Don’t take my somewhat unhappy words from yesterday too darkly; like my first experience last year, I found this Conference on College Composition and Communication to be generative, fun, and inspiring. I truly do love my field, and I love my people, as much as they often drive me crazy. I went to a lot […]

I come to the Conference on College Composition and Communication expecting to be depressed about many aspects of the field. I’m used to that. Nothing makes me sadder, though, than the number of scholars who display distaste for the very subject our field is oriented to, or was: the teaching of writing. I know, very […]

One of the more well-known and frequently-cited quotes in rhetoric and composition is Janice Lauer’s definition of rhet/comp as “a dappled discipline.” We are famously diverse, in terms of methodology, epistemology, theoretical assumptions, types of classes taught, departments we belong to, institutional structure…. So it’s typical, here at our biggest shindig, for someone like me […]

Greetings from the 2013 Conference on College Composition and Communication, in sunny Las Vegas. I’m here to present my paper, “The Syllabus as the Enemy of Public Writing,” on how assessment measures typically fail to reflect the theoretical and pedagogical commitments of public writing classes. I’m excited to be presenting, excited to be in Las […]