By analyzing Zen guided meditations, I argue that literacy researchers can improve the field's conceptual tools by investigating experiential knowledge. Using work on procedural knowledge and the emotional bases of perception, cognition, and decision making, I show that experiential knowledge drives perceptions and action, thus shaping…

When, why, and how do college students come to value their writing as intellectual property? How do their conceptions of intellectual property reflect broader understandings and personal engagements with concepts of authorship, collaboration, identification, and capital? We address these questions based on findings from the Stanford Study of…

This article identifies and examines a digital arm of creative writing studies and organizes that proposal into four categories through which to theorize the "craft" of creative production, each borrowed from Tim Mayers's "(Re)Writing Craft: Composition, Creative Writing, and the Future of English Studies": process, genre, author, and…

Scholars and teachers within the field of composition have long heralded the merits of reflective writing. Whether written intermittently throughout a course or near the end (typically in the genre of portfolio cover letter), reflective writing assignments are thought to promote cognitive development by helping students become more aware of their…

This author investigates Mexican women journalists' writing during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These women were at the center of the Latin American transnational experience--as female pioneers in the creation of a new mestiza rhetoric that reflected writing from the standpoint of inclusion that was resistant to oppressive ideologies. A…

Reviews Linda Brodkey's prominent critique of the image of the solitary writer, and uses it as a means to examine the identity and behavior of the writer in nature. Uses various nature writers as exhibits, and speculates as to why Wendell Berry makes a distinction between "writer" and "creature." (TB)

Questions the current expectation that writing theory will serve pedagogy in direct, immediate ways, because of the extraordinary variety and complexity of the writing process. (DD)

Suggests that the teaching of both composition and creative writing would benefit from focusing less exclusively on the writing process and products and more on the writing subject. Claims that focusing on the writing subject through the lens of psychoanalysis provides several potential benefits. Concludes psychoanalysis can be a filtrate for the…

Examines the representative conceptions of process pedagogy in (1) Maxine Hairston's article, "The Winds of Change: Thomas Kuhn and the Revolution in the Teaching of Writing"; (2) C.H. Knoblauch and Lil Brannon's "Rhetorical Traditions and the Teaching of Writing"; and (3) Ann E. Berthoff's "Forming, Thinking, Writing: The…

Examines the secondary terms "kill,""order," and "secret" in Kenneth Burke's "A Rhetoric of Motives" in order to provide a deeper understanding of the Burkean concept of act. Suggests how this concept of act might be applied to the teaching of writing. (MM)

Presents writing as a form of dialog and the paragraph as a unit of implied dialog. (MM)

Outlines what an adequate theory of the writing process would include, with special attention to the fact that the writing process is both linear and recursive. (JL)

Reports on what one writer went through to produce a short story. Notes the patience and perseverance that writers must have in order to create their works. (RL)

Reflects on the materiality of language by focusing on the "physical" aspect of language in the form of yelling and arguing. Concludes that a materialist view of language seeks to restore the palpability and social consequentiality of language that some language philosophers for centuries have ignored or diminished. (SG)

Offers a presentation of creative nonfiction addressing the author's personal family experiences. Addresses ethical issues involved in creative nonfiction. Describes how she decided to narrate her history and contemplates in depth the artistic choices she made. (SG)