Thursday, April 25, 2019

Spring 2019 issue of Composition Studies

My Article "Decolonial Potential in a Multilingual FYC"

In the Spring 2019 issue of Composition Studies, I have an article that came about from a first year writing course here at Santa Clara University that was conducted in Spanish during the first quarter and then in English during the quarter that I taught. The student writing included in my article is wonderful and critically engages with the notions of translingualism and monolingual ideology.  I am extremely forturnate that my article was available through open access on the journal's website. Now it is available through my university's scholar commons: https://works.bepress.com/cruz-medina/18/



See below for the other great contributions to this issue, which includes my SCU colleague Amy Lueck and fellow Latinx Caucus member Alex Hidalgo, whose digital book I discussed in a previous post. 

Thursday, April 18, 2019

2019 CCCC Pittsburgh

CCCC 2019 in Pittsburgh, PA
March 12-16 was the College Composition and Communication Conference, where I was most excited to present with my undergraduate research assistant Perla Luna, who presented with me on a panel related to my research on the NCTE/CCCC Latinx Caucus Bibliography.

(Me with Enrique Reynoso and Perla Luna SCU grad '19)

Asao Inoue CCCC 2019 Chair's Address

Below is the video of Asao Inoue's Chair's Address, which sparked some debate and discussion on the WPA listserv that prompted some discussion about the future of the listserv, its purpose, and how it is being used.



On Friday evening, I had the pleasure of co-chairing the NCTE/CCCC Latinx Caucus business meeting (photo below.) We had a wonderful turnout for the business meeting, where members of the caucus new and experienced came, met, and ideally found other folks interested in similar research, teaching practices, or community issues.

My co-chair Christina Cedillo did an excellent job addressing some of the relevant issues that arose at this year's Cs and we worked together to spread the awareness of calls for papers (CFPs) and forthcoming publications by members of the caucus (see the covers below of books I picked up while there). 


(SCU faculty Amy Lueck, Denise Krane, Julia Voss, Heather Turner, and Matt  Gomes at CCCC 2019)

Picked up some new books while I was there (click covers for Amazon link):
Rhetorics Elsewhere is a collection that includes contributions by scholars identifying rhetorical practices outside of those traditionally included in classical rhetorical study.


Raul Sanchez's new book continues his work as what Jaime Mejia describes as being "a monster theorist," looking at new ways of considering texts. 



On the Wednesday of the conference, the Latinx caucus workshop hosted Latino Community organizations.


This CCCC was also an opportunity to honor, Felipe de Ortego y Gasca, one of the founders of the Latinx Caucus who recently passed.


Saturday, April 13, 2019

Taye Diggs at SCU

Frank Sinatra Artist in Residence Taye Diggs at SCU

(Taye Diggs and Shane W Evans with my English 106 class)

On Friday April 12, I was fortunate to have both Taye Diggs and his collaborator on children's books, visual illustrator Shane W Evans, come to my Rhetoric of Storytelling (English 106) here at SCU. In class, I framed the discussion around the course reading "Ancient Tradition and Contemporary Storytelling" by Gayle Duskin from the collection The Subject Is Story. The class identified contemporary songs that highlighted elements, motifs, and themes raised in the reading. Diggs and Evans were extremely generous in their thoughtful contributions to the discussion, questions for students, and responses to questions from students on topics related to storytelling, telling the stories of others, and the purposes for storytelling. Diggs and Evans offered their perspectives as creators and collaborators in the stories of others.

Children's Book Reading



On Tuesday, April 9 Diggs and Evans performed a reading from their books Chocolate Me! and Mixed Me!. SCU has a video of the entire event that I'm including below, which includes musical moments that are at times collaborative with the audience, demonstrating the performative nature of the text as well as the rhythmic prose of both books.

                                             (Screenshot and video from event)

Link to Video of Talk with Shane Evans on Children's Books

https://santaclarauniversity.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=343a2938-cacf-4a5e-b2d2-aa2300fb22b5&fbclid=IwAR1NY6EQ-T1hLOcl6CTSIbTHLnk0tobB9FugH7uRq9xQ_MuuzLR5n9KjK9o

(Photo of Shane W. Evans with my son Jackson at reading)

Books by Taye Diggs and Shane W Evans:

(Click on Cover for Amazon link)

(Click Cover for Amazon link)

Behind the Curtain: Workshop Performance with Students

On Friday April 13, Diggs performed with SCU students in the choir, jazz band, orchestra, and dancers, taking the audience through some of his experiences as an actor and performer. Together, they performed songs from Rent, Chicago, and others.


Thank you to Taye Diggs, Shane W Evans, and everyone at SCU who helped bring these awesome events together, including but not limited to Marie Brancati, Danielle Morgan, Christina Zanfagna, Tony Hazard, and the whole Culture Power and Difference crew.