We hope you’ll be able to join us for the Rhet/Comp Graduate Student Get-Together this Sunday, March 1st, from 3-5 at Twain’s. Our topic for socializing and professional development is “It’s Just a Dissertation.” Find out more details here. Looking forward to seeing many of you there!

Congrats on these recent publications from GSU Rhetoric and Composition faculty and graduate students!

• Dr. Harker’s article, co-authored with Kathryn B. Comer, appears in the March 2015 issue of Computers and Composition: “The Pedagogy of the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives: A Survey.”
• Dr. Gaillet’s book Contingent Faculty Publishing in Community, co-edited with GSU alum Letizia Guglielmo, was published by Palgrave in December.
• Thomas Breideband’s article “Social Ruptures and Osculative Interpellation: Approaching the Twitterverse Through the Prism of Laclau and Althusser” appears in volume 4 of Technoculture: An Online Journal of Technology in Society.

Did I miss your recent publication? Send me an email (aholmes@gsu.edu) so we can celebrate your accomplishments, too.

Posted on behalf of Dr. Harker:

I’m writing to you on behalf of the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives (DALN) team to request your help in staffing the DALN booth at the upcoming CCCC conference in Tampa! Since beginning work alongside Ben McCorkle as a co-director of the DALN, we have heard so much about each of you from Cindy. We know the continued growth and value of the DALN in our profession is a reflection of your generous help and support over the years.  A million thanks, in advance, for your generous time, collaboration, and willingness to consider this request!

As you know, the narratives we help people contribute at this booth will go into the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives <http://daln.osu.edu/> where they will be preserved and made available to the public and to the profession. CCCC has reserved a table/booth for us in a high-traffic area at the conference, and we need your help in staffing the table/booth.  
We hope to have at least 4 staff members during each session listed below so that we’ll have plenty of person power to encourage people to sit down and tell their literacy story (and they need lots of encouragement!), people to help contributors complete the required paperwork, and people to make sure the narratives are properly labeled and saved on our computers.  We also need help in setting up the booth in the mornings and breaking it down in the evenings.

Some of you are newer than others to this project, so if you volunteer, you’ll receive an email from me with several handouts that you can use to get familiar with our effort and inform yourself about the work you’re about to do. Ben McCorkle and Cindy Selfe have promised to be on hand for some sessions, so you’ll never be without help!

So, please let me know (via email to mwharker@gmail.com) if you can sign up for any of the sessions below.  I know that some of you may have to arrive or leave 10-15 minutes early or late if you have a conference session to attend–that’s fine as long as someone stays at the booth (to guard the paperwork and computers) until the next shift arrives.  Once I have your requests, I’ll make up a final schedule and send it to everyone, so you know who you’ll be serving with! 

Thursday, March 19:

10-noon (set up):

noon-1:45:

1:45-3:15:

3:15-4:45:

4:45-6:00 (break down):

Friday, March 20:

8:45-10:45 (set up):

10:45-12:30:

12:30-1:45:

1:45-3:15:

3:15-4:45:

4:45-6:00 (break down):

Saturday, March 21:

9:45-11:00 (set up):

11:00-12:30

12:30-1:45 (break down):

We look forward to seeing each of you at CCCC in Tampa!

 Best wishes,

 –Michael, on behalf of the DALN Team

The Emory Writing Program is hosting Cheryl Ball for a series of talks and workshops on Feb. 5th and 6th on topics such as Building a Digital Portfolio, Digital Humanities and Computers & Comp, and Multimodal Assessment. Some of the talks are open to the public (I specifically inquired about the Building a Digital Portfolio and it’s open, too) but some require registration. Check their website for more information and to register: http://writingprogram.emory.edu/writing-program/information/news.html.

Welcome back Rhet/Comp-ers. I’ve been collecting a series of announcements that I thought I’d send out all at once. There are lots of exciting opportunities on the horizon.

First, congratulations to Dr. Harker! His book The Lure of Literacy: A Critical Reception of the Compulsory Composition Debate is hot off the SUNY presses: http://www.sunypress.edu/p-5989-the-lure-of-literacy.aspx.

• WPA-GO CCCC Graduate Student Travel Award – If you’re presenting at CCCCs, RNF, ATTW, or the IWCA Collaborative in Tampa, consider applying for this travel award. Due Feb. 6th, requires WPA membership by Jan. 30th. Read more details here: http://wpacouncil.org/node/6395.
• Conference on Community Writing deadline for proposals is Feb. 2nd for the conference in Boulder, CO in October: http://www.communitywriting.org/cfp/.
• Feminisms & Rhetorics Conference deadline for proposals is Feb. 1st for the conference in Phoenix, AZ in October: http://english.clas.asu.edu/files/CFPFeminismsandRhetorics2015-WEB-march2014.pdf.
• Playtest Gaming Discussion @ GSU: The Creative Media Industries Institute and New and Emerging Media Initiative at Georgia State University are proud to announce that we will be starting a weekly game discussion session entitled “Playtest.” Playtest is an hour-long meet-up for gathering and exploring the small parts of things we love about games and also giving people the ability to experience them by playing the games in a comfortable and critical setting. Starting Friday, January 23, 2015, we will hold weekly meetings from 2:30 to 3:30 PM on the 9th floor of 25 Park Place. We invite all students, staff, faculty, game developers, and game critics to join us for these sessions. For more information: http://playtest.gsu.edu/.
• New Issue of Peitho: Check-out the new issue on “The Critical Place of the Networked Archive,” which also features an article by a recent GSU Rhet/Comp alum Oriana Gatta. http://peitho.cwshrc.org/.
• New Issue of Kairos: There’s also a new issue of Kairos out with some great content: http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/.

Hi, all: I just came across the CFP for the Literacies for All Summer Institute, hosted by the Whole Language Umbrella (WLU), which is a subsidiary of NCTE. The conference will be held at the Courtyard Marriott in downtown Decatur, July 9-11, 2015. You can read more about the Institute here; proposals are due by Jan. 31, 2015.

Many thanks to our faculty members who have been very supportive and generous with their time this semester.  Unfortunately because everybody (faculty and students) were very busy this week, we had to cancel our Third Thursday Talk on transitioning from comprehensive exams to prospectus writing.  In Lieu, Dr. Holmes and Dr. Harker have offered a few quick tips to help students transition from comprehensive exams to the prospectus writing process.

 Dr. Holmes:

1. It’s okay if you feel a bit of a slump after comprehensive exams.  You’ve studied so hard and passed that hurdle. Take time to celebrate that victory and rejuvenate yourself personally and as a scholar.
2.  Review the work you completed for comprehensive exams. You can often pull pieces from your exams to help you begin writing your prospectus.
3. Ask friends and other students in the program ahead of you if they’d be willing to share their prospectus as a sample.
4. Start a writing group. Set goals and deadlines. Hold each other accountable.
5. Remember that the prospectus is the plan for the dissertation, not the dissertation itself (even though pieces of the prospectus may end up in your diss). It is absolutely an important part of the process, and spending time constructing a methodologically-sound study will save you time and trouble later; however, the prospectus is yet another hurdle to get past so that you can get down to the business of writing your
   dissertation.

Dr. Harker (as paraphrased from a conversation):

1. After receiving approval from your committee chair, send out the article that was revised for publication in comprehensive exams for publication immediately.

2.  If you have difficulty beginning or completing your prospectus, keep in mind that while the prospectus is a necessary step to take, don’t pressure yourself by thinking that the dissertation will necessarily be the same as the prospectus.  The prospectus is a plan–a fiction of sorts–meant to guide you as you compose your dissertation.

3.  These are some of the things that Dr. Harker looks for in a prospectus:

a.       That you have identified a conceptual or evidentiary gap in existing research about your topic

b.       That you are planning to make a unique contribution to ongoing conversations related to your topic

c.        That you can put yourself into conversation with the major players in your area

d.       That you can identify and explain your methodology

e.       That you can address any IRB issues that may arise

4.  Faculty hope that you leave your prospectus defense excited and motivated to write your dissertation.