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Present Tense: A Journal of Rhetoric in Society is a peer-reviewed, blind-refereed, online journal dedicated to exploring contemporary social, cultural, political and economic issues through a rhetorical lens. In addition to examining these subjects as found in written, oral and visual texts, we wish to provide a forum for calls to action in academia, education and national policy. Seeking to address current or presently unfolding issues, we publish short articles ranging from 2,000 to 2,500 words, the length of a conference paper. For sample topics please see our submission guidelines. Conference presentations on topics related to the journal's focus lend themselves particularly well to this publishing format. Authors who address the most current issues may find a lengthy submission and application process disadvantageous. We seek to overcome this issue through our shortened response time and by publishing individual articles as they are accepted. We also encourage conference-length multimedia submissions such as short documentaries, flash videos, slidecasts and podcasts. In order to foster dialogue, our journal features a Reader Response section in which both contributors and readers are welcome to discuss the publications' content in a public, digital space.

Basic Writing e-Journal (BWe) is a peer-reviewed, online, open-access journal. BWe publishes scholarship on teaching and learning in various basic writing contexts. Since basic writing programs often enroll economically disadvantaged students from diverse backgrounds, these students, their teachers, and the policies that influence their access to higher education are often the focus of this journal. Other key topics of concern to BWe readers include curriculum, instructional practice, teacher preparation, program evaluation, and student learning. Additionally, reviews of current scholarly books and textbooks appear regularly in BWe. Currently based at the City College of New York, BWe was founded in 1999 by the Council on Basic Writing (CBW) and continues to be sponsored by CBW.

"As student populations in colleges and universities continue to diversify, composition programs do not always meet students' varying needs. English as a Second Language (ESL) students appear to fail mainstream writing courses at higher rates than their traditional counterparts, yet mainstreaming continues to be mandated, often due to budgetary constraints. Many programs offer multicultural writing courses, but these, too, are often ineffective for many students. Meanwhile, as Paul Kei Matsuda shows, there is a decided split between the disciplines of composition and ESL. Since ESL scholars have a much stronger history of working with diverse student populations than composition scholars do, this study aims to look to ESL scholarship, specifically to contrastive rhetoric, to explore more effective methods of teaching writing to students with varying needs. This case study takes an in-depth look at one student's journey writing across cultures. Ming, a Chinese immigrant who has been in the United States for approximately ten years, is a junior at the University of Rhode Island who struggles with writing. Over the course of one semester, three of her projects were studied in depth. Data include transcripts of audiotaped tutorial sessions in the URI Writing Center, Ming's assignments and papers, and the researcher's notes from interviews with Ming following the tutorial sessions. ^ The new contrastive rhetoric (Connor, Kaplan, Purves) insists that external factors such as culture, education, and media influence the rhetorical patterns writers use. Through a lens of contrastive rhetoric, it becomes clear that most of Ming's difficulties when writing stem from a lack of familiarity with the conventions of U.S. academic discourse or of what her reader expects from her text. The source of much of this is cultural. While Ming's experiences are not generalizable, an in-depth look at her experiences foregrounds some of the issues that contrastive rhetoric addresses, making th

"More and more ESL students are seeking writing help at U.S. college and university writing centers. This trend emphasizes the complementary role of the writing center and ESL writing instruction in improving ESL writing skills. Writing center and ESL writing pedagogy share the process and collaborative approaches, which emphasize the writing process using revision and reader feedback. Often difficult to implement in a classroom setting, these approaches can be used successfully with ESL students in the writing center. However, many writing center instructors, unfamiliar with the needs of ESL students, are often ill-equipped to work successfully with this special population. This has caused writing center faculties to turn to the ESL profession for help in establishing suitable strategies. The growing need for ESL expertise in the writing center has created a variety of capacities to which ESL instructors can contribute."

The U. of Wisconsin-Madison's "Case Scenario/Crtiical Reader Builder is a desktop tool for creating a variety of web-based learning materials. You can combine text, images, video and audio along with embedded quiz questions and scoring to create compelling interactive critical readings, scenarios with decision branching, simulated dialogues, story-like narratives, media rich case studies and much more. The CSCR tool provides a framework for integrating multiple media elements and web resources to make your content come alive with interactivity. Learners can interact with and explore course content, make decisions and receive corrective feedback. For use for Tutors, click the link "Concept Tutor Plus" at the left of the page.

Article in NCTE's Forum by Nicole Caswell, Jackie Grutsch McKinney, and Rebecca Jackson, "A Glimpse into the Working Lives of New Writing Center Directors." pp. A3-7. This issue of Forum focuses on "Issues about Part-Time and Contingent Faculty." Vol. 18.1 (Fall 2014). Access on the NCTE site is limited to NCTE members, but readers may have access through institutional libraries with databases of online publications. Article focuses on who does the work of directing and what work do new directors perform.

report on SIG on serving ESL students; "Dealing with Criticism" (on helping students--includes "A Model for Reader Response" based on Bruffee's "The Brooklyn Plan"); "The Case for Faculty Workshops"; mailing list