Composition Pedagogy

I'm trying to capture in a concept map the work that writing centers do. What am I missing? (Photo below links to larger one.)

How do you subscribe to the WCENTER listserv? The site I linked, which is the only one I've found which accesses the list, only recognizes members. Instructions or a link or something would be appreciated.

Jonathan and I are putting together a panel on civic literacy. He and I are going to be talking specifically about the connections (and disconnects) between blogging and civic literacy, but if you wanted to talk about civic/political literacy independently of blogging or any particular technology, that would be great too. We need at least one person, preferably more. Remember, the deadline is this Friday, so let me know soon if you'd like to join us. clancy.ratliff at gmail.

Today I've been trying to join up the issues in composition studies that are most important to me and the scholars with whom I want to align myself. I want to try to connect these in some meaningful way.

By the "academic discourse" bubble, I am acknowledging the very real responsibilities we have as composition teachers -- teaching citation practices, genres, etc. The bubbles that overlap are the issues I see as grouped closely together.

I'm putting together a course pack of readings for a class I'm teaching in the fall called Functional Grammar. On deck are Rhetorical Grammar by Martha Kolln (though that's the textbook), "Authority and American Usage" by David Foster Wallace, and "The Principles of Newspeak" and "Politics and the English Language by Orwell. I'll also assign Silva Rhetoricae and Grammar Girl podcasts. I also want to assign at least one essay by Geneva Smitherman, but I don't know what would be a good one for an undergraduate course. Any recommendations?

At CCCC, I made sure to pick up my copy of Take 20, Todd Taylor's documentary film about teaching writing. For those of you who don't have access to the DVD, you can watch the trailer to get an idea. The premise: take 22 writing teachers and ask each of them twenty questions about teaching writing. I wasn't one of the 22 people tapped to be interviewed in the film, so I decided to answer the questions and make my own movie. Enjoy:

By the way, if you want to upload videos longer than ten minutes (YouTube's limit -- my movie is a little over sixteen minutes), DailyMotion gives you twenty minutes.

I just uploaded tons of presentations to SlideShare. I hope you'll create an account there and do the same -- or, if you already have an account, add me as a contact.