Composition Theory for the Postmodern Classroom

Edited by Gary A. Olson & Sidney I. Dobrin

Subjects: Language And Culture
Paperback : 9780791423066, 360 pages, May 1994
Hardcover : 9780791423059, 360 pages, May 1994

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Table of contents

Foreword
Jacqueline Jones Royster

Introduction
Gary A. Olson and Sidney I. Dobrin

The Process of Writing

The Process of Writing: A Philosophical Base in Hermeneutics
James L. Kinneavy

Dichotomy, Consubstantiality, Technical Writing, Literary Theory: The Double Orthodox Curse
Jasper Neel

Writing in the Graduate Curriculum: Literary Criticism as Composition
Patricia A. Sullivan

What Happens When Things Go Wrong: Women and Writing Blocks
Mary Kupiec Cayton

Theory and the Teaching of Writing

Some Difficulties with Collaborative Learning
David W. Smit

Becoming Aware of the Myth of Presence
Reed Way Dasenbrock

Toward an Ethics of Teaching Writing in a Hazardous Context--The University
Sandy Moore and Michael Kleine

Repositioning the Profession: Teaching Writing to African American Students
Thomas Fox

The Essay and Composition Theory

Rediscovering the Essay
W. Ross Winterowd

The Recent Rise of Literary Nonfiction: A Cautionary Assay
Douglas Hesse

Why Don't We Write What We Teach? And Publish It?
Lynn Z. Bloom

Gender, Culture, and Radical Pedagogy

Sexism in Academic Styles of Learning
David Bleich

The Dialectic Suppression of Feminist Thought
Robert G. Wood

Paulo Freire and the Politics of Postcolonialism
Henry A. Giroux

After Progressivism: Modern Composition, Institutional Service, and Cultural Studies
Michael Murphy

The Other Reader
Joseph Harris

Articulation Theory and the Problem of Determination: A Reading of Lives on the Boundary
John Trimbur

Peer Response in the Multicultural Composition Classroom: Dissensus--A Dream (Deferred)
Carrie Shively Leverez

Rhetoric, Philosophy, and Discourse

Nietzsche in Basel: Writing Reading
J. Hills Miller

Externalism and the Production of Discourse
Thomas Kent

Interrupting the Conversation: The Constructionist Dialogue in Composition
Joseph Petraglia

Defining Rhetoric--and Us: A Meditation on Burke's Definitions
Richard M. Coe

Afterword
Linda Brodkey

Contributors

Index

Description

Composition Theory for the Postmodern Classroom is a collection of the most outstanding articles published in the Journal of Advanced Composition over the last decade. Together these essays represent the breadth and strength of composition scholarship that has fruitfully engaged with critical theory in its many manifestations. In drawing on the critical discourses of philosophers, feminists, literary theorists, African Americanists, cultural theorists, and others, these compositionists have enriched the discourse in the field, broadened intellectual conceptions of the multiple roles and functions of discourse, and opened up an infinite number of questions and new possibilities for composition theory and pedagogy.

Gary A. Olson is Professor of English and teaches in the graduate program in rhetoric and composition at the University of South Florida. He is the author of Philosophy, Rhetoric, Literary Criticism: (Inter)views. Olson served as editor of the Journal of Advanced Composition from 1985-1994. Sidney I. Dobrin teaches composition, technical writing, and professional writing for graduate students at the University of South Florida, where he serves as Associate Editor of JAC.

Reviews

". ..Composition Theory for the Postmodern Classroom comes into place at a critical moment. We have worked assiduously to flesh out the ways and means of composition for a new era. This text helps to document our way. " --Jones Royster, from the Foreword

"JAC has been a central resource for the presentation and consideration of 'theory' in composition studies. These essays act as springboards for reflecting on the ways in which we interrogate and problematize in this discourse community.

"As I read the collection of essays, I was frequently reminded that despite seemingly indefinite variation in the circumstances of teaching, composition teachers do not treat theory as a refuge from practice, but value instead what it can tell them about writing and writing pedagogy. I hear in these essays echoes of an inclination to reject precepts that ignore writing and teaching in the name of common sense, and I see traces on the paths taken of the uncommon intention to practice and teach writing--for a change. " -- Linda Brodkey, from the Afterword