The Rhetoric of Composing is a course in the theory, practice, and teaching of composing. In the first segment of the course we will consider the various and competing theories of composing and how they define the process and its elements, how practice and pedagogy assume rhetorical theory, and how rhetorical theory has implications for practice and pedagogy. We will explore some category systems that have been used and misused to describe composing and review some histories that have been constructed to trace its many transformations. In the the second segment of the course we will consider how, as Janice Lauer and others tell us, contemporary rhetorics of composing borrow from other humanities, social science, and scientific disciplines. Thus, after giving audience to some of the major composing voices of the seventies and eighties, we will consider essays on composing that can be seen as speaking from other disciplines: political, sociological, anthropological, psychological, linguistic, scientific, and finally, technological (the session on computers and composition may give way to other discussions, if we need this class period for more pressing topics. I will provide reviews of the current literature). In the final segment of the course we will discuss rhetorics of composing for the nineties. The final exam will ask you to demonstrate a grasp of the issues with which we must "contend" in our future work; the final paper will allow you to insert your voice into this ongoing, variegated discourse.
The course will have five components:
1) selected readings,
2) a major paper based on an aspect of composing and suitable for publication,
3) a review of professional journals,
4) a composing profile and
5) three exams.
Required Texts
Ricoeur. The Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur.
Berlin. Writing Instruction in Nineteenth-Century American Colleges.
Lauer and Asher. Composition Research: Empirical Designs.
Tate and Corbett. The Writing Teacher's Sourcebook.
Freire. Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
Harkin and Schilb. Contending with Words.
Heath. Ways with Words.
CourseFile
Selected Readings in the Rhetoric of Composing. On file in the Copy Center or the listed journals.
A schedule and an alpha listing of the readings are attached. The Kitzhaber, Neel, and Murphy texts are not required.
Assigned Readings in Alpha Order
Berlin, James. "Contemporary Composition: The Major Pedagogical Theories." CE 44 (December 1982): 765-77. TWTS (pp. 47-59)
________. Writing Instruction in Nineteenth-Century American Colleges. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1984.
Bizzell, Patricia. "Cognition, Convention, and Certainty: What We Need to Know about Writing." PRETEXT 3 (1982): 213-243. CourseFile
Brooke, Robert. "Lacan, Transference, and Writing Instruction." CE 49 (October 1987): 679-691. Coursefile
Crowley, Sharon. "Reimagining the Writing Scene: Curmudgeonly Remarks about Contending with Words." Contending with Words. New York: The Modern Language Association, 1991. 189-197.
Elbow, Peter. "Embracing Contraries in the Teaching Process" CE 45 (April 1983): 322-39. TWTS (pp. 219-31).
Emig, Janet. "Writing as a Mode of Learning." CCC 28 (May 1977): 122-28. TWTS (pp. 85-91)
Faigley, Lester. "Competing Theories of Process: A Critique and a Proposal." CE 48 (October 1986): 527-42. CourseFile
Felman, Shoshona. "Psychoanalysis and Education: Teaching Terminable and Interminable." Yale French Studies 63 (1982): 21-44. CourseFile
Flower, Linda and John R. Hays. "The Cognition of Discovery." CCC 31 (February, 1980): 21-32. TWTS (pp. 92-102)
Flower, Linda. "Cognition, Context, and Theory Building." CCC 40 (October 1989): 282-311. CourseFile
Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum, 1986.
Fulkerson, Richard. "Composition Theory in the Eighties: Axiological Consensus and Paradigmatic Diversity," CCC (December 1990): 409-29. CourseFile
Heath, Shirley Brice. Ways with Words. New York: Cambridge UP, 1983.
Kinneavy, James. "The Process of Writing: A Philosophical Base in Hermeneutics." Journal of Advanced Composition 7 (1987): 1-9. CourseFile
Kitzhaber, Albert R. Rhetoric in American Colleges 1850-1900. Dallas: SMU Press, 1990.
Lauer, Janice and J. William Asher. Composition Research: Empirical Designs. New York and Oxford: Oxford UP, 1988.
Murphy, James, Ed. A Short History of Writing Instruction: From Ancient Greece to Twentieth-Century America. Davis, CA: Hermagoras Press, 1990.
Murray, Donald. "The Listening Eye: Reflections on the Writing Conference." CE 41 (September 1979): 13-18. TWTS (pp. 232-37)
Neel, Jasper. Plato, Derrida, and Writing. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 1988. excerpts CourseFile
Ohmann, Richard. "Use Definite, Specific, Concrete Language." CE 41 (December 1979): 390-97. TWTS (pp. 353-60)
Ong, Walter S. "Literacy and Orality in Our Times." ADE Bulletin 58 (September 1978): 1-7. TWTS (pp. 37-46).
Perl, Sondra. "Understanding Composing." CCC 31 (December 1980): 363-69. TWTS (pp. 113-18)
Reither, James. "Writing and Knowing: Toward Redefining the Writing Process." CE 47 (October 1985): 620-28. TWTS (pp. 140-48)
Ricoeur, Paul. "Explanation and Understanding." The Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur. Trans. Charles E. Reagan and David Stewart. Boston: Beacon Press, 1978. 149-166.
Sommers, Nancy. "Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers." CCC 31 (December 1980): 378-88. TWTS (pp. 119-127)
Spellmeyer, Kurt. "A Common Ground: The Essay in the Academy." CE 51 (March 1989): 262-76. CourseFile
Tricomi, Elizabeth Taylor. "Krashen's Second-Language Acquisition Theory and the Teaching of Edited American English." Journal of Basic Writing 5 (1986): 59-69. CourseFile
Vitanza, Victor. "Three Countertheses: Or, A Critical In(ter)vention into Composition Theories and Pedagogies." CwC (pp. 139-172)
Williams, Joseph. "Non-Linguistic Linguistics and the Teaching of Style." The Territory of Language. Ed. Donald A. McQuade. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1986. 171-91. CourseFile
Worsham, Lynn. "Writing against Writing: The Predicament of Ecriture Feminine in Composition Studies." CwC (pp. 82-104)
FYI
Computers and Composing. Selected Reviews. CourseFile
Journals in Composition. Anson and Miller. CCC 39 (May 1988): 198-216. CourseFile
Writing Assessment (A selected bibliography on postsecondary writing assessment) CCC 43 (May 1992). CourseFile
Writing Process Interviews and Profile Construction CCC 41 (December 1990). CourseFile
Rhetoric Seminars
Rhetoric, Composition, Critical Theory HP & Program
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Carolyn Barros's HP.