Monday, March 19th -2012

Hello all,

For anyone traveling to the C's this week in St. Louis -as you can see on page 301 of the searchable program, Sheridan Blau is presenting -during a featured panel- on James Moffett and the roots of English Education. Here are the details:

• CCCC 2012 -St. Louis
• Location: Renaissance Hotel, Landmark Ballroom, Salon 4, Lobby Level
• Time: Saturday -N Sessions: 12:30–1:45 p.m.
• Title: Composition’s Roots in English Education
• Summary of Presentation: In this session, panelists will draw attention to the discipline of composition studies’ roots in the field of English education. Focusing attention on mid-20th century English educators and the political circumstances in which they lived and worked panelists will remind participants of a foundational chapter in the history of composition’s inter-disciplinary, multi-disciplinary, cultural, and political roots.

Speakers:

1. Patricia Lambert Stock -Michigan State University, East Lansing, “The Intertwined Roots of English Education and Composition Studies”
2. James T. Zebroski- University of Houston, “Hidden from History: English Education and the Multiple Origins of Contemporary Composition Studies, 1960-2000”
3. Thomas Newkirk-  University of New Hampshire, Durham, “Lunch at the Night Hawk: Jim Kinneavy Joins the English Department”
4. Sheridan Blau- Teachers College, Columbia University, “Theory for Practice: James Moffett’s Seminal Contributions to Composition”

Wednesday, January 4th -2012

Hello all and welcome to the new year,

I am pleased to announce the recent publication of:

______________________________________________________

Tuesday, October 4th -2011

Hello all, I have added: An Index of Current Citations in Scholarly Literature on James Moffett's key (1968) "Teaching the Universe of Discourse" to the "Materials Posted @ JMC" resource page. What you will see here over time, is a continuous index.

Introduction: Eugene Garfield –the creator of the Science Citation Index (SCI)– gathered and scanned citations to his friend and colleague Robert Merton's work for over 30 years. When Garfield launched SCI, the first automated citation index in 1964, he also started the Automatic Subject Citation Alert (ASCA) in 1965. Garfield’s “personal search profile for this alerting service included Merton’s name as a cited author,” so Garfield was “regularly informed of new papers that had cited” Merton’s work. As Garfield described at length:

• Every week for over 35 years, I have been stimulated by an amazing assortment of article titles whose authors have been influenced by his [Merton’s] work –on average, about twenty papers per week! And the flow continues to this day. The breadth of their content reflects not only the diversity of his publications but also the applicability and power of his theoretical ideas as well as the diverse topics which were related to them but often times seemingly unrelated. Merton himself also received a similar weekly ASCA personal alerting report which he scanned with great interest. He had a routine procedure for marking titles for which his aide requested reprints. (p. 51, 2004)

Like Garfield and Merton, I have set up an automated Google Scholar alert system. Every time that James Moffett's (1968) "Teaching the Universe of Discourse" is cited and catalogued by Google Scholar I get an email alert. What follows is an index of the most current citations to Moffett's key book. Like Eugene, I take an interest in the wide-array of purposes to which Moffett's work is put. See the live index listed below.

Note: When Google Scholar provides free and instant access to the article, so does this index. In those instances, I am simply recreating what Google Scholar already provides access to. For example:

October 4th, 2011

Scholar Alert: [ "teaching the universe of discourse" ]

[HTML] JAC Volume 9

NR Blyler
... Ed. Michael G. Moran and Debra Journet. Westport: Greenwood P. 1985. 117-62. Moffett, James.
Teaching the Universe of Discourse. Boston: Houghton, 1968. Nold, Ellen. “Revising: Intentions
and Conventions.” Revising. New Essays for Teachers of Writing. Ed. ...

October 1st, 2011

Scholar Alert: [ "teaching the universe of discourse" ]

The Influence of Classroom Blogging on Elementary Student Writing

E McGrail… - Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 2011

Etc. Go to the "Materials Posted @ JMC" page for the full and continuously updated index.

Saturday, September 3rd -2011

I am pleased to announce that Elizabeth Spalding, Miles Myers, and I will be published in the centennial publication of The English Journal (January, 2012). Our article is James Moffett's Legacy to The English Journal. So keep your eye out for that at the start of the new year -January 2012. 

Also, I have just added (Sept. 3rd) a "Guide to the James Porter Moffett Papers.pdf" as a reference document in our "Library of Moffett PDF'S". This document represents the full listing of materials archived for research in University of California Santa Barbara's Special Collections Department.

Cheers,

Damian

Monday, May 2nd -2011

I am writing to announce an excellent new multimedia video addition to the JMC -thanks primarily to Tom Gage. 

Check out the -three part: click here part one; part two; part three, 17 minute- 1996 video of "James Moffett on Media in the Language Arts Classroom". Across these three parts, this video represents a presentation that James Moffett was going to give in Chicago at the 1996 National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) conference. Instead his friend and colleague, of 35 years, Dr. Tom Gage delivered this presentation as Moffett's ombudsman. Moffett, it turned out, was too ill at the time to attend the conference. Indeed he passed two months after this video was produced. In it, he lays out his vision of how a teacher might use technology in a Language Arts classroom to individualize and improve the teaching of reading and writing. This video was produced by Tom Gage; funded by Robert Romano; and video edited for the JMC by Damian Koshnick.

Enjoy! 

Thursday, April 28th -2011

Sheridan Blau recently forwarded an excerpt of his excellent retrospective research article which is soon to be published in Stock, Patricia. (Ed.) Composition's Roots in English Education, Heinemann Boynton/Cook. It addresses the influence of James Moffett on Composition. Check it out:

Blau, Sheridan. (2011). Excerpt: Theory for Practice: James Moffett's Seminal Influence on Composition. The article has been added to our JMC LIBRARY.

Thank you Sheridan! 

Cheers, 
Damian

Friday, March 4th -2011

Hello Fellow JMC'ers, 

Do you have a personal, professional, academic, or appropriate political blog that you would like posted for others in the JMC community to check out?

If so, email me: <koshnick@umail.ucsb.edu> with the link, and I will add your name/blog to the JMC frontpage. Look on the homepage (top, right column) for our small, but growing collection of member blogs that I (so far) have already been following:

Fellow JMC Member Blogs

[Click on names]
1. Damian Koshnick's Blog

2. Steven Lafer's Blog

3. Doug Noon's Blog

At least once a week, I receive an email from one, or several of you about different aspects of the JMC. I thoroughly appreciate the feedback, help, advice, commentary, reflection, friendship, collegiality, etc. Having access to others' work can only increase the value of this community which is already full of a notable collection of people.

So, if you have a blog, please send the link and I will post it. Or if you have a link to another useful site with which you are associated and that is relevant to this community in some manner (on education, academics, teaching, political, etc.) please forward it on. 

In other news, I will be posting several new documents to the "Library of Moffett PDFs" shortly, so keep an eye out for those in the near future. Until then, take care and cheers!

Best,

Damian

January 24th, 2011

Fellow JMC'er Bruce Novak asked me to make an announcement on the JMC. He is organizing this year's 17th Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning (AEPL). This year’s conference is:

Date: June 23-26, 2011

Location: Estes Park, Colorado

For more information see the PDF attachments: 

Love and Wisdom in Education.pdf; Love and Wisdom in English.pdf.

Also, see the attachments for information on the call for proposals.

Contact Bruce Novak with questions either through the JMC ning, or by email at: <brucenovak@mac.com>

Some Background Information: AEPL is an official assembly of the National Council of Teachers of English. James Moffett was the first member of AEPL and parts of the annual assembly were founded on his work. The conference is open to all those interested in exploring the boundaries of teaching and learning beyond traditional disciplines and methodologies. Areas of interest include, but are by no means limited to: aesthetic, emotional, and moral intelligence; archetypes; body wisdom; care in education; creativity; felt sense theory; healing; holistic learning; humanistic and transpersonal psychology; imaging; intuition; kinesthetic knowledge; meditation; narration as knowledge; reflective teaching; silence; spirituality; and visualization.

December 16th, 2010

With the author's permission, I have added what I think is one of the best interviews with James Moffett out there. It is from Eric Schroeder & John Boe, and was published in Writing on the Edge in 1995. It is both permanently posted in the Library of Moffett PDF's and linked here: "Individualize": An Interview with James Moffett.

Enjoy the read and happy winter break.

October 16th, 2010

A new addition has been made to the archive Library. It is a 1975 interview by David Sohn titled "A talk with James Moffett" published in Media and Methods: Exploration in Education. Thanks to Tom Gage for sending this addition.

Cheers,
Damian

September 26th, 2010

I am pleased to announce that a special issue journal dedicated to “Re-reading James Moffett” was just published! This includes fellow JMC’er - Dr. Anthony Pare’s article: “Discourse and Social Action: Moffett and the New Rhetoric ”. Even more note-worthy, his article is one amongst eight other articles dedicated to re-reading James Moffett, his work, impact and contributions as a teacher, theorist, etc.

The special issue was published in:

Journal: Changing English Studies in Culture and Education
Title: Changing English: Studies in Culture and Education: “Rereading James Moffett”
Issue: Volume 17 Issue 3 2010

Online Link (for access through institutional subscription):
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=g926998740~tab=toc

Articles/Authors (9):
1. Re-reading James Moffett –by Bill Green; Wayne Sawyer; Tony Burgess
2. Discourse and Social Action: Moffett and the New Rhetoric -by Anthony Paré
3. Moffett and Rhetoric -by Richard Andrews
4. How One Learns to Discourse: Writing and Abstraction in the Work of James Moffett and James Britton -by Tony Burgess; Viv Ellis; Sarah Roberts
5. Dialogue and Theory: On James Moffett’s Work in English Teaching and Language Education -by John Dixon
6. Structuring the New English in Australia: James Moffett and English Teaching in New South Wales -by Wayne Sawyer
7. A Chart for Further Exploration and a Kind of Rallying Call: James Moffett and English Curriculum History in Victoria -by Catherine Beavis
8. Liberating Literacy Under Threat: Re-reading James Moffett’s Storm in the Mountains -by John Mayher
9. Re-reading James Moffett: Discourse, Rhetoric, Subjectivity -by Bill Green

Cheers!
Damian