Over the last 2 decades, the nations that once comprised the Soviet Union have begun to play an increasingly important role in the global economy. As a result, today's technical and professional communicators could find themselves interacting with co-workers, colleagues, and clients in these nations. Being successful in such contexts, however,…

The antifoundational or "hermeneutic" paradigm, particularly as it has been internalized by the field of composition studies, exists in a weak version or a strong version. The weak version stresses interactive consensus-building pedagogical practices where discourse is remade by negotiating it with others. The strong version suggests…

The Holocaust is a powerful topic for writing classrooms because it elicits strong emotions from most students at the same time that it is remote enough to keep from overwhelming them (at least at first). At the same time the topic presents a minefield for the unwary or naive writing instructor--it is important, for example, to emphasize the…

This paper discusses the dynamics of Paulo Freire's "true perception" and the importance of language awareness, and even style, to that "interdependence" which makes possible the perception and transformation of reality. Freire calls for a critical intervention to transform reality, and because this intervention simultaneously…

When a writer quotes from or paraphrases someone else's text he or she is performing--consciously or unconsciously--a political act, situating him/herself somewhere between personal authority and other, sometimes alien authorities. Rather than being encouraged to examine their attitude toward the use of sources, students are too often taught that…

Modern writing textbooks tend to offer no heuristics, treat heuristics as if they do not have different impacts on inquiry, or take the view that heuristics are ideologically neutral pedagogies. Yet theory about language demonstrates that ideological neutrality is impossible. Any use of language in attempting to represent reality will inevitably…

One way to "reinitiate" possible productive responses to the question of the subject for composition theory and pedagogy is to defuse the terror of the "impossible," to "negotiate" with the impossible, and to ask impossible questions. Although there are dangers associated with any critical theorizing about the subject…

The study of language--whether it is called grammar or linguistics--deserves a place in the composition course. This journal article suggests that there are better methods of teaching language lessons than the negative, error-correction and error-avoidance methods that still prevail. The study of grammar may be characterized as a means to bringing…

The categorization of individual theories co-existing within the feminist framework limits the extent to which these theories can be woven together to fully develop the field of composition. By focusing on differences, taxonomies ignore the similarities among the framework's various theories. These similarities, when interlaced instead of…

The dialectic of pitting reality against the perception of reality has been a proclivity of philosophers since the days of Plato and Greek civilization. Most philosophers today regard the availability of a pure reality to be impossible. The world is as it appears to be: thinkers have no access to perfect truth. Accordingly, the matter of…

Labeling Peter Elbow an "expressivist" is an ironic reduction of his multifaceted thought to a one-dimensional term at a time when postmodernism stresses heteroglossia. This paper outlines the recent history of "expressivism" to demonstrate its curious social construction. The paper then calls for an "end of…

Drawing on the work of Virginia Woolf, feminist instructors of college composition can help their students to develop their own voices by encouraging innovation and revision of mainstream discourses and ways of expression. If Woolf believed that women cannot escape the language of men, which not only constitutes the symbolic realm of phallocentric…

Theories of phallic authority outlined by Jaques Lacan, Sigmund Freud, and Luce Irigaray suggest that one can effectively undo authority only from a position of authority, a position that traps feminists within the very phallic economy they hope to subvert. Attempting to avoid this trap, feminist pedagogues have made a distinction between…

Suggests that it is important for writing teachers to focus on specific students within specific contexts and to try to reclaim the term "student centered." Proposes a new formulation of critical pedagogy that calls for an examination and location of the teachers' positions. Reflects on teaching the course "Writing and Reading about…

Revisits the 1974 Conference on College Composition and Communication's publication of "Students' Right to their Own Language," tracing composition's "professional inability to make good on education's promises to African Americans." Argues that teaching practices should forge new senses of dignity and develop from definitions…