I've been reading Robert Scholes's The Rise and Fall of English: Reconstructing English as a Discipline. I'm glad I finally got around to reading this text. Scholes argues for resituating English curriculum, especially general education core classes, around issues of textuality. He argues,

We need speaking and listening skills, to be sure, and we need to be literate in the traditional sense: able to read and write. But we also need to be "literate" across a various and complex network of different kinds of writing and various media of communication (130).

A couple issues have been in the back of my mind while reading this. This year, the Composition Committee will be taking a look at the College Composition curriculum in order to update/revise it. The question is: what principles and assumptions about literacy and the purpose of composition are we using currently? To what degree is our teaching relevant to today's world? That is, I am thinking about why we do what we do, who we serve, and toward what ends. Scholes is giving me some things to think about. In particular, Scholes gives us the following definition of literacy:

Literacy involves the ability to understand and to produce a wide variety of texts that use the English language--including work in traditional literary forms, in the practical and persuasive forms, and in the modern media as well. Whether students go on to higher education or enter the workforce after graduation, their success will depend to a great extent on their ability to understand and use the English language. That is why this course [a high school capstone course in English Studies] makes language itself--and its use in various forms, genres, and media--the center of attention (130, brackets mine).

Yes, Scholes is writing about a high school senior English course he helped develop for the College Boards with high school teachers around the country called "Pacesetter English." But his definition of literacy as something broader than "academic writing" or "good prose" interests me. It also makes me think that one of the things that is important to do when planning a course is to ask ourselves what assumptions we are making about literacy and the purpose of College Composition.

These are very provisional thoughts...and one's that make me want to get back to reading Pegeen Reichert Powell's, "Critical Discourse Analysis and Composition Studies," since she has bit of a different take, although still very interested in the assumptions and purposes of comp. And there's also that article from the New London Group, "Multiliteracies," that is quite useful. Both are on eReserve, by the way.

Kevin

For anyone who is interested, I've signed on. As Jen said, it couldn't be easier.

I have scheduled an introductory meeting for new and returning faculty who will be teaching composition in the fall. The meeting will be held Thursday, August 25th at 12 noon in 207 Lytle Hall. The meeting is open to all faculty, but new faculty are especially encouraged to attend.

The meeting will address:

• The directed self-placement process. For those new to the concept, this means that with guidance from me and others, students self-select the composition course based upon their history and comfortability with academic reading and writing. The directed self-placement process influences how we structure our composition classes. For example, ENG 022 Introduction to College Composition is not a "remedial" class. It is designed to give students an additional semester practice in academic writing so they can do well in ENG 023.
  
• An overview of ENG 022. Given that Introduction to College Composition is not a remedial class, it poses challenges for faculty who are used to teaching introductory composition classes as "grammar" classes or "remedial" classes. Dr. Linda Cullum will join me to discuss the goals of ENG 022 and provide some suggestions about how to plan your course effectively.
• Dr. Cullum is also the Director of the Writing Center. She will provide faculty with an overview of the Writing Center. Chris Lang, an English grad student and Writing Center tutor, will join us as well.
• Composition Program planning for the academic year. Our plans include: the Third Annual Composition Conference for First-Year Student Writers, revising ENG 023, our weekly Composition Conversations, the new Composing reading group, and a "Teachnology" grant exploring the use of blogs in the Composition classroom.

I hope that some returning faculty will join us as well to talk about their experiences teaching composition at KU. If anyone has any ideas of additional things that would be useful to discuss--post them here!

Oh, and by the way, I'll be bringing the famed bagels and cream cheese for everyone. Even if you can't stay the whole time, please come by for a bagel!

Kevin

Well it's official. I'm in planning mode for the fall. Yesterday I
reserved the rooms for the Composition Conversations. They will be held
every Wednesday from 12noon until 1pm in Lytle 207. While the first
meeting is generally introductory, if anyone has any ideas of topics
they would like to cover over the course of the semester, I'm all ears.

Also, I've made copies of several articles for the Composing reading
group and placed them in a 3-ring binder in the mailroom. Anyone is
free to take a look at them and make suggestions about the order of the
readings over the course of the semester. Most of the articles are also
available on eReserve (see link on this blog)...the remained of the
articles should be available on eReserve by the end of July.

I am also planning a meeting the week before the semester begins for all
new and returning faculty who are teaching ENG 022, Introduction to
College Composition in the fall. Linda Cullum will be helping out with
this meeting and bring some suggestions for assignments and exercizes
that may be useful for those new to 022.

On another note, I've gone a little blog happy. I've created blogs for
all my courses and just loaded a new English Department News blog this
morning. At the very least, these blogs will provide some useful sites
for the Blog project Aaron and I (and Jen??) will be undertaking this
fall.

Just created the account. Though I don't know what happened to my last name. But it was a snap and took all of 2 seconds. So, what's the scoop at KU Composing?

JB

Sounds good to me.

In order to see how well blogging works for connecting faculty with each other around issues of teaching, theory, writing, I thought we could run this little experiment.

I hope this will be a place to have on-going discussions about teaching and other issues related to writing, rhetoric, teaching, etc.

Kevin