Three ways that English department Web sites express, lost-island rhetoric, the rhetorical tropes on these sites, which express an ironic, dialogical tension between being lost and being found in the global economy is discussed. Lost-island rhetoric expresses the profession's own contradictory impulses considering the network, the desire to…

A discussion on creative writing's newly improved status in English departments and what its improved status can tell us about disciplinary matters as a whole is presented. There is a need to prepare creative writers not only for their careers as writers, but also for their careers as teachers of creative writing.

Considers the wide variation of first-year composition programs and if they do indeed vary so widely. Considers what the programs have in common. Asks if it would be possible to articulate a general curricular framework for first-year composition, regardless of institutional home, student demographics, and instructor characteristics. Presents a…