College Composition & Communication - Volume 61, Issue 3, 2010

Past Editor of CCC, 1962–64

Using the data collected by the CCCC Committee on the Major, the authors demonstrate how quickly the writing major is growing, map the commonalities among various majors, discuss some of the problems in developing a major, and raise questions about what a writing major should be.

This essay interrogates the concept of “clarity” that has become an imperative of effective student writing. I show that clarity is neither axiomatic nor transparent, and that the clear/unclear binary that informs the identification of clarity as a goal of effective student writing is itself unstable precisely because of the ideological baggage that undergirds its construction. I make this argument by finding the traces of composition’s insistence on student writers’ clarity in the attacks on the writing of critical theorists.

Contemporary argument increasingly relies on quantitative information and reasoning, yet our profession neglects to view these means of persuasion as central to rhetorical arts. Such omission ironically serves to privilege quantitative arguments as above “mere rhetoric.” Changes are needed to our textbooks, writing assignments, and instructor development programs to broaden how both we and our students perceive rhetoric.

We argue that the Federation of Worker Writers and Community Publishers, with its dual emphasis on literacy and occupational skills, can serve as a new model for writing classrooms and writing program administrators. We further contend that the “contact zone” classroom should be replaced with community-based “federations.”

This essay examines women’s commencement addresses presented from 1910 to 1915 at Vassar College. These addresses are significant because they reveal the students’ rhetorical education and the “available means” upon which these women drew in developing a public voice. By prompting reflection and the potential for change, the commencement addresses also demonstrate the civic importance of epideictic rhetoric.

As writing across the curriculum (WAC) has matured and diversified as a concept and as an organizational structure in U.S. higher education, there has arisen a need for accurate, up-to-date information on the presence and characteristics of WAC and writing-in-the-disciplines (WID) programs. Following on the only previous nationwide survey of WAC/WID in 1987, new data from the U.S./Canada survey of the International WAC/WID Mapping Project indicate that the presence of such programs has grown in U.S. institutions by roughly one-third. Moreover, clear patterns emerge regarding the formal components of these programs, their intra-institutional relationships, funding sources, reporting lines, and characteristics of leadership (e.g., faculty rank and length of service). Further, a comparison of data from all reporting institutions with those from well-established programs indicates some patterns of sustainability.

This is a written version of the address Charles Bazerman gave at the CCCC meeting in San Francisco on March 12, 2009.

The Exemplar Award is presented to a person who has served or serves as an exemplar of our organization, representing the highest ideals of scholarship, teaching, and service to the entire profession. This is the written version of the acceptance speech Victor Villanueva gave at the CCCC meeting in San Francisco on March 12, 2009.

Review of seven books on writing across the curriculum.

Charles Bazerman’s report on CCCC

Doug Hesse has written a commentary on “The Movement of Air, the Breath of Meaning: Aurality and Multimodal Composing” by Cynthia L. Selfe, which appeared in College Composition and Communication 60.4 (June 2009): 616–63. The full text of the original article is available at the CCC website: www.ncte.org/cccc/ccc.

Cynthia L. Selfe respondes to Doug Hesse’s comment on her CCC article.