This essay considers how a male evangelical Christian in a first-year writing (FYW) course at a state university negotiates his identity in his academic writing for a non-Christian audience. It focuses on how "Austin" casuistically stretches a biblical text to accommodate his audience's pluralistic perspective. Austin's writing thus provides a…

Presents a model of rhetoric based on territorial motives. Suggests five general principles for analyzing the territorial content of discourse and discusses territorial rhetoric and rhetorical theory, territoriality and style, and two fallacies of criticism. (EL)

Reassesses Alexander Bain's contributions to rhetorical theory and argues that Bain has been misinterpreted by some and appreciated by too few. (RL)

Believes that a historiographic inquiry into Meridel Le Sueur's work as a teacher of writing can extend conversations about textual property that are taking place in English studies today. Concludes that "Worker Writers" stands as Le Sueur's call to working-class women and men to strengthen their communal ties, to make their lives more visible…

Notes this special issue focuses primarily on embodied personal writing. Identifies and argues for a powerful alternative to masculinist discourse by incorporating an "embodied rhetoric" into professional discursive practices. Considers how embodied rhetoric requires gestures to the material practices of the professional group and to the quotidian…

Foregrounds teaching and writing as embodied (that is, gendered, sexualized) practices that contain within them markers of identity that require us to revisit our past or which can subject us to shame. Highlights the transformative potential such teaching and writing have, both for us and for various audiences. (SG)

Focuses on the kind of assessment that takes place within a classroom context, and therefore looks at assessing, grading, or testing writing, since when educators talk about classroom assessment they talk of grades and tests, at times using all three terms interchangeably. Hopes to draw educators into new conversations about assessment and the…

Argues that the study of literature has been stripped of its usefulness and purely theoretical while the study of rhetoric has been stripped of theory and reduced to practical, applied stylistics. (SRT)

Asserts that the main goal of writing instruction is to help students attain the competence necessary for academic discourse and the most effective way to do this is to teach the basic strategies for uncovering the rules that govern discourse in any particular context.(SRT)

Presents a classification of discourse, designed for the beginning writer, for which the basic taxon is the tactic--"any conscious decision of the writer to add to, subtract from, or alter in any way what he or she is writing." (JM)

Examines the primary and not exclusively Aristotelian sources from which a more adequate concept of the enthymeme can be derived. Considers the relevance of that concept to the analysis of modern discourse. Analyzes works by Martin Luther King, Jr., and Roland Barthes as examples of enthymeming. (HB)

Argues that James L. Kinneavy's theory of discourse proposes standard written forms that do not exist in the abstract and absolute sense implied by the theory. Examines his discussions of the four aims and of the theoretical construct at the heart of his theory, arguing that it cannot serve adequately as a foundation principle for a theory of…

Evaluates process theory, suggests its limits, and addresses some of the conceptual problems it leaves unresolved. (RBW)

Offers rules and comments for using discourse analysis to teach student writers how to convert incoherent compositions into coherent, cohesive prose. (RL)

Urges the use of new developments in structuralist and poststructuralist theory as the basis for a new practice in the teaching of composition. (CRH)