composition

I am proud to announce that I am beginning my dissertation research! I am looking for undergraduates/recent grads to participate in a qualitative study on writing through the classroom and beyond. Do you know a student who used class writing-- no matter how formal or informal-- to springboard to a larger project beyond the class without being required to do so? I would love to talk to them! Seeking nominations and/or interested parties.  Please feel free to forward or share this call for participants. Thank you!  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1K0xbY8lSemh9WothJ59sb40WRje59q18jHfwHmqWVs0/edit?usp=sharing

Recently, I've been thinking about the issue of upward mobility, especially how education plays a factor in that process. Theoretically, a college education will help ensure that an individual winds up within or above middle class, but the ability to complete that education or make use of that degree is becoming more challenging, especially for those who do not have the advantage of wealth. In thinking about these issues, I stumbled onto "Literacy, Technology, and Monopoly Capital" by Richard Ohmann in my Cross-Talk in Comp Theory book. The first part of the essay describes the development of the terms "literacy" and "illiteracy" as we use it today. One idea becomes very clear. The term is tied directly to class. Ohmann explains "[literacy education] was a top-down discourse from the start, and its participants almost invariably took the underlying question to be: how can we keep the lower orders docile?" (701). Indeed, the main purpose seeme...