How did an expressivist course, "Writing from Experience," anomalously come to spend 29 years in Cornell's writing in the disciplines First-Year Writing Seminar program? In answering this question, the author provides a telling example of the forces that propel or impede curricular change and analyzes how, as a result of these forces,…

The theme of social justice and social change in rhetoric and composition in this year's Conference on College Composition and Communication presents a perfect opportunity to take up the matter of extra obligations imposed on writing classes. The extra obligations the composition community urges its teachers to take up are, of course, usually…

Cornell's experience over the last decade suggests that writing across the curriculum programs should not be housed in English departments. In fact, that experience, which has been largely successful, suggests writing programs are best off as independent departments, directed by rotating members from a variety of disciplines. The reasons are as…

Contact zone theory--spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other--helps writing program administrators to situate themselves. Writing programs and composition courses seem most troubled where the viewpoint of the most powerful faction is assumed as "the" viewpoint. One way to defuse tension is to recognize that writing…