Recently, several composition scholars have engaged in apocalyptic rhetoric, although they distance themselves from versions of it that advocate critical pedagogy. Bruno Latour's theories help expose such pedagogy's limitations while also offering a perspective on teacher-student relationships that can more realistically and sensitively work…

Americans are obsessed with heroes, and they seemingly create them from anyone and everyone, anywhere and everywhere. This predilection is also clear in American histories. Their belief in heroes shows their connection to their society and culture, their willingness to follow someone in their social settings, and their belief that good people who…

When scholars write about their research in writing programs' archives, they often face the ethical question of whether to name the administrators who were involved in documents. The author identifies and provides examples of three basic orientations to this issue, which he calls overt-historical, covert-qualitative, and hybrid-institutional.…

For the last several years, composition scholarship has unfortunately neglected the paragraph. Theories about it, however, have a rich history. Eventually, it involved conflicts between prescriptivists and descriptivists, as well as between members of the latter group and the branch of descriptivism called functionalism. In this article, the…

Discusses the current view of literature and of criticism by students and faculty and suggests improving this view by increasing the attention given to the fundamental principles of criticism as a rational discipline. (TO)

The author satirically questions the right of modern poets and modern poetry to the pedestal they are often afforded. (MM)

Discusses cultural birthright and social heritage or fate as metaphors too often taken literally and provides numerous instances, both general and specific, to support the thesis. (TO)

Describes one college teacher's approach to teaching freshmen composition courses. (TO)