Examines the opposition of objectified exposition and personal narrative posited by rhetorical tradition and maintained by most composition texts and syllabi today. Argues that the best thinking and writing are simultaneously personal and public, infused with private meaning and focused upon the world beyond the self.(MG)

Examines the student and professional discourse within the same field through a set of case studies written for a third-year course in financial analysis. Reports on the distinct social actions undertaken by student writers as compared with professional practices. Shows commonalities of student and workplace writing. (HB)

Topic knowledge, discourse knowledge, and contextual awareness are now considered crucial for "good writing" by many writing researchers. It is time for writing instructors to stop conducting composition classes as though substantive knowledge is a far lesser issue than "rhetorical skill." Composition teachers can offer…

Ken Macrorie coined the term "I Search," which puts the writer at the center of the paper and seeks to put a human face on the data collected. Looking for a way to use the research writing assignment to help students learn to adjust their ideas to different formats by becoming more aware of how different structures can be shaped around…

A number of questions have been raised about James Kinneavy's theory of expressive discourse, among them the problem of how so many different genres, from the personal essay to the declaration of independence, can be lumped under one aim, self-expression. Another is why self-expression is the only one of the aims to be divided into two general…

Describes a writing assignment designed to help students incorporate into a single essay Moffett's writer-subject progressions: dramatization, narration, exposition, and logical argumentation. Describes one student's progress through successive drafts to arrive at this goal, and how discussions of her draft helped the other students. (HTH)

Examines the transitions that writers (college seniors enrolled in a 12-week corporate internship program) make when moving from academic to professional discourse communities. Reports a consistent pattern of expectation, frustration, and accommodation as writers adjust to their new writing communities. (MM)

The concept of genre should not be limited to literary genres, but should be expanded to include all types of texts, including those traditionally considered to be nonliterary. Essentially, many things about writing work the way they do because of genre, and a better understanding of genre can give us a better understanding of writing, reading and…

Rather than having established forms available to pour things into, forms frequently need to be built from the ground up. Practically, it is simpler to use assembly line production for academic work, and most of academic writing is relatively linear objective prose. However, boundaries are being crossed in diverse disciplines by a number of…

A case study examined purpose in the writing of four college freshmen enrolled in a basic composition course. Discourse based interviews were conducted with the subjects before and after they responded to each of three writing tasks designed to provide them with different choices for audience, mode, and focus. The data revealed two central ways in…

Peter Elbow's expressionist approach to rhetoric lacks the critical position that feminism requires. Expressionist rhetoric's focus on the personal does not make it a feminist rhetoric because its conception of the personal as well as its conception of itself as a rhetoric is uncritical and ignores the social context that subject positions,…

At Southerland Institute (a pseudonym), in spite of the teacher's strong statements in favor of encouraging students to think for themselves and to work together, the writing program Southerland's teachers outline is formulaic with its required modes, prescribed five-paragraph-like essay form, and bell-curve grading practices. A new rhetorician…

Rhetoric textbooks continue to proliferate while writing teachers continue to grow more skeptical of their usefulness. The key question educators need to answer is whether all available composition textbooks are ineffective in the sense of being based on false notions about the composing process, or whether they are "intrinsically" ineffective.…

Discusses the results of a study in which 130 college composition textbooks were examined in order to determine the role that expressive discourse plays in the teaching of writing at the college level. (DF)

The metaphor of community has become central to discussions about reading, writing, and teaching. According to this metaphor, an individual learns a discourse through entering into the community that uses it, and by accepting the practices and values of those already in it. Yet an argument can be raised for a definition of discourse that is not…