Never Let the Truth Stand in the Way of a Good Story: A Work for Three Voices

Describes how the author\u27s habit of fabrications and stories as a 10-year-old became a source for writing fiction. Notes how he pursued journalism as a profession, but was frustrated by its limitations. Considers how as a professional field, composition continues to contemplate and struggle with issues of power and representation in research and writing. Addresses the issues of power and representation and the ethical concerns that such issues entail

Seeking New Worlds: The Study of Writing beyond Our Classrooms

As new ways of creating and interpreting texts complicate ideas of how and why writing happens, the field of rhetoric and composition needs to be more conscious of how our institutional responsibilities and scholarly attention to college writing have limited its vision of writing and literacy. It is time to move beyond consolidating our identity as a field focused on college writing, reach out to other literacy-related fields, and form a broader, more comprehensive, and more flexible identity as part of a larger field of literacy and rhetorical studies

Identity Papers: Literacy and Power in Higher Education

How do definitions of literacy in the academy, and the pedagogies that reinforce such definitions, influence and shape our identities as teachers, scholars, and students? The contributors gathered here reflect on those moments when the dominant cultural and institutional definitions of our identities conflict with our other identities, shaped by class, race, gender, sexual orientation, location, or other cultural factors. These writers explore the struggle, identify the sources of conflict, and discuss how they respond personally to such tensions in their scholarship, teaching, and administration. They also illustrate how writing helps them and their students compose alternative identities that may allow the connection of professional identities with internal desires and senses of self. They emphasize how identity comes into play in education and literacy and how institutional and cultural power is reinforced in the pedagogies and values of the writing classroom and writing profession. Contributors include: James Zebroski, Patricia Harkin, Shannon Carter, Tara Pauliny, Mary Hallet, William Carpenter and Bianca Falbo, Janet Alsup, James R. Ottery, Robert Brooke, Sally Chandler, Lynn Worsham, Min-Zhan Luhttps://digitalcommons.usu.edu/usupress_pubs/1159/thumbnail.jp

Writing Centers, Enclaves, and Creating Spaces of Change Within Universities

Writing center scholarship often highlights the ways in which their distinctive, less directive, nongraded, and individualized instruction can make them distinctive social and pedagogical spaces. There is a simultaneous argument, however, that writing centers are often institutionally vulnerable and may be unable to engage in or promote such differences within the larger college or university. Yet, despite their size and possible vulnerability, the daily practices and institutional positioning of writing centers can help change conversations and work toward a different vision, political approach, and institutional presence. Drawing on Victor Friedman’s concept of “enclaves of different practice” and Brian Massumi’s theories of affect, this article explores how writing centers can adopt a theory of institutional change grounded in social fields and relationships. If, as Friedman advocates, institutions can be changed from the “inside out” through attention to empowering relationships and reconfiguring social fields, writing centers can adopt dispositions and practices to create the environments from which futures can emerge that sustain their values. The article provides brief examples of how a writing center can explicitly frame and promote pedagogical and participatory values to work toward larger institutional and political change

Tuned in: Television and the teaching of writing

College writing teachers often consider the reading and writing experiences students have had in elementary and high school classes as their only relevant discursive influences. When they do so they risk ignoring what is perhaps the most powerful and ubiquitous form of public discourse and communication in our society: television. This dissertation explores how the pervasive discourse of popular culture on television influences the ways in which incoming college students perceive and engage in writing and reading when they enter a first-year composition course. Through interviews with students and observations of them watching television, I have studied the skills students have developed that allow them to read televised communication so fluently---even critically---and examine where those skills converge and conflict with the discursive skills taught in a writing course. On the one hand, student experiences with television provide them with a sophisticated sense of narrative form, audience, plot, and irony, that can be used in a writing class to explore the same concepts in print. Conversely, television as a communicative form structured by time, without a clear authorial presence, and dominated by emotion often conflicts with what writing teachers consider fundamental properties of discourse in the academy such as depth, individual authorship, and detached analysis. I consider what implications such findings have both for the teaching of writing in a first-year composition class and for the way in which we conceive of teaching writing in a world in which communication happens increasingly by electronic and visual means

What is the functional outcome for the upper limb after stroke?

The Motor Assessment Scale (MAS) and the Functional Independence Measure (FIM) are commonly used in Australian rehabilitation centres but there have been few systematic studies using them to measure recovery after stroke, especially with regard to upper limb function. The aims of this study were to provide a profile of upper limb recovery in a non-surgical stroke population using measures of impairment and disability. The records of 153 subjects were audited for upper limb MAS sub-scores, the FIM sub-score for upper body dressing, and the total FIM score at admission and discharge from rehabilitation. Significant improvement occurred for all outcome measures. There was no relationship between the MAS scores and the functional task of upper body dressing. The results emphasize the importance of using outcome measures that assess both impairment and disability, and indicate that substantial improvements in upper limb function frequently occur after stroke. Although the MAS has limitations, it is a valuable tool for measuring upper limb outcome after stroke because it provides a more accurate profile of true upper limb recovery than the FIM

Community-based counselling programme for pregnant women with alcohol problems in Cape Town, South Africa: a qualitative study of the views of pregnant women and healthcare professionals

IntroductionSouth Africa lacks services to detect and address alcohol use during pregnancy, particularly outside of health-care facilities. This study aimed to explore pregnant women and healthcare providers’ perceptions of the acceptability, feasibility and appeal of a community-based counselling programme for pregnant women with alcohol problems.MethodsTwenty-eight in-depth interviews with pregnant women who drink, Community Health Workers (CHWs) and antenatal service providers were conducted. Transcribed interviews were analyzed thematically using a combined deductive and inductive approach.ResultsWomen reported feeling uncomfortable seeking help for their alcohol use at antenatal clinics, limiting usefulness of current support services. All stakeholders perceived a community-based intervention to be acceptable and feasible as it could be integrated with other CHW-delivered services. Participants thought an intervention should facilitate early linkage to antenatal services and should include partners or family members. The feasibility of an intervention may depend on the relationship between CHWs and clinic-based antenatal staff, and their relationships with pregnant women. Clinic and community challenges to implementation were raised. Clinic-level challenges included shortage of space, staff capacity, high number of pregnant women, long waiting times, financial burden of having to travel to a clinic, lack of comfort and privacy and staff attitudes. Community-level challenges included crime, lack of privacy, lack of attention given competing interests in the home, fear due to abuse, and stigma and discrimination from other community members. Suggestions for overcoming these challenges were provided.ConclusionFindings provide essential information to facilitate the adaptation of a community-based alcohol counselling programme for greater acceptability, feasibility and cultural appropriateness for the South African context. Intensive training, supervision and support is required to ensure the programme is delivered as planned