As Composition Studies has grown as a discipline over the last quarter century, the field has wrestled with defining and naming disciplinary expertise and professional positions. At first glance, issues of naming may not appear worthy of debate, and so whether an individual writing center director identifies as a writing program administrator…

Draws on Susan Miller's distinction between "feminist composition studies" and "feminine composition studies" to raise concerns about the perception, place, and role of composition studies in English departments. Examines the feminine metaphors used in composition theory and research. (TB)

Presents seven practical and two abstract problems encountered when composition was removed from an English department by the dean during the spring of 1998. Lists four main reasons for moving composition out of English including: organization; quality; lack of commitment; and pedagogy. (SG)

This article traces a decline in CCCC sessions on language along with a shift toward more reductive definitions. It analyzes early CCCC treatment of language issues, the Students' Right document, changes in demographics and linguistics, and shifts within English departments that have left us overdue for professional reexamination of our role as…

The reforms of both literary studies and composition are essential if English department wants to remain integral to the liberal arts curriculum. English studies integrates work in literature, language studies and culture with horizontally writing instruction and not hierarchically.

To help students meet the demands of society, the University of Houston is using the framework of learning communities and constructivism to create a cross-disciplinary approach to teaching to provide media-rich thematically linked courses to engage a diverse student population. A case study investigated three semesters of thematically linked…

Describes a successful series of informal English Department seminars at Colorado State University on the teaching of composition. (DD)

Three key areas of confusion in the English department--composition, curriculum, and humanism--can be resolved by marshaling ideas from social dramatism, games theory, and sociobiology. (DD)

Argues that composition is at risk of losing its "disciplinarity." Grounds this argument in Jacques Derrida's notion that whatever counts as the condition for achieving certain identity becomes the very condition of its failure. Argues that in a Derridean reading, composition will cease to be as it is now known. (RS)

In recent years, scholars and teachers in both the broad field of Composition Studies and the more specialized arena of Computers and Composition Studies have begun to recognize that the bandwidth of literacy practices and values on which their profession has focused during the last century may be overly narrow. In response, a number of educators…

Relates the stages a new intern goes through to become an "insider." Relates the socialization of newcomers to writing and editing internships. Suggests ways in which the socialization of interns can be improved through intervention from academic advisors and an active role on the part of the interns themselves. (SC)

Although writing instructors have a clear picture of how well our students can write by the end of a composition course, very rarely do we learn how well the students carry over the skills and strategies we teach them to the essays they write for other courses. I collected essays from other courses to determine how effectively students transfer…

Discusses the role of ideology in discourse theory. Suggests that an informed self-consciousness about the complex sources of thinking and writing can inspire involvement and willingness to share discursive power in the English department's conversation. (MS)

Details some of the advantages provided by a testing service that evaluates student writing. (NKA)