Defines magic as a process of inducing belief and creating community rather than as a product of an otherworldly incantation. Provides an historical survey of pre-Enlightenment relationships between magic and rhetoric. Proposes that the rise of current-traditional rhetoric coincides with the destruction and disappearance of the magical…

Represents a departure from the current trend against abstraction. Proposes a new formalism for the composition classroom. Argues that, when it comes to representing written arguments composed in response to multiple sources, existing schemes of argument are missing important abstractions about how authors use the arguments of others in the…

Responds to an overly narrow view of process by applying Martin Heidegger's concept of interpretation to writing. Suggests Heidegger's "forestructure" is a useful model to give depth to problems in rhetoric and composition. (MS)

Presents an interview with Richard Rorty. Notes that Rorty's views may surprise some compositionists: "social constructionism" does not refer to any intellectual movement he is aware of; social constructionism does not share the same fundamental assumptions as new pragmatism; writing across the curriculum is a terrible idea; and there…

Suggests the distinction between reseeing and rewriting is the difference between substitution and combination. Claims that the epistemic approach imagines composition as a process through which the writer might learn something, and sees texts as indeterminate, open to further interpretation. (MS)

Argues that empiricism has a role as a complement to humanistic methodologies in composition research. Humanistic methodologies yield the stuff of hypotheses; empirically proven hypotheses provide further ground for humanistic interpretation. (MS)

Points out that the future of technical writing can be sustained only if teachers persist in setting for technical writing the same standards they apply to other sophisticated modes of writing, and if they require refinement in style as well as accuracy in content. (MS)

Presents Martin Greenspan's four-stage (preparatory, incubation, illumination, and verification) model of the creation of new thought. Argues that this model provides a way of seeing, identifying, and understanding features of writing to learn and learning to write that other composition theories have not permitted. (RS)

Proposes a set of strategies for connecting reading and writing, placing the discussion in the context of other pedagogical approaches designed to exploit the relationship between reading and writing. Explores ways in which students employ the strategies involved in "mining" a text--reconstructing context, inferring or imposing structure, and…

Responds to Susan McLeod's "The Affective Domain and the Writing Process: Working Definitions." Suggests and defends an alternate way to define affect, based on the interweaving of affect and cognition. Discusses the "cognitive-affective dance." (PRA)

Supports outlining as an invaluable tool for teaching students how to prepare to write on subjects of a logical nature and for analysis of writing of like kind. (RAE)

Examines three phases of linguistics' influence on writing instruction. Suggests that the production of context-independent, explicit texts is too narrow a goal and that helping students imitate speech in their writing is a proper goal for an advanced composition class. (RAE)

Discusses the issue of the instructor's role in the classroom with respect to David Bartholomae's "Inventing the University." Suggests an approach informed by the literary and anthropological theories of Rene Girard. Deals with Girard's views on mimetic desire. Asserts the double-bind of this view--"imitate me; don't imitate…

Describes a writing course which shapes sequence and response to do justice to the potentially superior student writer. Emphasizes balancing and integrating reading and writing assignments; encouraging revision as an opportunity to think; optional conferences; and peer evaluation. (RAE)

Outlines and comments on the views of Clifford Geertz with regard to ethnography and social construction. Provides a transcript of an interview with Geertz, in which Geertz comments on his technical anthropological writings. Discusses his recent book "Works and Lives," his writing process, persuasive writing, and literary criticism,…