Christine,

Thanks for your reply.  (I haven't got the message from Paula but I'll see
her tomorrow.)

You wrote,
>Being
>intellectually raised in Canada I appreciate the cultural resistance to
>things American on the list and in writing programs etc., and think it can
>be very productive, but being pedagogically trained in the States I also
>have real sympathies with composition as it is practiced here.  Sometimes,
>however, I think there are unecessary tensions, or that the "we're not like
>those Americans" attitude veils various intrinsically Canadian
>issues/challenges.

I agree.  Here's a familiar story that I tell people when they ask about my
move to the US to study rhet/comp.  At my Canadian university, when I asked
why we don't do more for the ESL learners in first year writing,  the answer
was, "we do offer non-credit remedial courses..."  and I said, well, what
about offering tutoring by graduate students, the answer was "well, we can
teach them grammar principles but they have to learn how to write on their
own," and when I said that in the US they help ESL students by giving them
courses for credit and tutoring them, the reply was, "well, you know, that's
the way they do it in America" (the person's tone says to me: "... and we
wouldn't like to be like them, you know, because we don't give in to such
pressures")  When I asked, can I do anything to study this kind of thing
here, to help people this way?  the answer was, "Go to Ohio State."  I think
that was partly an admission that they couldn't expand my expertise in that
area, and partly closing the door to me, saying "we won't let you mess with
our system here."  Now I'm taking a graduate level English course (jointly
offered by Education) specifically to study the theory and practice of
teaching college-level ESL composition classes.  It's probably similar at
your institution--At OSU they have 3 levels of freshman courses for credit
for ESL learners to prepare them for English 110, the composition course for
everyone.  And of course they have excellent tutoring services here.  I am
amazed by what my ESL students in English 110 can do because of the way
they've been helped along.  I definitely think there is something in that
for Canadian Universities to learn from-- though not all Canadian
universities are as unaccommodating as mine seemed to be.

You wrote:
>Sadly though, I often feel like an
>outsider--a traitor almost.  Why is that?  If we were studying in Britian
or
>France, would things be different?  I thought the point of going abroad for
>an education was to bring different ideas back home, but my experience
seems
>to have severed me from my Canadian roots.  I don't feel quite welcome
>sometimes, and other times I'm not sure that I have that much to offer
>teaching rhetoric and/or composition in institutional contexts that may be
>radically different from the ones I've taught in for the last seven years,
>and almost hostile to the cultural contexts of my graduate education.  I'll
>even go so far as to say that I'm not sure if my academic accomplishments
>and credentials would be fully recognized by Canadian institutions.  Why is
>that? A pointed queery, I know, but one I think worth making.

I don't feel quite as severed as that, but perhaps because I just started my
PhD here in fall of 98.  I still feel optimistic about coming back to Canada
to work in writing & rhetoric at some university, perhaps even in an English
department. But hey-- that could be all naivety.  I do think that it might
take a lot of readjustment to go back to a Canadian context after being
immersed in the American one for years.

Thanks for your thoughtful reply!!!  sorry for my 10pt default font!

Tania