College Composition & Communication - Volume 58, Issue 1, 2006

Often, composition teachers present public debate as if it occurs on a rhetorically level playing field, with victory going to the person who argues most logically. Real-world contestants are seldom so equal in power. We can enrich our pedagogy by studying such encounters; example: the 1263 disputation at Barcelona between Rabbi Nachmanides and Friar Paul Christian.

The Technology, Education, and Copyright Harmonization (TEACH) Act of 2002 was developed to update copyright law to accommodate the uses of copyrighted materials in distance-education environments. This article presents an analysis of the TEACH Act and its implications for teaching writing, with an aim toward building awareness among faculty and administrators so that they can become part of the critical conversation about copyright law as it affects teaching and learning with technology.

“Freedom Schooling” looks at a Freedom School class taught by Black Power activist Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture). Specifically, this article explores the philosophies of language and education that informed this class and the organic relationship fostered between the classroom and the political goals of African American communities during the civil rights era.

“Guidelines for the Ethical Treatment of Students and Student Writing in Composition Studies” signals our increased awareness of the ethical obligations that attend our scholarship and research. Our adoption of research methods from other fields, particularly the social sciences, has heightened that concern. We must now consider the ethical obligations we assume when we teach those methods to students at the beginning of their academic careers.

In this article, I assert that plagiarism is a literacy practice that involves social relationships, attitudes, and values as much as it involves rules of citation and students’ texts. In addition, I show how plagiarism is complicated by a discourse about academic dishonesty, and I consider the implications that recognizing such complexity has for teaching.

Russel Durst has written a commentary on “Understanding Problems in Critical Classrooms” by William Thelin, published in September 2005; I have invited William Thelin to respond. The full text of the original article is also available at http://inventio.us/ccc.

Russel Durst has written a commentary on “Understanding Problems in Critical Classrooms” by William Thelin, published in September 2005; I have invited William Thelin to respond. The full text of the original article is also available at http://inventio.us/ccc.