It is great so see so many posts about the election campaign. I have been wishing I was teaching a rhetoric class right now with all the talk of rhetoric, plagiarism, etc. in the media. I wanted to offer this piece to the conversation, a pretty solid (B/B+) rhetorical analysis of an Obama speech in The Washington Post. Lots of talk of audience and it addresses Obama's direct appeal to our shared "young voter" demographic.

Praxis announces CFP for Fall 2007 Issue: Diversity in the Writing Center

Praxis: A Writing Center Journal welcomes submissions for its Fall 2007 issue. We especially encourage submissions on this issue’s theme: Diversity in the Writing Center. Articles on this topic may deal with the numerous ways in which writing centers foster and accommodate the diversity of their tutees and tutors. We invite contributors to interpret the theme broadly; however, some possible applications include

• Issues of power and authority relating to race, gender, class, etc. in tutorials

In this issue on "The Writing Center and the Classroom," our articles overwhelmingly call attention to the hybrid forms emerging from meetings between these two sites of writing instruction.

“Hybrid” is the keyword in our Focus section. In presenting research data from two composition classes featuring writing tutors, Holly Bruland argues that classroom-based tutoring (CBT) is a “hybrid genre,” with tutors moving from tasks traditionally associated with writing centers or classrooms into roles typical of neither traditional context. Steven Corbett’s article on the history of CBT provides helpful background for Bruland’s discussion by outlining the current theoretical and practical conversations about CBT. Melissa Tedrowe, associate director of the Writing Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, looks at another kind of “hybrid form” produced when writing centers offer composition classes of their own. This topic gets further treatment in later sections as well, in Lisa Leit, Michelle Lee, and Andrew Jones’ Column discussing classroom presentations offered by the Undergradute Writing Center at the University of Texas at Austin, and in this month’s profile in Consulting of the University of Iowa Writing Center, which holds regular non-fiction and fiction-writing workshops. Rounding out the Focus section is an article on the Purdue Writing Center by Serkan Gorkemli and Tammy Conard-Salvo, who explore various types of professionalization in the writing center, including programs that integrate tutors’ academic pursuits and writing center responsibilities.

For those working on copyright in RHE 306 and interested in hip hop, there is an interesting article in the "New York Times" from last Sunday about the arrest of mixtape DJs, the Aphiliates, by Atlanta police for violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Law. The R.I.A.A. was involved in the arrest, though mixtapes are clearly part of the mainstream record industry, used by major labels to both "discover" and promote artists. Creative Commons is mentioned in the article. See "Hip Hop Outlaw (Industry Version)."

I thought this article on Google's online book project, in most recent "New Yorker," would be interesting to folks at the CWRL generally, but also specifically to those teaching Lessig, as it focuses on copyright lawsuits against the friendly giant.

Call for Papers - Praxis: A Writing Center Journal
Spring 2007 Issue: Writing Centers and the Classroom

Praxis: A Writing Center Journal welcomes submissions for its Spring 2007 issue. We especially encourage submissions on this issue’s theme: Writing Centers and the Classroom. Articles on this topic may deal with any of the numerous ways in which writing-center work influences and is influenced by pedagogical and learning practices in the classroom. We invite contributors to interpret the theme broadly; however, some possible applications include:

Thought this article on Rosa Parks and copyright might be useful to those teaching Lessig this semester. It’s basically just a background of the debate over the ownsership of her image, so you'd probably have to do more research for a lesson plan, but it could might generate some conversation on its own. What I found most interesting is the fact that the marketing of Parks as an icon was an issue from the start--as a rallying point for the boycott and the Civil Rights Movement more broadly--rather than something Outkast started. Lastly, I would be interested to know how we might defend our own desire for a good groove against copyright litigation or the demand for political correctness. Can Big Boi's own rallying cry be just an innocent non sequitor: "Ah ha, hush that fuss / Everybody move to the back of the bus!" Or might we interpret the block party of the "Rosa Parks" video as a public demonstration in the tradition of Birmingham?

In this past Sunday's New York Times Magazine, Michael Berube began to answer a question I didn't realize was nagging me about the liberalization of academia conspiracy: what is actually going on in these classrooms? Berube's argument is, of course, that conservative attacks on dangerous professors are misguided, however validating and exilerating they might be to radical academics. His first major point is that liberalization is really an administrative rather than pedagogic issue to begin with, but it is his second point that relates to pedagogy and that I found most interesting.

Though the evolution versus intelligent design debate may perhaps be old news to some of you, I thought it might be interesting to revisit within the context of the new "teaching the controversy" model for RHE 306. I have collected below 3 articles that foreground the very idea of "teaching the controversy" in terms of the controversy between ID proponents and advocates for evolution.

So I actually did go ahead and teach a little mini-lesson on the “Rhetoric of Commencement,” using both the McCain speech from Liberty University (thanks, Jamie) and an address by Barack Obama delivered last year at Knox College. They worked quite well, especially as I found rhetorical analyses on both by David Kusnet, who “writes on political rhetoric for The New Republic Online” (this discovery may be redundant for those more seasoned rhetors on the blog). My students said they “got” rhetorical analysis after reading the speeches for homework, discussing them together in-class, employing terms from _Everything’s an Argument_, and THEN turning to the Kusnet articles. For this reason, I think I may go back to Kusnet as a model in the future, though I don’t always agree with his take.