Argues that the practices of English studies are defined not only by the obvious variety of objects and methods of inquiry but also by competing divisions of service. Calls for a reconfiguration of the geography of the discipline's service functions with the goal of developing new ways of reaching extra-disciplinary student and community…

The function of basic writing in the university is to teach students whose language practices are most distant from prestige forms to use language in ways which will enable their advancement in college and in the world outside. In composition studies, the awareness that the intelligent activity of students can produce apparently…