I suspect I’m not alone in feeling overwhelmed by our field’s constant influx of new textbooks and new editions. What’s a compositionist to do? How can we possibly keep up, let alone choose the right text(s) for our classes and our programs?

These questions have prompted Composition Forum to include textbooks among the works we review. We’re committed to helping our colleagues navigate this ever-evolving, increasingly prolific genre. We aim to provide insight into innovative textbook publications while validating the scholarly work that goes into them.

We’re particularly interested in publishing textbook reviews that examine how our field’s theories can and do intersect with our pedagogical praxis. To this end, our Fall 2011 issue reviewed Wardle and Downs’s Writing about Writing. Spring 2012 included a review essay exploring Fountainhead Press’s Voices series of thematic readers through the lens of sustainability.

Forthcoming issues will extend and expand this approach. While we’ll continue to feature reviews of print textbooks, we look forward to reviewing digital genres, including open source textbooks, online accompaniments to conventional print textbooks, and e-reader editions. We invite our readers to send us ideas for textbook reviews by emailing reviews@compositionforum.com. And we hope authors and publishers will keep those desk copies coming!

We’d love to hear what you think about this volume of Composition Forum.

Ideal candidates will have experience in standards-compliant web design and development, including knowledge of php, WordPress, Open Journal Systems, and Delicious. Candidates should present a vision for continuing to maintain the high quality of the Composition Forum web site while adding new functionality, digitizing the journal’s back catalog, or otherwise enhancing the journal’s site. Institutional support is not required, but is a plus. Small teams (up to two people) are welcome to apply.

To apply for the position, send a letter of application to editor Christian Weisser, <weisser@psu.edu>. Specific questions about the position can be sent to the current editor, Bradley Dilger <cb-dilger@wiu.edu>. Applications are due April 15, 2012. May 1, 2012.

Learn more about Composition Forum at http://compositionforum.com/

Michael J. Faris and Stuart A. Selber’s review essay “E-Book Issues in Composition: A Partial Assessment and Perspective for Teachers” will be included in Best Writing from Independent Composition and Rhetoric Journals: 2011. The collection will be published by Parlor Press. Editors Steve Parks, Linda Adler-Kassner, and Brian Bailie hope to have copies available at CCCC in St. Louis.

Congratulations to Michael and Stuart, and thank you to everyone involved in the Best Writing 2011 collection.

Call for Proposals: Undergraduate Writing Majors: Fourteen Program Profiles

Editors: Greg Giberson, Ph.D., Oakland University
Jim Nugent, Ph.D., Oakland University
Lori Ostergaard, Ph.D., Oakland University

During the 2010 CCCC convention, fifteen contributors to What We Are Becoming: Developments in Undergraduate Writing Majors (Utah State University Press, 2010) participated in a roundtable discussion about the growing interest in the writing major. At least sixty people attended the standing-room only session and almost every question posed to the panel was practical in nature, representing some variation of the question “How do we do this?” The proposed collection is conceived as a follow up to What We are Becoming and attempts to answer this very question.

The proposed collection will provide a snapshot of the major through fourteen profiles from various types of institutions (liberal arts, MA, doctoral, etc.), different programs (having varied departmental configurations, sizes, and disciplinary homes), and curricular orientations (such as writing studies, professional/technical writing, new media, creative writing, etc.). The program profiles will:

• overview the history of the program, institution, department, etc.; describe the program and the rationale for its structure;
• provide a narrative explaining the local contingencies that helped/hindered the program’s implementation;
• provide insight into the deliberations, arguments, and comprises that were made in developing the program;
• include a “Connections” section explaining where the program fits in the university and how it relates to other programs such as first-year composition, WAC, writing centers, etc.;
• include a “Reflection” section explaining what the author(s) learned about developing, implementing, running, and revising such a program;
• include a “Looking Forward” section discussing the future of the program; and
• offer brief supplementary materials as necessary (such as checklists, course descriptions, etc.).

While not an exhaustive list, each chapter should address these aspects of the program thoroughly. While all institutions have their own histories, cultures, and contexts, we believe the knowledge and experiences gathered in this collection will be an indispensable resource for those who find themselves asking “How do we do this?”–whether now or in the years of growth ahead.

The editors seek 500-word proposals for chapters of 5,000 to 7,000 words in length. The deadline for proposals is May 10, 2011. Please email questions and proposals in Microsoft Word or RTF format to: giberso2@oakland.edu.

With Volume 23, we are migrating to Open Journal Systems, making the work of delivering CF less labor-intensive. As we tweak our submissions and review process, we’ll share news here.

To celebrate this work, CF web editor Bradley Dilger made a tag cloud from our Delicious keyword index, which covers Volumes 18-23 of the journal. Here’s a snapshot and a link to the larger cloud.

We welcome your feedback about this volume of Composition Forum.

Congratulations to Amy, and thank you to everyone involved in the Best Writing 2010 collection.

Of course, such a reflection begs the question of what theory is, and I suspect you’ll forgive as much, so as to avoid another extended etymological investigation of the Greek theoria and praxis.  Composition Forum, as its subtitle announces, is a “journal of pedagogical theory in rhetoric and composition,” and thus aims to publish work that theorizes practice in sophisticated and provocative ways, or to put it another way that practices theory in sophisticated and provocative ways.  So that’s the easy answer to the query that launched this discussion.

The more difficult question is:  what amount of theory in a manuscript would be “too much,”  what would be “too little,” and what would be “just right.”  Trust me, the “too little” scenario is the easiest to recognize and to describe.  This is the kind of submission that amounts to little more than detailed lesson plans or assignments, or “research” bereft of any methodological articulation nor any speculative discussion regarding results, or an essay that reveals a surprising unfamiliarity with the current issues or debates within the field of rhetoric and composition.  But what might be “too much” theory?  I suppose the easy answer would be the case of a submitted essay that had no conversation with or implications for the teaching of writing.   Note, however, that I did not specify that the theory had to have a pedagogical application or that it had to be translated into praxis.  On the contrary, I can imagine many a worthy investigation into how a theory could not be appropriated by classroom practices or how a theory would be at conflict with writing pedagogy or how a theory could not explain the results of a classroom study of student writers.  So what amount of theory would be “just right”?  Although not reducible to a golden mean, the “just right” essay would contribute to the ongoing conversation of our field by responding to the published scholarship in complex ways that would construct provocative ways of knowing, thinking, and doing in rhetoric and composition studies.

To this end, we invite submissions that investigate composition theory and its relation to the teaching of writing at the post-secondary level.  We welcome essays that examine specific pedagogical theories or that explore how theory informs (or should inform) writing instruction, writing practices, and research into the complex literacies of our time.

Please visit our Submissions page, and send us your manuscripts or queries.  We look forward to publishing your “just right” essay.

With best regards,

Michelle Ballif
Managing Editor

Note:  All articles published in Composition Forum are subject to rigorous peer review by at least two reviewers who are experts in the topical area.