Issue Seven Spring 2003

Computers and Composition Online Now at BGSU

The Fall issue of R&W Notes reported that Kristine Blair, associate professor of and director of English Department efforts in digital literacy and teaching, had been appointed Editor of Computers and Composition Online. The strong first issue under Kris’s editorship is now available at its new address, http://www.bgsu.edu/cconline . As Kris describes the journal in the website,

Computers and Composition Online is the refereed online companion journal to Computers and Composition: An International Journal for Teachers of Writing, now in its 20th year. Our goal is to be a significant online resource for scholar-teachers interested in the impact of new and emerging media upon the teaching of language and literacy in both virtual and face-to-face forums. As part of this goal, we wish to foster a sense of community and collegial sharing of ideas by providing an online space where select features, announcements, and community resources work together to promote a virtual exchange for the latest and best work in the field.

Kris Blair is a Rhetoric & Writing faculty member with wide-ranging interests in computer applications to writing, teaching, and staff training; for instance, she regularly teaches our required course in Computer Mediated Writing--Theory and Practice. She served for some time as C&C Online’s Acquisitions Editor before her appointment as Editor in 2002.

Kris has developed the new C&C Online so that R&W Ph.D. students are significantly involved in its policies and operation. Lanette Cadle is the Senior Editor and Richard Colby is Design Editor. Other R&W students are the Section Editors for the five regular sections of the journal: Rebekah Shultz, “Theory into Practice”; Cheryl Hoy, “The Virtual Classroom”; Amie Bauer-Wolf, “Professional Development”; Elizabeth Monske, “Print to Screen”; and Christopher Harris, “Reviews.”

Alice Calderonello to Retire from BGSU

Senior professor Alice Calderonello acalder@bgnet.bgsu.edu will be retiring this summer after a distinguished career at BGSU. Her accomplishments include directing the BGSU Women’s Studies Program, co-chairing the English Department, and helping found the doctoral emphasis in rhetoric and composition in 1980. As many Rhetoric & Writing graduates know, Alice provided strong and helpful advising on dissertation committees and led seminars that were as dynamic and entertaining as they were rigorous.

Alice was the featured speaker at the April “Third Friday” meeting of Rhetoric & Writing students and faculty. She organized her comments about the early years of our program around a quiz. How well would you do with these questions from Alice’s true-false quiz?

The rhetoric/composition doctoral program existed in 1973, when Alice came to BGSU?

After Alice, the first rhetoric/composition faculty member was Bruce Edwards?

Early in the program’s history, many English Department faculty considered interest in the teaching of writing to be sufficient to qualify a person as a member of the rhetoric/composition faculty?

In some past job searches for rhetoric/composition faculty members, many applicants had taken fewer courses in the discipline than our program requires of its graduates?

One of the earlier versions of Rhetoric of Written Discourse was dubbed “The Rhetoric of Food”?

At least one graduate of the program currently is department chair?

Activities by Rhetoric & Writing Students

Amie Bauer-Wolf, a third-year student in the Rhetoric & Writing PhD program, gave a paper called "Strategies for Instructor Transformation: The Move from Traditional to Technological" at the CCCC meeting in New York City this spring.

Holly Baumgartner is working on her dissertation and serving as an assistant professor of English at Mercy College in the Toledo. Holly edits the college’s creative journal Contexts and works as a mentor in its developmental program. Over the past couple years Holly gave papers at NCTE, the Council of Writing Administrators’ Summer Conference, and the Ohio Association of Developmental Education.

Justin Felix published a short story in It's That Time Again, a collection of stories based on old-time radio shows from Bear Manor Press. He also continued his series of DVD reviews for MonsterZine, with "The Hound Delivers in MGM's The Hound of the Baskervilles" (July-Sept issue), "Bela Lugosi Presents: A Stellar Edition of The Devil Bat" (Oct-Dec 2002), and "The Return of Chandu: A Must for Lugosi Completists"(Jan-Mar 2003).

Heather Fester is completing her first two years in the “continuing Ph.D.” option, in which highly qualified undergraduates are occasionally admitted to the R&W Program with five years of funding. In addition to taking courses this semester, Heather has been revising several seminar papers and developing other materials for the portfolio that marks the end of the English Department’s MA Plan II Program. Heather’s portfolio http://personal.bgsu.edu/~hfester is the first web-based Plan II Portfolio developed in the English Department.

Heather presented “The Rhetoric of Complaint: Returning Agency to Student Writing,” at the 2002 Duquesne Graduate Student Conference on Theory and Practice. This revision of a paper for Alice Calderonello’s Rhetoric of Written Discourse seminar is available in Heather’s MA Portfolio, along with the original course paper and the handout she used during her presentation.

Chris Harris, a third-year R&W student, gave a paper entitled "New Interfaces in First-Year Composition: A Critique of Computer-Based Writing Instruction Software" at the New York CCCC meeting in March. Last fall, Christopher presented "Diversity and Collaboration in First-Year Composition Classrooms: Online Bulleting Boards" at the Michigan College English Association Fall Conference. Chris serves on the executive board of BGSU's Graduate Student Senate. Chris also has recently been promoted to Associate Editor and head of the peer mentor program for the peer-reviewed journal, Academic Exchange Quarterly.

Elizabeth Monske, a third-year student in Rhetoric & Writing, gave a paper entitled “Multi-Tasking with Literacies Old and New: The Future of Composition Studies?” at the Conference on College Composition and Communication.

Karen Rowe presented a paper called “Shattered Illusions: Holman Hunt’s Lady of Shalott” at the Image and Imagery II Conference held on the campus of Brock University in St. Catharine’s, Ontario. Karen’s paper examined the disparities in the two versions of Hunt’s painting based on Tennyson’s poem and proposed that they enabled Hunt to undercut the patriarchal values of Victorian society while apparently supporting them.

Rebekah Shultz and Richard Colby presented "All Your Base are Belong to Us: Computer Games and the Composition Classroom" at the CCCC in New York City. Their panel addressed the impact of computer game culture and playing on student writing. Rebekah outlined activities for integrating the popular game Everquest into a classroom activity.

Six Rhetoric & Writing students will be presenting at the Computers and Writing Conference at Purdue University in May: Amie Bauer-Wolf, Lanette Cadle, Richard Colby, Cheryl Hoy, Liz Monske and Inez Schaecterle.

Alumni Reports

Gail Corso gcorso@neumann.edu

I am busier than ever working as associate professor at Neumann College. Besides serving as Writing Coordinator, I am chair of the Core Assessment Taskforce and leader of the Communication Arts, English, and Writing Work Group

This Working Group is doing major curricular revisions that involve adding writing to the English program, dismantling the current Communication Arts program, and creating three distinct programs from it. We are working to create a writing minor, a journalism minor, and a Professional Communications major. This curricular work is a result of the Communication Arts self study that I chaired last year. Several other faculty in this work group are also proposing a major in Arts Management and Performance/Production.

I am serving, as well, as Co-Editor of Reviews for KAIROS, A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy (Issues 6.3 to the present). And last summer, I co-coordinated a retreat for members of the Philadelphia Writing Program Administrators (PWPA) at the University of Delaware's Verden Retreat Center.

Priscilla Riggle priggle@truman.edu

I've enjoyed receiving Rhetoric and Writing Notes--sorry I've never gotten around to sending an update. At any rate, I'm still at Truman State University, Missouri's public liberal arts institution. While I continue to think of myself as a rhetoric and writing specialist, in practice I am a generalist, teaching a wide range of writing and literature courses at all levels.

Currently, I'm serving in my third year as TA supervisor of our twelve M.A. candidates. It's quite a different role than working with Donna Nelson-Beene in the Bowling Green’s GSW Program, in that we're a small enough outfit that I actually see all of our TAs nearly every day!

In 2001, I was tenured and promoted to Associate Professor of English. Lately, I've been working on a collection of essays with colleagues from all over the U.S. on teaching writing in the liberal arts culture.

Note: The faculty thinks another of Priscilla’s accomplishments was helping us recruit a strong undergraduate from her university two years ago. See the note about Heather Fester in the previous section of this issue. --RCG

Rosalee Stilwell norway@adelphia.net

I'm going to have a chapter published in a book commemorating the achievements of Carleton Mitchell, prototype for Jimmy Buffet, National Geographic photographer and famous maritime essayist (in the yachting world). The book will be published by The Mystic Seaport Foundation. My chapter, "The Rhetoric of Paradise," is a revision of a conference paper delivered to the Race, Ethnicity, and Power in Maritime America Conference of 2002. It will be illustrated with Mitchell's photographs, which appeared in National Geographic Magazine in the 1940s, 50s, 60s, and 70s.

Currently, I am absorbed in analyzing the fascinating (and surprising) rhetoric of Tupac Shakur--slain gangsta rapper, philosopher, and emerging 21st Century icon--with my students. In fact, I've managed to focus the curriculum of all my courses on analyzing his writings, his films, his poetry, his music, and his life. As a result of this new direction in my teaching, I am working with colleagues on a book about the rhetoric of popular culture and students' responses to it. (Needless to say, the students today are wildly enthusiastic about discussing Shakur and his iconicity).

Earlier this year, I was chasing down some teaching materials on the C-SPAN website when I ran across http://www.c-spanstore.com/c-spanstore/169685-5.html . I guess this is my debut on national TV!