Offers a model of students' composing process based on students' composition diaries, and suggests why student writing often falls short of instructors' expectations. (DD)

Discusses the rhetorical theory of Gorgias of Leontini and encourages teachers to implant in students a Gorgianic respect for language as an art of illusion, deception, and power having no necessary relation to truth or reality. (DD)

Shifting emphasis from the finished paper to the process of composition can result in better, more honest student writing.

Acknowledging that the tradition of school rhetoric in the nineteenth century was narrow and restrictive, refutes the charge that nineteenth century rhetoricians lacked originality. (HTH)

Argues that an explanation for the long adherence by composition text writers to a patently artificial set of discourse classifications lies not so much in the historical conditions surrounding nineteenth century rhetoric as in the theoretical origins of the modes themselves. Observes that Connors' discourse aims theory disregards audience…