Winner of the 2001 W. Ross Winterowd Award Best book in composition theory presented by JAC and the Association of Teachers of Advanced Composition In this book, Bruce Horner provides a cultural materialist critique of discourse on work in composition. Each chapter traces the ways in which one of the defining terms of composition—work, students, politics, academic, traditional, and writing—operates as a site for competing constructions of composition's identity.
Using sketches and other documentary evidence, this study is an investigation of composition in Renaissance music. It sets out the indispensable background to an inquiry and into the fundamental processes of Renaissance composition.
"Takes mobility to be the norm, rather than the exception to a norm of stasis and stability. Both in-depth investigations of specific forms of mobility work in composition, as well as and responses to and reflections on those explorations"--
"What college writing instructors should know about working-class students--their backgrounds, experiences, identities, learning styles, and skills--in order to support them in the classroom, across campus, and beyond. Contributors explore the nuanced and complex meaning of "working class" and the values these writers bring"--Provided by publisher.
To many academics, composition still represents typewritten texts on 8.5" x 11" pages that follow rote argumentative guidelines. In Toward a Composition Made Whole, Jody Shipka views composition as an act of communication that can be expressed through any number of media and as a path to meaning-making. Her study offers an in-depth examination of multimodality via the processes, values, structures, and semiotic practices people employ every day to compose and communicate their thoughts. Shipka counters current associations that equate multimodality only with computer, digitized, or screen-mediated texts, which are often self-limiting. She stretches the boundaries of composition to include a hybridization of aural, visual, and written forms. Shipka analyzes the work of current scholars in multimodality and combines this with recent writing theory to create her own teaching framework. Among her methods, Shipka employs process-oriented reflection and a statement of goals and choices to prepare students to compose using various media in ways that spur their rhetorical and material awareness. They are encouraged to produce unusual text forms while also learning to understand the composition process as a whole. Shipka presents several case studies of students working in multimodal composition and explains the strategies, tools, and spaces they employ. She then offers methods to critically assess multimodal writing projects. Toward a Composition Made Whole challenges theorists and compositionists to further investigate communication practices and broaden the scope of writing to include all composing methods. While Shipka views writing as crucial to discourse, she challenges us to always consider the various purposes that writing serves.
George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. In Why I Write, the first in the Orwell’s Essays series, Orwell describes his journey to becoming a writer, and his movement from writing poems to short stories to the essays, fiction and non-fiction we remember him for. He also discusses what he sees as the ‘four great motives for writing’ – ‘sheer egoism’, ‘aesthetic enthusiasm’, ‘historical impulse’ and ‘political purpose’ – and considers the importance of keeping these in balance. Why I Write is a unique opportunity to look into Orwell’s mind, and it grants the reader an entirely different vantage point from which to consider the rest of the great writer’s oeuvre. 'A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.' — Irish Times
Archival research of any magnitude can be daunting. With this in mind, Alexis E. Ramsey, Wendy B. Sharer, Barbara L’Eplattenier, and Lisa Mastrangelo have developed an indispensable volume for the first-time researcher as well as the seasoned scholar. Working in the Archives is a guide to the world of rhetoric and composition archives, from locating an archival source and its materials to establishing one’s own collection of archival materials. This practical volume provides insightful information on a variety of helpful topics, such as basic archival theory, processes, and principles; the use of hidden or digital archives; the intricacies of searching for and using letters and photographs; strategies for addressing the dilemmas of archival organization without damaging the provenance of materials; the benefits of seeking sources outside academia; and the difficult (yet often rewarding) aspects of research on the Internet. Working in the Archives moves beyond the basics to discuss the more personal and emotional aspects of archival work through the inclusion of interviews with experienced researchers such as Lynée Lewis Gaillet, Peter Mortensen, Kathryn Fitzgerald, Kenneth Lindblom, and David Gold. Each shares his or her personal stories of the joys and challenges that face today’s researchers. Packed with useful recommendations, this volume draws on the knowledge and experiences of experts to present a well-rounded guidebook to the often winding paths of academic archival investigation. These in-depth yet user-friendly essays provide crucial answers to the myriad questions facing both fledgling and practiced researchers, making Working in the Archives an essential resource.
Mobility Work in Composition explores work in composition from the framework of a mobilities paradigm that takes mobility to be the norm rather than the exception to a norm of stasis and stability. Both established and up-and-coming scholars bring a diversity of geographic, institutional, and research-based perspectives to the volume, which includes in-depth investigations of specific forms of mobility work in composition, as well as responses to and reflections on those explorations. Eight chapters present specific cases or issues of this work and twelve shorter response chapters follow, identifying key points of intersection and conflict in the arguments and posing new questions and directions to pursue. Addressing matters of knowledge transfer and meaning translation, immigrant literacy practices, design pedagogy, academic career changes, student websites, research methodologies, school literacy programs, and archives, Mobility Work in Composition asks what mobility in composition means and how, why, and for whom it might work. It will be of broad interest to students and scholars in rhetoric and composition. Contributors: Anis Bawarshi, Elizabeth Chamberlain, Patrick Danner, Christiane Donahue, Keri Epps, Eli Goldblatt, Rachel Gramer, Timothy Johnson, Jamila Kareem, Carmen Kynard, Rebecca Lorimer Leonard, Andrea Olinger, John Scenters-Zapico, Khirsten L. Scott, Mary P. Sheridan, Jody Shipka, Ann Shivers-McNair, Scott Wible, Rick Wysocki
Women at Work presents the field of rhetorical studies with fifteen chapters that center on gender, rhetoric, and work in the US in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Feminist scholars explore women’s labor evangelism in the textile industry, the rhetorical constructions of leadership within women’s trade unions, the rhetorical branding of a twentieth-century female athlete, the labor activism of an African American blues singer, and the romantic, same-sex collaborations that supported pedagogical labor. Women at Work also introduces readers to rhetorical methods and approaches possible for the study of gender and work. Contributors name and explore a specific rhetorical concern that animates their study and in so doing, readers learn about such concepts as professional proof, rhetorical failure, epideictic embodiment, rhetorics of care, and cross-racial coalition building.
