Explores and interrogates the concept and function of voice in writing. Invites readers to ask questions about voice by interacting with the 99 questions the author asks of himself. (MG)

Explores some of the ambivalent dynamics of asking students to join teacher's academic discourse communities. Notes that the dynamics are simultaneously oppressive and emancipatory: oppressive because the students are enjoined, emancipatory because the students' and teacher's discourse communities change as they join. (MG)

Examines what's at stake in the apparent conflict between "theory" and "practice" in composition. Suggests how each of these terms bears contradictory meanings and thus proves unstable. Suggests how talk of their conflict in composition reflects most of all the anxieties of the field's various subgroups as it goes through…

Suggests, on a humorous note, a game-plan for assignment justification and elaboration that utilizes, in a constructive and professional manner, the best of what is known about assignment-making. (EL)

Focuses on a particularly scrappy subgenre of hyperscholarship in which history is combined with argument to propose curricular reform. (MG)

Reviews the debate among theorists on the meaning of "purpose" in composition theory and pedagogy. Examines the definition of this term in two important textbooks. Examines the fundamental differences in the treatment of this term to teach educators about how they regard the nature of their profession as teachers of writing. (MG)

Defines the student authority problem as one of authorship. Considers how writing instruction tends to side-step the problem. Illustrates how a critical engagement with current ethnographic writing provides a way to understand the provisional nature of any writer's authority. (MG)

Explores a possible reading of one aspect of current theory (the dance of deconstruction and practical wisdom) to scout what might be helpful there for developing new perspectives on teaching composition. Concludes that, if composition teachers are attracted by deconstruction and its influence, they must explore in their classrooms relationships…

Highlights the role of technology and insists that it offers a powerful story of change in rhetorical pedagogy and theory. Asserts that, when Edward Tyrell Channing sees rhetoric as a solitary occupation, his view is supported by the advance of literacy and the development of the print economy. (PRA)

Considers intellectual core and boundaries of composition as a domain of inquiry and action with intention of contributing to the larger philosophical enterprise existing in composition, wherein scholars are attempting not only to explore the conceptual frameworks of the field and its relation to other disciplines but also to examine the nature of…

Explores the relationship between the traditional methods of teaching composition, beginning in the late nineteenth century and the cultural matrix in which it took shape. Describes the changing student demographics and the ritual mechanisms within a very well-defined sociocultural and pedagogical context. (HB)

Reflects on the nature of composition studies as a discipline, first delineating some of its distinctive features and then discussing advantages and dangers associated with these features. (FL)

Argues that certain "ancient" writing practices can help attain the objective of making writing instruction truly democratic. Outlines key features in the discredited "old history" of composition to adduce ways of helping students think, feel, and write in heterogeneous ways. (HB)

Describes the results of a rhetoric assignment in which first-year college students were asked to write a paper using "Grammar B," a style that makes use of sentence fragments, convoluted sentences, word repetitions, and odd orthographic devices and eliminates transitions between divisions of material. Concludes that students found the…

Claims that the field of rhetoric and composition is in need of a feminist "remapping" by which new scholarly projects might be plotted. Gives an overview of Patricia Bizzell's methodological suggestions for doing this remapping. Applies this methodology to a study of the ancient rhetorician Aspasia. (HB)