Applying the principles of American Pragmatism to college composition offers a solution to the general problems of program design, syllabi development, instructional effectiveness, and student behavior modification. American Pragmatism involves the classic problems of meaning and knowledge. These problems stem from the linguistic possibility of constructing grammatic messages without verifiable referents, and are compounded by the concomitant Platonic/Cartesian notion of intelligence as a private, inaccessible process which informs and causes the public, measurable world of action and material. Meaning, for the pragmatist, is a human construction constrained by the physical world; it is a working hypothesis, an instrument of human requirements, and is dependent upon the social context in which it operates. This dissertation argues that a pragmatic approach to composition would solve many of the problems. Applied directly to questions of focus, clarity, precision, and audience effect, pragmatic principles of meaning and action would provide the student with effective guidelines, and give the instructor guidelines for remediation and evaluation. (Author/TS)