Borrowing from rhetorically based theories of usability, this article offers an invention tactic designed to help students understand how mundane features of everyday dwelling places have significant impacts on their educational experiences. Additionally, the offered tactic helps students understand how to craft rhetorical critiques in contexts…

Central to the future of rhetoric and composition (or writing studies or whatever label we use) is the service mission of composition: to teach students to write. But that term "service" has not and will not serve us well. This essay examines the limitations and dangers of a service mission and explores a different model, that of a franchise, a…

Discusses a process to guide students at various levels of writing ability to inquire into unfamiliar and often intimidating subject areas. Notes the process is based on a Piagetian learning cycle that asks students to identify areas of cognitive dissonance, and to engage in a conversation about ways of resolving their uncertainty. (RS)

States that, by teaching students to look for a relationship between what they say and what they do not say in their writing, teachers can show students that it is possible to establish new configurations, to change their minds, if they choose. (MG)