Worth, Anderson, et al. "Cross-Curricular Underlife: A Collaborative Report on Ways with Academic Words." CCC 41.1 (1990): 11-36.

Abstract:

The six authors (five students and one professor) conducted a study of the reading and writing practices in the University of Utah's required writing course and in other lower-division courses at the institution. Each of the five student-authors reflected individually on how learning was (or wasn't) happening in their second-quarter courses: the literacy practices used, their motivation for taking certain classes, and the effect of the teacher's and other students' attitudes on the class. They found that what defines "academic literacy" varies by the discourse community that the student is in. The student-authors conclude that a narrowly defined first-year course that does not consider the varying ways students will be writing does not adequately prepare students to use language efficiently in other courses. Susan Miller agrees and points out that first-year composition's view of academic literacy is "simultaneously too uniformed and idealistic about, and too alienated from, the multicultural, multileveled settings in which that literacy has purchase," and that students must learn in first-year writing how to analyze and understand the ethoi that informs each rhetorical situation they encounter.

Stotsky, Sandra. "On Planning and Writing Plans. Or Beware of Borrowed Theories!" CCC 41.1 (1990): 37-57.

Abstract:

This article illustrates the current research and pedagogical problem caused by the lack of a cohesive definition of planning and writing plans, gives reasons why the problem is occurring, and offers a new definition of writing plans. Stotsky argues that the absence of a precise definition has stunted research in planning, because without a clear conceptual definition, theories cannot be produced, tested, refined or shared. She claims that composition's borrowing of other disciplines' theoretical frameworks have caused the ambiguity surrounding writing plans. Cognitive psychology's theory that thinking precedes writing created a binary between product and process, a binary that is challenged in writing plans because of the difficulty of separating mental planning from physical writing action. She proposes that researchers adopt a Vygotskian view of language and offers a new theory of planning as the composing (not writing) process, which she defines as "the activity of creating ideas and connecting them coherently, internally, and visibly."

Winsor, Dorothy A. "Engineering Writing/Writing Engineering." CCC 41.1 (1990): 58-70.

Abstract:

The author, using both a file of engineering documents and interviews with a engineer with his PhD in mechanical engineering, seeks to discredit the notion held among engineers that language is only a way to transmit knowledge, not to discover it. She claims that engineers need writing in order to analyze their physical data and convert it into knowledge that can be shared with others and used in conjunction with other information in later experiments. Engineers also use language to "write themselves as engineers": their reports transform their often creative, non-linear decisions in an experiment to an ostensibly logical progression of choices, since engineering values facts and data, not tacit knowledge.

Lunsford, Andrea A. "Composing Ourselves: Politics, Commitment, and the Teaching of Writing." CCC 41.1 (1990): 71-82.

Abstract:

In this, her 1989 CCCC Chair's Address, Lunsford argues that the field of rhetoric and composition must compose itself both historically and subjectively. Scholars, working in tandem with colleagues in anthropology, classics, history, and psychology, can broaden the history of the development of writing by looking for ways to "tell it slant." Also, the field should study not just writing and writers, but also the teachers of writing, probing for those stories throughout history that reflect a teacher's political and value-driven decision to teach writing to others in the hopes of changing the existing reality. Both inside and outside the academy, people are trying to compose the field in negative light, and so Lunsford argues that it is vital for composition and rhetoric scholars to compose themselves, asserting the merit of the field: its interdisciplinary, collaborative, postmodern, dynamic and democratic nature.

Flynn, Elizabeth A. "Composing 'Composing as a Woman': A Perspective on Research." CCC 41.1 (1990): 83-89.

McKendy, Thomas F. "Legitimizing Peer Response: A Recycling Project for Placement Essays." CCC 41.1 (1990): 89-91.

Tuman, Myron C. Rev. of The Culture and Politics of Literacy by W. Ross Winterowd. CCC 41.1 (1990):. 92-94.

Neel, Jasper. Rev. of Composition as a Human Science by Louise Wetherbee Phelps. CCC 41.1 (1990): 94-96.

White, Edward M. Rev. of A Teacher's Introduction to Deconstruction by Sharon Crowley. CCC 41.1 (1990):. 96-97.

Klein, Thomas D. Rev. of Strengthening Programs for Writing across the Curriculum by Susan H. McLeod. CCC 41.1 (1990): 97-98.

Fulkerson, Richard. Rev. of Preparing to Teach Writing by James Williams. CCC 41.1 (1990): 98-100.

Fearing, Bertie E. Rev. of Writing in the Business Professions by Myra Kogen. CCC 41.1 (1990): 100-102.

Nolte, Edward. Rev. of Code of Fair Testing Practices in Education by Joint Committee on Testing Practices. CCC 41.1 (1990): 102-103.