Multimodal Composition and the Rhetoric of Teaching: A Conversation with Cheryl Ball
Cheryl Ball is an Associate Professor of New Media Studies at Illinois State University where she teaches courses on multimodal composition as well as digital media, composition theory, and digital publishing. She gives talks and workshops on these topics around the country and has published and collaborated on a number of articles, edited collections, book chapters, and webtexts as well. She has also co-authored with Kristen Arola a textbook, Visualizing Composition. In addition to her research and teaching, she is also the editor of the electronic journal Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy. IW editor Wade Mahon spoke with Ball by phone on June 23, 2011. (1973), Writing
With Power: Techniques for Mastering the Writing Process
(1981),
and Everyone Can Write: Essays Toward a Hopeful Theory of Writing and
Teaching Writing (2000), in addition to numerous articles, workshops and
conference presentations. He is an advocate of freewriting and other
strategies that empower students to develop their own voices in writing.
He is currently working on a book on speech and writing.
On 20 October 2008, IW Editors Wade Mahon and Sarah Pogell
spoke with Elbow by telephone.
Articles
-Local Archives, Local Practices: The Writing Research of Essie
Chamberlain, 1920–1925.
Lori Ostergaard
This
article analyzes the innovative and progressive high school
composition research conducted by one of the National Council of
Teachers of English’s earliest and most prolific members: Essie
Chamberlain. Chamberlain’s work illustrates just one early
twentieth-century teacher’s efforts to test a variety of composition
methods and materials during a time when many composition histories
claim research in the field had stalled. Classroom research may
constitute the largest unexplored area of the composition archives,
and Chamberlain’s work demonstrates the important contributions that
high school research studies may make to our histories of
composition as an emerging discipline.
-How
Computer Editing Responds to Types of Writing Errors. David Major
Computer editing tools enjoy a variety of reputations for
effectiveness, often leaving student writers, workplace writers, and
teachers of writing unsure about how, when, or even whether to use
spelling and grammar checkers. Choosing specific categories of
writing errors to test and using large samples of sentences provides
data allowing definitive analysis of the capabilities of computer
editing, in this case, the proofing tools of Microsoft Word ’07.
With this information, writers and teachers can plan their
strategies for editing.
-Local
and Global:The Writing
Class’s Vital Role in Composing Citizens.
Donna Dunbar-Odom
The role of the introductory, first-year writing course is key in
helping students begin to make sense of and take part in a world
that demands that they see themselves as part of a global citizenry.
But such work must be tempered with awareness that not all students
are equally prepared to meet such change without trepidation and
anxiety—especially working-class students, who are most vulnerable
to those shifts. The writing course can offer glimpses of
resistances to and difficulties in becoming citizens of the world.
This essay describes a particular class with a particular sequence
of writing assignments, but the particular assignments are less
important than their thrust and purpose and the ways those
assignments work to orchestrate students’ engagement with a larger
worldview. The writing class is the linchpin to a vital humanities
curriculum; the writing class is the place where students can see
how the big questions in humanities courses connect in real ways to
their own lives.
Review Essay
A Tipping Point in Plagiarism and Copyright Studies. Elaine Whitaker
Blum, Susan D. My Word! Plagiarism and College Culture.
Ithaca and London: Cornell UP, 2009. 229 pages.
The Modern Language Association of America. MLA Handbook for
Writers of Research Papers. 7th ed. New York: The Modern
Language Association of America, 2009. xxi + 292 pages.
MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing.
3rd ed. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 2008.
xxiv + 336 pages.
Steve Westbrook, ed. Composition & Copyright: Perspectives on
Teaching, Text-Making, and Fair Use. Albany: SUNY P, 2009. vi +
225 pages.
Reviews
Integrating Literature and Writing Instruction:First-Year English, Humanities Core Courses, Seminars.
edited by Judith H. Anderson and Christine R. Farris. Reviewed by Bethany Blankenship
A Rhetoric of Style. by Barry Brummett.
Reviewed by D. Alexis Hart
Resources in Technical Communication:Outcomes and Approaches. edited by Cynthia L. Selfe.
Reviewed by Evon Hawkins
Teaching the Neglected “R”:Rethinking Writing Instruction in Secondary Classrooms.
edited by Thomas Newkirk and Richard Kent.
Reviewed by Kevin Roozen
Motives for Metaphor in Scientific and Technical Communication.
by Timothy D. Giles. Reviewed by Jessica Rivait
Volume 18 Number 1, 2009: Contents
Interview
Service Learning in “The Service” and Beyond:A Conversation with James Dubinsky (pp. 4-24)
James Dubinsky is the Director of the Center for Student Engagement
and Community Partnerships at Virginia Tech, before which he served
for ten years as the Director of the Professional Writing Program in
the Department of English at Virginia Tech. He is also the immediate
past president of the Association for Business Communication. An
award-winning teacher of technical and professional writing, he is
particularly interested in service learning, university-community
partnerships, and eportfolios. IW editors Dan Dieterich and Wade
Mahon spoke with Dubinsky by phone on February 26, 2010.
Articles
-Learning
Content in Another Context:English-Language Writing Instruction in Germany. Melinda
Reichelt (pp. 25-52)
Examining local practices for writing instruction at one secondary
school in Germany yields findings with broad implications. Writing
specialists in other contexts can gain insights and ideas by
examining how writing instruction is successfully implemented at
this Gymnasium to support commonly-held values, including
creativity, close reading of texts, and critical thinking. This
article is a report of part of the results of a long-term
investigation of writing instruction at a German Gymnasium,
describing the influence of such contextual factors as the role that
English plays in Germany; the influence of German educational values
and curricular goals; historical factors; and the nature of
German-language writing pedagogy.
-“To Everyone Out There in Budget Land”:The Narrative of Community in the International Amish
Newspaper, The Budget. Tabetha Adkins (pp. 53-78)
This article examines an Amish newspaper, The Budget, and
demonstrates how the text is shaped by the needs and expectations of
the Anabaptist community. The analysis shows how this Amish literacy
artifact is shaped by Anabaptist values and beliefs and how these
beliefs and values are represented in the paper.
Review Essay
Writing Center Scholarship, Reconsidered. Melissa Ianetta (pp.79-85)
The Everyday Writing Center:A Community of Practice,
by Anne Ellen Geller, Michele Eodice, Frankie Condon, Meg Carroll
and Elizabeth H. Boquet
Writing at the Center:
Proceedings of the 2004 Thomas R. Watson Conference, Louisville
Kentucky,
by JoAnn Griffin, Carol Mattingly and Michele Eodice, eds.
Marginal Words, Marginal Work? Tutoring the Academy in the Work of
Writing Centers,
by Macauley Jr., William J. and Nicholas Mauriello
Centered:A Year in the
Life of a Writing Center Director,
by Michael Mattison
Inside the Community College Writing Center,
by Ellen G. Mohr
Reviews
The Way Literacy Lives:
Rhetorical Dexterity and Basic Writing Instruction,
by Shannon Carter. Reviewed by Susan Naomi Bernstein (pp. 86-89)
Composition and Cornel West:Notes toward a Deep Democracy,
by Keith Gilyard. Reviewed by William Duffy (pp. 89-93)
Teaching Multiwriting:
Researching and Composing with Multiple Genres, Media, Disciplines,
and Cultures,
by Robert L. Davis, and Mark F. Shadle. Reviewed by Lisa
Johnson-Shull (pp. 93-97)
Rural Literacies,
by Kim Donehower, Charlotte Hogg, and Eileen E. Schell. and
Whistlin’ and Crowin’ Women of Appalachia:Literacy Practices Since College, by Katherine Kelleher Sohn.
Reviewed by Mary Beth Pennington (pp. 98-103)
Delivering College Composition:The Fifth Canon,
by Kathleen Blake Yancey, ed. Reviewed by Drew M. Loewe (pp.
104-107)