In this interview Dr. Bruce Ballenger and I discuss his career, his many textbooks on writing, his recent collaboration on an extensive study of the revision processes of advanced writers, and the challenges of balancing a career with a foot in multiple academic fields (i.e. composition and rhetoric and creative writing). Dr. Ballenger retired…

It's obvious that technology is reshaping students' reading and writing practices, with or without educators' intervention. The challenge is to teach students to be truly literate in two languages--those of the pre- and post-digital worlds. So how can teachers teach to two literacies at once? They must approach this task with three mind-sets.…

Explores the difficulty in defining cliche and distinguishing it from other idiomatic and indelible expressions in the English language. (HTH)

Touches on central arguments surrounding the debate over the expressive essay for composition instruction. Notes that a primary assumption about the expressive essay--that it is honest and truthful--remains unchallenged. Suggests that students themselves offer ways to address concerns of social constructivists while acknowledging what is valuable…

Explores: (1) expression in talking, particularly as it expands the writing process; (2) spoken traces of culture filtering into writing; and (3) richness and color of expression as writing motivators. Describes four strategies for improving writing instruction that recognize the orality of composition and the duality of language. (SR)

It is difficult for an instructor to designate his philosophy in teaching composition when it is derived from a background in cultural studies at one school and from an "expressivist" program at another school. Furthermore, in naming his approach, he must take into account the influence of his feminist instructors as well as his own…

Raises some questions about the way children write stories and the part teachers play in their writing. (HOD)

Details typical charges against expressivist rhetorics, while sketching a version of expressivism underwritten by the principles and procedures of ordinary language philosophy. Suggests that the teaching and learning practices that emerge from this analysis compete with the vague, sometimes grandiose ambitions of expressivist practitioners as they…

Describes a classroom experience in which the curriculum, committed to helping students use language to criticize and change their social world, gained validity and vitality because of the allegedly racist social climate on campus. Argues against those, such as Susan Miller, who essentialize expressivist pedagogies that are grounded in…

Differences and similarities between oral and written communication as applied to writing instruction are discussed with examples of divergent oral and written styles among speakers of nonstandard dialects, code switching between speech and writing, convergence and divergence in the development of writing skills, and the role of talking in writing…

Contains an imaginary writing assignment and an imaginary student's response to it that critiques it and the conception of writing it appears to be predicated upon. (TB)

Discusses the dangers of writing instruction that encourages "voice" (expressiveness of style) by capitalizing on the same kinds of fears that power evangelism. Claims this approach is not appropriate for all students, may cause problems when a piece is to be written by a committee, and may not be essential at all in factual, informative…

Writing in the first person is not usually tolerated in academic writing under the illusion that the third person insures some kind of objectivity. But writing in the first person is honest, permitting the reader to know that what is being said is a matter of opinion. It is a direct way of speaking about what a writer sees or feels or thinks, and…

Proposes a heuristic to generate specific and vivid phrasing and to draw on the right hemisphere of the brain for the substance of the essay. Describes stages of process as DRAW (Delineate, Ruminate, Analogize, and Write). Emphasizes creative description and expressive language rather than generation of ideas. (JG)

Evaluates James L. Kinneavy's theory of discourse. Suggests that Kinneavy's theory would profit from internal development and shows how his terminology is capable of systematic elaboration. (RBW)