This article reviews insights from place-based education and ecological models of writing to show how these theories can work together to shape locally focused composition pedagogies. From place-based education, the researcher takes an emphasis on physical specificity, and from ecological models of writing, the researcher takes an emphasis on…

Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender-Queer (LGBTQ) representation in composition readers remains limited and is frequently nonexistent. In addition, the LGBTQ-related materials that do find their way into composition readers are often problematic. In this essay I explain why WPAs and composition teachers should be concerned about LGBTQ representation…

Approaching definitions (and the act of defining) as inherently political and ideological, this article argues that there is a lack of definitional precision surrounding "critical pedagogy" and its core terms (e.g., "student empowerment"). This lack of precision can impede the successful and ethical implementation of critical…

This article describes Sondra Perl's retrospective review of the composing processes of unskilled college writers and whether her assumptions and values in the designing of research projects have changed over her long teaching career. She uses her college dissertation "Five Writers Writing" as the basis to reflect on the authors and…

In this essay, I propose a concerted effort to begin devising a theory and pedagogy of failure. I review the discourse of failure in Western culture as well as in composition pedagogy, ultimately suggesting that failure is not simply a judgement or indication of rank but is a relational, affect-bearing concept with tremendous relevance to…

A multiliteracies pedagogy has renewed our interest in materiality, or how the physical text interacts with the author's choices and the context to contribute to the message, yet little attention has been paid to materiality in analog texts, such as the scrapbook, even though this medium contains affordances (capabilities and limitations) that…

The essay examines the ethical tensions surrounding the common cultural and disciplinary demand that writers write "clearly." The essay seeks to advance the discipline's engagement with Linda Kintz's and Sharon Crowley's separate critiques of the "ideology of clarity," arguing that clarity potentially manipulates audiences primarily through either…

At three different institutions, public and private, in varying roles, I have found the very particular problem of how to inform micro-level classroom practices with macro-level disciplinary knowledge to be centrally important to our field's development and our students' learning--and singularly difficult to overcome. In this program profile, I…

The literature on public writing and community literacy has generally focused on "how" to get students to go public in effective and ethical ways. This article instead addresses a prior concern, the problem of "why" to go public. I argue that students (and Americans generally) are immersed within a cultural ecology of civic disengagement that…

Within composition studies, transfer and rhetorical genre studies have found an especially productive partnership for exploring together whether and in what ways students transfer writing-related knowledge from one context to another. This article continues this synthesis by turning to Anne Freadman's notion of uptake to suggest a more robust…

In this essay, I examine the problems I now see with the sample curriculum I proposed in "College Writing and Beyond: A New Framework for Writing Instruction" in 2007. There are numerous factors that must be considered in designing a writing course: choice of subject matter, choice of genres to assign, sequencing of writing assignments, number of…

Interviews Susan Miller, a teacher of composition studies and author of well-known articles about the field. Discusses what it means to be able to write, and the cultural forces that have shaped her as a writer and teacher of writing. Argues for a renewed focus on the act of writing and the production of texts. (PM)

Notes that pleasure rarely receives much attention in literacy pedagogy. Argues that while composition should engage in the work of making writing pleasurable, it is equally important to recognize the pleasures that already exist for students and all textual users. Examines a critical reading of textual meaning and sensation. Explores an…

Considers how a fundamental shift has taken place in the rhetoric of composition studies. Examines the way a given idea, such as postmodernism or theory, becomes an effective force in history. Defines critical interference as the goal to slow (rather than to simply oppose) the process by which postmodernism passes into the common sense of…

Discusses how nearly everyone who talks about morality assumes that it is closely linked to language and especially to public discourse. Suggests that teachers of rhetoric and writing courses must develop models that help students resist naive prescriptions and meet the challenges involved in voicing their views responsibly in a diverse and…