Considers Richard Ohmann's argument that composition texts which instruct students to emphasize concrete details over abstract concepts encourage conformity with the dominant order. Suggests that Ohmann failed to consider the effects of teachers' and students' viewpoints. Cites methods that encourage students to use detail as a device of broader…

Traces the decline in importance and scope of invention under the prevalent current-traditional approach to rhetoric. Suggests that as a result students are being taught a writing process and a set of assumptions about discourse that have nothing to do with either how writing gets done or with contemporary thinking about the relation of language…