This dissertation has seven chapters. In chapter one, I discuss through why I am doing this dissertation, my positionality, and how I learned from and with all of my committee members. Chapter two is where I situate my dissertation study through developing a social theory of quantitative literacy by translating a social theory of literacy (Barton…

Post-structuralism, a theory of signs for written texts, would seem an obvious resource for a field like Composition Studies that has "writing" at its center. Yet the post-structuralist turn in Composition Studies is hamstrung by the deep division between camps in the field that are committed to political critique on the one hand or to…