Congratulations, Tanita!

Tanita Saenkhum is the recipient of the Graduate College Dissertation Completion Fellowship. Congratulations, Tanita!

What is TESOL?

Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) is an interdisciplinary professional field for teachers of the English language. The acronym TESOL is a catch-all term that originated in the 1960s United States to describe the English language teaching profession, including English as a second language (ESL) and English as a foreign language (EFL), among other distinctions.

In North America, TESOL was also the name of a professional organization (TESOL, which became TESOL, Inc., and TESOL: International Association) that was established in 1965 to facilitate the professionalization of English language teachers and the development of shared knowledge base.

What is Rhetoric and Composition?

Rhetoric and Composition is an interdisciplinary field of study that emerged in the mid-twentieth century in the context of U.S. higher education. Its intellectual roots can be traced back to ancient rhetoric but what facilitated the institutionalization of the field was the creation of college composition courses in the late nineteenth century and the professionalization of composition around the 1960s. In recent years, the wave of globalization has led the field to participate in the larger international conversation about writing and the teaching of writing in cross-national and cross-linguistic contexts.

Tanita Saenkhum will be Assistant Professor of English at University of Tennessee

Tanita Saenkhum has accepted a tenure-track Assistant Professor position in the English Department at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She will be teaching in the Rhetoric, Writing and Linguistics program.

Tanita is a doctoral candidate in Rhetoric, Composition and Linguistics at Arizona University. She is completing her dissertation on agency in the placement practices for second language writers in U.S. college composition.

Congratulations, Tanita! Well done!

Assistant Teaching Professor of Rhetoric/Comp, Second Language Writing at Carnegie Mellon-Qatar

Assistant Teaching Professor (Rhetoric/Composition, Second Language Writing)

DESCRIPTION OF POSTION: The Department of English at Carnegie Mellon invites applications for a full-time (9-month), position as Assistant Teaching Professor at Carnegie Mellon's Qatar campus beginning in Fall 2012.

Carnegie Mellon's Qatar campus is a highly selective branch campus of Carnegie Mellon University and has served a diverse student body since 2004. We offer undergraduate majors in Biological Sciences, Business Administration, Computational Biology, Computer Science, and Information Systems. Current enrollment is approximately 350 students representing 39 countries. Approximately 40% of the students are Qatari. All classes are coeducational, with 52% female students.

A 2/2 teaching load will include courses within the First-year Writing Program as well as an occasional upper-level course that would appeal to students as a General Education elective; a Professional Writing minor or English Studies minor requirement or elective; or meet a writing/communications requirement in a major. The course would typically relate to the faculty member's area of specialization.

APPOINTMENT AND RANK:  Assistant Teaching Professor is a nontenure-track faculty career position with provision for renewal and promotion to Associate Teaching and Full Teaching Professor. Full Teaching Professors must fulfill two criteria: (1) to be outstanding educators within Carnegie Mellon, for example, through excellence in classroom teaching, curricular development, program leadership, and student advising and mentoring; and (2) to be nationally or internationally known for contributions to education or to research.  Assistant and Associate Teaching faculty must demonstrate that they will, in due course, fulfill these criteria. Salary is competitive.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS: Requirements include a PhD in Rhetoric/Composition, Professional/Technical Writing, Second Language Writing, Second Language Studies, or related field.  Knowledge and experience related to teaching writing is also required.

DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS: We desire a candidate with knowledge related to teaching English in transnational contexts. We also desire candidates with research agendas that demonstrate synergies between their scholarship, pedagogy, and professional development that are relevant to the Carnegie Mellon Qatar campus. Such synergies might include, but are not limited to, studies of professional and technical writing contexts, especially global and/or multilingual; writing in the disciplines, especially science and engineering; rhetoric of science; and new media, especially web design and social media. We are open to social science as well as humanities methodologies.

The university is especially interested in qualified candidates who can contribute, through their research, teaching, and/or service, to the diversity and excellence of the academic community. We strongly encourage applications from female and minority candidates.

APPLICATION PROCEDURE:  Candidates are encouraged to submit PDFs of materials electronically to vm29@andrew.cmu.edu.  Send letter of application, CV, three current letters of reference, sample course syllabi, recent course evaluations and a writing sample to

Professor Danielle Zawodny Wetzel

c/o Vickie McKay

ATTN:  Assistant Professor - Qatar

Department of English, Baker Hall 259, Pittsburgh, PA 15213

Screening of application materials will continue until the position is filled. Materials must arrive by email or be postmarked no later than February 17 to be assured of full consideration.  If materials are mailed, please send email indicating that they have been sent.

Carnegie Mellon is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.

 

Tanita Saenkhum is the recipient of 2012 CCCC Chairs' Memorial Scholarship

Tanita Saenkhum is the recipient of 2012 CCCC Chairs' Memorial Scholarship. Congratulations, Tanita!

Tanita Saenkhum is a doctoral candidate in Rhetoric, Composition and Linguistics at Arizona State University. She specializes in second language writing with a focus on writing program administration. She is completing her dissertation on placement practices for second language writers in the first-year composition program.

Jing Xia is a winner of 2012 AAAL Graduate Student Award

Congratulations, Jing Xia, for receiving the 2012 AAAL Graduate Student Award from the American Association for Applied Linguistics! Well deserved!

Jing is a Ph.D. Candidate in Applied Linguistics at Arizona State University, specializing in second language writing.

Exploring Composition Studies: Sites, Issues, and Perspectives

Exploring Composition Studies: Sites, Issues, and Perspectives

Edited by Kelly Ritter and Paul Kei Matsuda

Published by Utah State University Press (June 2012)
Available at Amazon.com

Table of Contents

Foreword

Andrea Lunsford

Introduction: How Did We Get Here?

Kelly Ritter and Paul Kei Matsuda

I:  The State of the Field(s)

Chapter One:                      

Creation Myths and Flashpoints: Understanding Basic Writing through Conflicted Stories

Linda Adler-Kassner and Susanmarie Harrington

Chapter Two:

Teaching Composition in the Multilingual World: Second-Language Writing in Composition Studies

Paul Kei Matsuda

Chapter Three:

Re-mapping Technical Writing: Articulating the State of the Art and Composition Studies

Tim Peeples and Bill Hart-Davidson

Chapter Four:          

Writing Center Scholarship: A “Big Cross-Disciplinary Tent”

Lauren Fitzgerald

Chapter Five:                      

Writing Across the Curriculum: National Circumstances, Local Knowledge

Rita Malenczyk

Chapter Six:

Scholarly Positions in Writing Program Administration

Jeanne Gunner

II:  Innovations, Advancements, and Methodologies

Chapter Seven:

Re-Imagining the Nature of FYC: Trends in Writing-about-Writing Pedagogies

Doug Downs and Elizabeth Wardle

Chapter Eight:        

Transfer, Portability, Generalization: Does Composition ‘Carry’?

Christiane Donahue

Chapter Nine:                      

Writing Assessment in the Early 21st Century:  A Primer

Kathleen Blake Yancey

Chapter Ten:          

Studying Literacy in Digital Contexts: Computers and Composition Studies

Cynthia Selfe and Gail Hawisher

Chapter Eleven:

“What Goes On Here?” The Uses of Ethnography in Composition Studies

Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater

Chapter Twelve:

Archival Research in the Field of Rhetoric and Composition

Barbara L’Epplantenier and Lisa S. Mastrangelo

Chapter Thirteen:  

Writing Pedagogy Education: Instructor Development in Composition Studies

Heidi Estrem and E. Shelley Reid

Afterword

Redefining the Ineffable—Or, Creating Scholarly Presence and a Usable Future: An Editor’s Perspective

Deborah Holdstein

2012 CCCC Outstanding Book Award

Bruce Horner, Min-Zhan Lu and I have received 2012 Conference on College Composition and Communication Outstanding Book Award for Cross-Language Relations in Composition (2010). Congratulations and heartfelt "Thank you" to all those who contributed to this important conversation.