Mark Wenger

For the past seven years, in our respective capacities as an associate professor, a librarian, and library staff member at a small, private university in Columbia, SC, we have collaborated in the instruction of hundreds of freshman composition and research students in information literacy. Our efforts have evolved, over these years, into three classroom training sessions, instructing the student in the use of a wide variety of print and electronic resources. Students conclude the training with completing a Library Skills Exam , in which they meet with either their professor or trained library staff to demonstrate their ability to find a variety of resources in the library. Our workshop will consist of brief presentations from librarian, professor, library staff, and (hopefully) a student from one of the classes engaged in the topic during the fall semester of 2014. Example training materials and library skills assessment will be provided to workshop participants during the presentation. Workshop participants will then be led through activities to encourage the development of similar training and assessment activities for their particular institutions and situations. We anticipate participants bringing their laptops to the session, and being able to use templates or examples provided them to draft resources that they could use either in the classroom or in the library to encourage greater information literacy for academic purposes and beyond

Beginning with a brief account of Freire’s early publications in English, this review traces the development of critical literacy pedagogy from being primarily the action of social agents of change in marginalized communities of the Third World to prominence in classrooms of higher education in the English-speaking First World, not through misappropriation of the theory and praxis, but by intentional and theoretically consistent action within the postmodern context in which Freire consciously acted along with others in his lifetime, particularly beginning in 1987, but continuing into the posthumous publications, as well.

This literature review provides an overview of some of the best resources available for understanding the significant history behind the formation of IRBs, followed by a summary of many of the developments and insights into qualitative research and how it may be done in a manner that maintains the highest possible ethical objectives and practices, particularly as it relates to research with or among vulnerable subjects, especially prisoners.

The Epicurean/Stoic practices of parrhessia offers a way forward for teachers
within the discipline who wish to profess their pedagogy in the tradition without falling into the persistent and false dichotomy of the “handbook tradition” of the techne, versus the more theoretical tradition of the dialectician/philosopher.  Foucault’s exploration of bold or frank speech, with which Philodemus of the first century BCE sought to infuse his efforts as an Epicurean teacher, provides an ancient pedagogic foundation for how academic writing may not only maintain an important element of rhetorical discipline, but also allow for the “care of the self” as a moral way of life with oneself, and an ethical way of life with others.  This seems to have been the direction in which Foucault was heading in the final few years of his life, and is perhaps a way in which Correctional Education teachers of composition may develop academic writing practices which are dynamically informed by both post-structuralist theory and liberatory pedagogy.

In his exploration of bold or frank speech as significant to “the care of the self,”
Foucault made plain his disquiet with psychoanalysis – a disquiet shared by many Post-structuralist theorists; these same theorist, however, also doubt Foucault’s claim that care of the self is possible – which is problematic to anyone wishing to further Foucault’s incomplete project.  By taking Derrida’s “A Certain Impossible Possibility of Saying the Event” as a single text for attentive reading alongside “Fearless Speech” this short paper seeks to investigate how care of the self can take place within an awareness and function of post-structuralist deconstruction of language – particularly the written word.  It is the conclusion of this author that Sarah Kofman’s “Nietzsche and Metaphor” demonstrates that critically informed frank (or confessional) parrhesiastic writing nurtures “the ever dancing self” by what might be called “writing and reading the self with a thousand eyes.”

The word " delight " is perhaps more associated with aesthetics and the Victorian era than with medieval rhetoric. Carruther's collection of wide-ranging essays by an equally diverse range of scholarly authors strongly suggests that the milieu of the medieval was one in which pleasurable engagements with and in acts of persuasion were common.

A brief analysis of the semantics of Thomas Huckin, Jennifer Andrus, and Jennifer Clary-Lemon's article published in College Composition And Communication's September 1, 2012 issue, noticing how their terminology resists strict categorization of this mixed method approach to "Big Rhetoric" and the many other disciplinary pursuits that fall under Rhetoric and Composition.

This presentation -- the first in the panel -- describes and accounts for the theoretical approach to care of the subjective self located within a literal prison.  I describe the case study of critical pedagogy as informed by critical theory, particularly through a deployment of the Foucauldian concept of “Care of the Self” joined with a Freirean conscientização.  That such literal liberation can only be figuratively realized for the inmate serving a life, or near-to-life sentence is a poignant underscoring of what is also true for many within carceral contexts: that liberation (literal or metaphorical) is figured, scripted, the writing of a subject with limited but actual agency to care for a configured self within disciplinary or constraining forces.  About half of the presentation is given to description of the Associates of Arts program in the South Carolina Department of Corrections, and the risks and rewards of conducting such an exploratory phenomenological study will be a significant element of the presentation.

A proposal for doing a phenomenological case study of academic writing among incarcerated adult-learners with lengthy sentences as a context for exploring the assumptions, dimensions, or limits of liberatory pedagogy, possibly connecting it with “Care of the Self”, Michel Foucault’s unfinished project in the final years of his life.

A handout that seeks to gain insight into the individual behind the need for completion of a research project in their first-year composition and research course (an example of using this resources is also provided in this conference presentation collection of documents).

This example is provided students each semester as they prepare for the information literacy skills exam.  Students use it to learn how to use both print and on-line resources, from general reference to subject specific reference, database and catalog.

Active Learning in, through, and beyond the University Library and Classroom - an accepted workshop proposal for the Oct. 10-11, 2014 International Conference on Information Literacy at Georgia Southern University, in Savannah.

Two librarians and a professor share their experience of collaboration over the past seven years so as to encourage and facilitate further collegial engagement between libraries, classrooms and beyond.

The origins of the five books of the psalter are unclear.  That there are structures and intentions in the ordering of the psalms within the five books is a subject of much research in recent decades, but that the five books are ordered around something more than fairly capricious or chronological choices appears to be too large a question.  Yet, the evidence that there is structure and implied order to the five books is beyond doubt.  This brief paper summarizes years of work in examining the psalms identified as "by David" through the lens of literary analysis, particularly for thematic elements, for purpose of discerning the distinguishing characteristics of each book of the Psalms.

The acrostic poem found in Proverb 31:10-31 has too often intimidated many women, for the profile seems an impossible ideal.  However, rather than being a snapshot of a woman at any particular moment in her life, it is a composite of the glory that is a woman who exercises great proficiency in being a woman throughout her life as a wife.  Proverbs 31: 10-31, therefore, serves as a composite picture of the glory of a woman in marriage. 

As this example of paraphrase/translation is being posted on International Woman's Day, it is important to note that  a woman does not only have opportunity to shine in marriage.  Rather, this poem offers a composite image of how marriage between a husband who husbands (rather than dominates or tries to control) and a wife who is free to be the woman she is, can be one of the most awesome settings for the jewel-like qualities of the amazing image-of-God-bearer that a woman is.  Other scriptures in the Christian Bible demonstrate the glory of a woman in other settings (Ruth, for example, as a daughter-in-law and outsider-looking in; Esther as a consort and timely person of influence; Judges 4, as a judge and counselor of rulers).

Proverbs 31 is remarkable in ancient literature for how it highlights the great influence a woman has in economic and commercial activity, demonstrating how peculiar the modern divorce between the home and the workplace is (a product for  the Industrial Revolution).

The biblical character, Lot, is perhaps one of the more perplexing in the Hebrew/Christian tradition.  Much is made of his choosing the green plains or of his moving within the walls of Sodom and Gomorrah.  However, a close reading of the Genesis narrative (a key element in the Abraham narrative), along with attention to what other passages of scripture offer as the interpretative community which modern readers join only as "Johnny-come-lately" indicates that much that we think we know about Lot is just simply false.

Shakespeare is credited with nearly 2000 neologisms (new words), as well as many expressions now common to everyday English; here is a list of over 170 words which the OED cites as coined by Shakespeare over four centuries ago, but which are still in common use.

Careful survey of literature of a wide variety by authors significantly associated with the United States of America provides an interesting means of appreciating common characteristics of the American peoples.  This handout serves as stimuli for such a discussion, and is, by no means, comprehensive.  May it stimulate further thinking on what characterizes the literature of a people, particularly the people of the United States.

The Epicurean/Stoic practices of parrhessia offers a way forward for teachers within the discipline who wish to profess their pedagogy in the tradition without falling into the persistent and false dichotomy of the “handbook tradition” of the techne, versus the more theoretical tradition of the dialectician/philosopher.  Foucault’s exploration of bold or frank speech, with which Philodemus of the first century BCE sought to infuse his efforts as an Epicurean teacher, provides an ancient pedagogic foundation for how academic writing may not only maintain an important element of rhetorical discipline, but also allow for the “care of the self” as a moral way of life with oneself, and an ethical way of life with others.  This seems to have been the direction in which Foucault was heading in the final few years of his life, and is perhaps a way in which Correctional Education teachers of composition may develop academic writing practices which are dynamically informed by both post-structuralist theory and liberatory pedagogy.

A slide show which accompanied the 2012 CCCC presentation, “Re-thinking Liberatory Pedagogy: Lessons from an Inmate/First-Year Composition Writing Exchange”, arguing for the possibility of creating a space for critical reflection with self and with the world in which students and instructors are both agents and subjects of power through problem-posing pedagogy.

Perhaps one of the more perplexing figures in the Jewish and Christian tradition is Lot, nephew of Abraham.  Much is said about his choosing the green plains, as well as his moving within the walls of Sodom and Gomorrah, but practicing close reading of the narrative, as well as attending to what other passages offer on the subject, reveals that much of what is commonly understood about Lot is simply wrong.