Hi everyone,
I hope those of you who went to the 4Cs in Minneapolis had a terrific
time. I'd sure like to hear about the highlights, and especially how the
Canadian Caucus meeting went.
I'm wondering who is going to do the proposal for the Canadian
Roundtable this year. As you know, Graham and I coordinated things last
year, and the proposal wasn't accepted. I sure hope that we try again
this year, but I'm not going to be able to do too much coordinating. Is
there someone who is not going to Inkshed who would get an editorial
group together?
Here's the web site for Cs 2001:
http://www.ncte.org/convention/cccc2001/index.shtml
Here's the statement of the theme:
Conference Theme: Composing Community
What we are. What we do. We are
compositionists, professionals who practice, teach, and research the
arts of writing. We seek community--a place, a space, a quality--in our
classrooms, our departments, our institutions, and our
professional organization. Much of our work invites students to join the
academic community by practicing its many forms of composition and
communication.
By disposition and training, we value the
singular voice as we find it in written texts. Then we honor that voice
by creating communities of readers and communities of writers. This
paradox--honoring the singular by forming the plural--lies at the heart
of our professional work, a paradox we can celebrate in Denver, our 52nd
convocation.
As we reflect on our work, let us put
practice into theory. Let us discover in our students' writing, in our
classroom practices, in our use of both old and new tools, and in our
professional activities the explanations that make sense
to one another. We need not divide theory from practice, but we can
seek the common ground, finding new conversations from which to build a
new sense of community.
To this end, I want especially to encourage
session proposals that and four-year, large and small, public and
private, and demographic markers, such geography, sexuality, and
capability. As you plan your proposal, think expansively about
"colleague," assembling speakers whose professional experience differs
from one another. We have always found strength in our diversity. Let's
use that to find new ways to talk about shared concerns.
Many of us come from community colleges where
responsiveness from colleges and universities in communities where our
role as citizen intersects with our role as teacher. What do our
communities give us? What do we give them? How do these relationships
inform our work in service learning, in community-based programs, in
campus learning communities? CCCC, as our professional community, has
matured.What debt do we owe our elders, those whose work we build on?
How can our senior members best transmit this sense of community, of
shared effort and common cause, with our newest members and those just
entering the
teaching of reading and writing?
Just as writing always incorporates thought
and act, so our work together joins study and commitment. As teachers of
writing, we have responsibilities not only to the language, but to our
uses of language. Words have the power to hurt and to heal. How do we
help our students resist the first and embrace the second? Can our work
help the student who feels like a "spaced oddity" embark on a personal
odyssey to a space and place of accomplishment? Come to Denver in 2001,
that community at the end of the plain in the shadow of the Rockies.
Come openly with your best ideas and help us all become better
teachers, writers, and scholars.
John Lovas
De Anza College
2001 Program Chair
I'd sure like us to come up with a winning proposal this year. Perhaps
you discussed this at the Canadian Caucus....?
Let's talk about this asap.
Janice Freeman
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
To leave the list, send a SIGNOFF CASLL command to
[log in to unmask] or, if you experience difficulties,
write to Russ Hunt at [log in to unmask]
For the list archives and information about the organization,
the annual conference, and publications, go to the Inkshed Web site at
http://www.StThomasU.ca/inkshed/
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
