College Composition & Communication - Volume 53, Issue 3, 2002

Classroom assignments, especially papers, often serve as the catalyst for many of the interactions that take place between Black male students and white faculty. This essay identifies some of the pitfalls that contribute to the breakdown of communication between white faculty and Black male students during interactions over student writing; it points out the behaviors that both constrain and facilitate these interactions, and it offers suggestions for how faculty can improve their interactions with this population of students. The essay concludes with suggestions for improving faculty awareness of how racial dynamics impact student/faculty interactions over student writing.

This article examines Black student responses to Black Panther Party documents and how those documents moved the students toward change. I maintain that by allowing the classroom to function as a public space in which students can discuss the issues that matter to them, teachers can help to foster and encourage student activism and ultimately their empowerment.

This article compares entrance-to-the-profession narratives of the past thirty years. Selecting major theorists and senior and junior minority scholars, the author describes their efforts to become professionals in the field. The Native American author argues for including Other voices in analyzing the history of composition studies.

For senior scholars of color like Geneva Smitherman and Victor Villanueva, mentoring is more than an academic exercise. From them and their protégés, we may gain some understanding of the complexities and costs of building a multiethnic/multiracial professoriate in our discipline.

Using a journal format, I recall vignettes with a personal slant from the history of CCCC, NCTE, TYCA, and Open Admissions at CUNY. They serve as setting for my brief public remarks, included here, made in response to being given the CCCC Exemplar Award at the 2001 CCCC Convention in Denver, Colorado.