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The Association
of College English Teachers of Alabama

ACETA in Auburn, February 8-9, 2008 Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein-Graff demystify the academic game by posing this critical conversation: "They Say / I Say" At this year's ACETA conference in Auburn, speakers argued that all academic writing falls into a template of organized argument that could be simplified as "They Say / I Say." The template comes from a book by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein-Graff, the headline speakers for ACETA's 60th annual conference on February 8-9, 2008. The authors argued that a universal template exists for practically all academic writing: "They say / I say." In other words, most papers across the curriculum began with a section of research, explaining what others say. That section is usually followed by a section of critical analysis or opinion or response to the research--"I say." The authors presented more detailed templates, arguing that these defined structures have many advantages in the classroom: (1) They help to standardize writing assignments across the curriculum; (2) They are useful teaching tools for professors who have never taught writing; (3) They help students employ effective organizational techniques in their writing. The other keynote speaker was Elaine Hughes (pictured above), professor of English at the University of Montevallo, who was selected last year as the winner of the prestigious Eugene Current-Garcia Award for Distinction in Literary Scholarship. Hughes, who is currently directing the University of Montevallo's Academic Program Initiative, earned her Ph.D. in English at the University of Alabama, where she was a National Defense Education Act Fellow. Teaching at the University of Montevallo since 1974, she has turned her interests, particularly in Southern literature and in myth criticism, into many papers and presentations and into a number of funded grant projects. She has served as Alabama’s Carnegie Foundation CASE Professor of the Year, chaired the Alabama Humanities Foundation, and, from its inception, been associated with Hoover Public Library’s annual Southern Voices conference. She has also coauthored with Sena Jeter Naslund a play, Four Spirits, adapted from Naslund’s novel. Four Spirits, the play, originally commissioned by Kent Thompson and the Alabama Shakespeare Festival Theatre, had its world premiere at UAH’s Chan Theatre on February 7, 2008. Hughes was succeeded by her colleague at Montevallo, Norman McMillan, whose selection as the Current-Garcia winner for 2008 was announced at the conference. McMillan, a long-time ACETA member and past president and now emeritus professor of English at Montevallo, has authored short stories, literary criticism, and dramatic adaptations of Southern writers Truman Capote and Flannery O'Connor. McMillan had entertained the ACETA conference in 2007 with a reading of his play, Ashes of Roses, based on stories by Alabama writer Mary Ward Brown and recently produced by Theatre AUM. Cathlena Martin of Samford (above left) won the 2008 James Woodall Award for a paper on a pedagogical topic in English; Christopher Metress of Samford won the William Calvert Award for his paper on a scholarly topic; and (above right) won the Mary Evelyn McMillan Undergraduate Writing Award. ACETA’s 59th Annual Conference Lurleen B. Wallace Community College, Andalusia February 16-17, 2007 Many thanks to ACETA’s institutional members for academic year 2007-2008: Alabama A & M University, Alabama Humanities Foundation, Auburn University, Calhoun Community College, Gadsden State Community College, Jacksonville State University, Lurleen B. Wallace Community College, Northeast Alabama Community College, Samford University, Spring Hill College, Snead State Community College, Southern Union State Community College, Tuskegee University, Univ. of Alabama, Univ. of Alabama at Birmingham, Univ. of Alabama in Huntsville, Univ. of Montevallo, Univ. of North Alabama, Univ. of West Alabama Comments or questions about The Light? Contact Steve Hubbard, Executive Secretary; ACETA: Lurleen B. Wallace Community College; P.O. Box 1418; Andalusia, AL 36420-1224. E-mail: shubbard@lbwcc.edu. For updates and additional information, please see ACETA’s website: http://www.samford.edu/groups/aceta/. To link to the directory of college and university English departments in Alabama, please click on the ACETA lighthouse logo below. *Our logo was designed by Donna Fitch, web designer at Samford University's Office of Public Relations. To illustrate the lighthouse theme for our newsletter, The Light, Donna used the famous pharos or lighthouse at Alexandria in Egypt, one of the Seven Wonders of the World in a city that was the center of learning and culture. For questions about ACETA's website, contact Mark Baggett at 205-726-2309 or jmbagget@samford.edu