90-96

These addresses illustrate the central place of literacy practices in the life of the field. Evident in these pieces is the growing importance of African-American literacy practices to the politics of writing instruction (whose language gets acknowledged? whose doesn't? why? what's to be gained by studying how minority and/or under-privileged language-users have employed writing, reading, and speaking practices?). And Gere and Bridwell-Bowles focus on the "extra-curriculum" of composition--all of the writing that goes on outside of school. This writing, as they both attest, is often a site of personal and social transformation. B-B advocates that we find ways to allow the outside world into the classroom more often in order to make them "vital places" where students might feel passionate about their work and come to see language as tranformative. She also calls for recognizing more mediums and forms as legitimate in the context of writing and composing. Her address in particular feels very forward-thinking to me. She seems to anticipate the recent emphasis on public writing, community writing projects, and digital/multi-modal writing practices. It seems to me that the field has really made good on her calls to action...all of which were "in the air" at the time, rather than invented by her alone. The convergence of critical pedagogy, politicized pedagogy, and enlarged studies of rhetoric and literacy, as well as the rise of technology seem to be part of the brew.