Recounts an earlier case analysis describing ethical differences in collectivist and individualistic rhetorics experienced by a writer in a literature seminar and a public relations office. Examines how this analysis is problemmatized by alternative interpretations demonstrating how collectivist rhetoric practiced by researchers involves the…

Describes two institutional views of the discourse community, the disciplinary and the organizational, and presents the alternative social viewpoint. Examines Stanley Fish's theoretical concept of discourse community and considers the philosophical tradition derived from Richard Rorty. Suggests that these views are useful for the study of…

Describes the way one English teacher designed a course by asking students to compare articles on the same topic from different newspapers. Claims that teaching such forms of textual analysis is highly motivating and pedagogically useful. (HB)

Describes an extension of dialog journals, audience journals. States that, with the advent of e-mail, English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students can send their journals to an "E-partner," and they can also make meaning by summarizing their E-partners' journal entries which are sent to both E-partner and instructor. Suggests that this…

Introduces, through a conversation with computer-system designers from the Netherlands, the Language/Action Perspective on modeling business workflow and communication processes. Describes their attempts to develop system models that go beyond data flow to incorporate the communicative actions or transactions that result in the creation of a…

Through reading and reflecting on the words of Atwell, Rief, Moffett, and Graves, Maltese began to think like a teacher-researcher, and questioned her writing workshop practices. Once she began to consider audience as a motivating factor, writing became more meaningful for her students, encompassing a wide range of possibilities. Working from a…

Today, academic assistance efforts are frequently geared to all students, not just the underprepared, with study skills offered in various formats. In this article, the authors describe a learning community model with the theme, "Strategic Thinking and Learning" (STL). Results of data analysis indicate that participants of the STL…

One of the key means by which knowledge is disseminated in the academic discourse community is the spoken presentation of papers at an academic conference. In contrast to the written research article, the spoken presentation remains relatively under-researched from a linguistic perspective, limiting the knowledge available for explicating this…

Foucault's notion of "regimes of truth" (MacNaughton 2005, 30) provides an understanding of how some discourses operate and network together to reinforce a particular powerful view of the world. These can be in oral or written forms. Early childhood education practices are drawn on the discourse of a document developed by the National Association…

Little empirical research is currently available on Jewish distance learning, a nascent but growing field of practice. By way of qualitative case study methodology, this research explored the learning experience of a group of adult learners participating in a Jewish education Master's degree program that is offered by way of videoconferencing…

In death-averse American society, the field of thanatology is often socially and academically isolating. The purpose of this article is to describe the experiences of a group of death scholars and share insights gained as members of an interdisciplinary team. They discuss the ways in which they have created a special "safe" space for death study…

Researchers and teachers often are not privy to the literacy events smuggled into the private lives of urban African-Americans. Yet, these hidden literacies, such as journal writing and reading personal business letters, often reveal deft rhetorical skills as well as intellectual grappling with the social complexities of power, race, and class.…

The advent of mass media in the twentieth century creates certain "ruptures," as Michel Foucault would say, in the perceptual world of human beings as they go about the everyday business of coping with a technological culture grounded in human perception as the rule for expression. Foucault proposes that people watch two…

Noting that a number of Australian states have adopted a functional model of language in their English syllabus documents, this PEN explains the term "functional model" and explores the implications of a functional approach to the teaching of English across all key learning areas in the Australian primary classroom. The paper notes that…

Recent discussions of teaching composition in the context of cultural studies have begun to consider the condition of the writing subject in society, yet these discussions construct student-writer S(s)ubject(ivitie)s at the poles of modernist-identity and postmodern-difference binary opposition that is politically problematic. The identity of the…