In Print

Pat Bizzaro and Mike McClanahan co-authored "Putting Wings on the Invisible: Voice, Authorship and the Authentic Self" in Can it Really Be Taught: Resisting Lore in Creative Writing Pedagogy edited by Kelly Ritter, Peter Vandenberg, and Stephanie Vanderslice for Heinemann Boynton/Cook (2007).  From the publisher:  "The process of creativity is shrouded in mystery and lore, but that doesn't mean that the teaching of creative writing has to remain in the dark.  Can It Really Be Taught? shines a bright light on creative writing pedagogy, with a special focus on that hallmark of fiction and poetry classes everywhere -- the workshop -- in order to discover what works, what doesn't, and what is purely apocryphal."

Bizzaro's essay "The Writer Who Taught Writing" appears in Writing on the Edge 17.5 (Spring 2007). This essay is a tribute to the late Donald Murray, author of A Writer Teaches Writing among other important works.  Murray (1924-2006) was the youngest person ever to win the Pulitzer Prize while working as journalist for The Boston Herald in 1954.  Known as a gifted underachiever, Murray, a two-time high school drop out, would revolutionize the teaching of writing in this country, beginning in the 1970s.  From product-oriented teaching to process, Murray's pedagogy emphasized student-empowered learning.  He advised teachers of writing to "shut up" for "when you give students an assignment you tell him what to say and how to say it, and thereby cheat your student of the opportunity to learn the process of discovery we call writing."  He was the author of more than a dozen influential books about the teaching of writing, including Learning by Teaching, Expecting the Unexpected: Teaching Myself and Others to Read and Write, Crafting a Life in Essay, Story, Poem, The Craft of Revision, A Writer Teaches Writing, and What a Writer Needs.  He taught English at the University of New Hampshire where he inaugurated a journalism program.  Murray died Dec. 30, 2006.  For a brief obituary, please see: http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2007/01/01/donald-m-murray-1924-2006/

Clancy Ratliff's "Attracting Readers: Sex and Audience in the Blogosphere" was published in Scholar & Feminist Online.  According to Ratliff: "The article reviews sex and its relation to audience in blogging, specifically the common argument that the best way -- or even the only way -- for women to have their Weblogs read by a wide audience is to use their sexuality by posting titillating photographs of themselves or by writing about sex along with the issues of the day.  For the full-text, please see: http://www.barnard.edu/sfonline/blogs/ratliff_01.htm

Joyce Irene Middleton's recent article, "Talking about Race and Whiteness in Crash," was published in a symposium on the film Crash in College English (March 2007).  According to Middleton: "Teaching films like Crash gives teachers and researchers the opportunity to discuss films as social texts that engage students in critical thinking and self-reflection. This particular movie is especially effective in its use of a pulp-fiction visual rhetoric. Unfortunately, the film equates and replaces the term 'race' with the term 'prejudice' and then argues that everyone is a little prejudiced.  The result is a missed opportunity to investigate whiteness as a powerful social construction."  Middleton was also an Invited Chair for a Featured Session, "Women Working Together: A Collaborative Conversation," at the 2007 Conference on College Composition and Communication in New York.

Sherry Southard and Melissa Place edited and designed "The 2006 Proceedings of Missouri State University's 3rd Almost-Annual Conference on the Teaching of Technical Writing and Missouri State's STC Region 6 Student Conference" as an electronic document on CD. This publication contains items (categorized as learning theory, course content, tips and technology, and careers) based on presentations at the conference and some invited papers delivered on April 28-29, 2006.