I totally forgot about that!" Gerry responded, and D'mitria made a note. Another student suggested transcribing the interview with subtitles. Gerry and D'mitria listened, responded, and listed changes they wanted to make, and the conversation continued. Later, Sam, the Embedded Writing Specialist (EWS) working in the class, circulated throughout the room, offering additional suggestions as the groups revised. In this article, we examine scenes and moments like these in student video composition experiences where conceptions of literacy interacted with transfer across media. The video assignment was designed to provide opportunities for multimodal composition, and we theorized that the rhetorical knowledge students would build through video might be applied to and recontextualized in their written compositions. We also hoped that video composition might encourage students to

Greg Giberson and Tom Moriarty have collected a rich volume that offers a state-of-the-field look at the question of the undergraduate writing major, a vital issue for compositionists as the discipline continues to evolve. What We Are Becoming provides an indispensable resource for departments and WPAs who are building undergraduate majors. Contributors to the volume address a range of vital questions for undergraduate programs, including such issues as the competition for majors within departments, the job market for ...

In this critical program profile, the authors provide an analysis of the historical, political, theoretical, and practical circumstances that influenced the development of Oakland University's undergraduate major in writing and rhetoric. Through an analysis of the developmental process and the major itself, this article explores many separate, yet interconnected issues. These include the development and naming of a department of writing and rhetoric, the impact the major has had on the firstyear writing program, the theoretical and practical structure of the threetrack major, as well as the institutional impact the program has had. In December 2007, three of the Rhetoric faculty at Oakland University (OU)-Greg, Lori, and Marshall Kitchensbegan revising our program's proposal for a major in writing and rhetoric, which had been initiated by our senior faculty some 10 years earlier. As we reconceptualized the proposal and consulted the available scholarly materials on the topic of undergraduate writing majors, we recognized that while there was a good deal of work on the major, there was still much work to be done in terms of breadth, depth, and consistency in the scholarly conversation. We were lucky to have access to early drafts of the now published collection What We Are Becoming: Developments in Undergraduate Writing Majors, as Greg was lead editor on that project, and we found that Coming of Age: The Advanced Writing Curriculum provided valuable insights into developing our upperlevel writing courses and core curriculum. But for the purposes of proposing and designing our own major, the three of us felt there was much more we needed to know about designing, proposing, and implementing B.A. programs.

This collection of essays provides a timely analysis of the current state and potential future of higher education and its subsequent impact on society. The multinational and multidisciplinary contributors analyze the variety of professional, intellectual, social and political factors that govern our individual and collective behavior, and how these forces undermine society's traditional goals for higher education: critical and intellectual development, and civic engagement. These historical democratic-social values are coming to be replaced with those of production and consumption in service to the global economy. The competing and contradictory demands placed upon higher education are often at odds with the traditional notions of liberal education that persist as performative facade, an idealization of the academy existing primarily in the lore, rituals, and mission statements of most colleges and universities, but not always in the outcomes faculty are expected to produce.

assistants, who are often just entering the field of composition. Until now, my academic field of study was never represented among the Norton publications that lined my shelf. But The Norton Book of Composition Studies, edited by Susan Miller, changes that scenario and marks an indelible moment that acknowledges this field and the work of its scholars. Like the other Norton books, Miller's contribution will no doubt shape present and future generations of composition scholars and teachers. At 1,760 pages, the collection includes 101 essays. The book is broken into four parts: "Historical Accounts," "Theories of Composition," "Revisions and Differences," and "Worldwide Projects." As a tome, it is impressive in size and breadth. The collection draws upon both articles and book chapters. Some of these pieces have been included in other collections over the years. But perhaps one of the greatest strengths of the collection, as Miller notes, is the inclusion of "selections that are difficult to find elsewhere," such as pieces from Edward Tyrrell Channing and Wallace Douglas. "Part I: Historical Accounts" consists of two subsections: "Roots" and "The Emergence of a Field." With "Roots," Miller has chosen key excerpts from works by

In this review essay, I focus on the rhetorical and affective dimensions of archives in Jani Scandura's Down in the Dumps: Place, Modernity, American Depression (2008) and Marita Sturken's Tourists of History: Memory, Kitsch, and Consumerism from Oklahoma City to Ground Zero (2007).

In this chapter I scaffold the process of developing counterarguments and arraying multiple perspectives to demonstrate one's rhetorical awareness and argumentative skill. The chapter features an undergraduate student who engages in conversations about the death penalty and other topics with his roommates. This student uses heuristics to test his dialectical awareness of alternative viewpoints. In the chapter I explore classical stasis theory, as an applied invention technique, to discover argumentative and rhetorical commonplaces.

Hayden McNeil holds the copyright for the chapter, which appears in the textbook Writing Public Lives: From Personal Interests to Public Rhetoric.