A theory of interpretation developed from the composition scholar's reading and revision of literary theory can effectively serve as a core theory in writing across the curriculum programs. For example, recent composition theory, with its emphasis on close study of students' texts and the process of their writing, provides the writing teacher with the practical means of decomposing student writing so that students' half-formed and half-expressed intentions can be mapped on to later drafts, or so that they can become the subject of new writings altogether. Further, the emphasis on using writing as a means of discovering and clarifying ideas is the writing teacher's way of acknowledging the literary theorist's attention to psychological and social transformation through literary language. In addition, the methods of composition researchers who have systematically studied classroom methods and student responses and performance can add an empirical methodological dimension to literary theory that it now lacks. Writing theorists, through literary theory, can come to understand writing as a means to the greater end of interpretation. Literary theorists, with the help of writing theory, can come to understand the place writing has in the context of interpretation. Such a reconceptualization will help content area teachers see writing as an act in a unified, interpretative event. (HOD)