In this article, the four authors reflect back on their work as writing teachers in a neighborhood adult literacy center, in order to understand better the potential “violence” of literacy learning, to reassess assumptions of expressivist pedagogy, and to turn to Bakhtin and Foucault as interpretive frames for theorizing adult literacy learning. The authors propose “co-authoring” as the concept that emerged as central to the writing classes they designed and taught. In this essay they explore co-authoring as process, principle, and theoretical problem.

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... the fact that their philosophical procedures are designed bring us a consciousness of the words we must have, and hence of the lives we must have, represents for me a recognizable version of the wish to establish the truth of this world. But then wherever there really is a love of wisdom-or call it the passion for truth-it is inherently, if usually ineffectively, revolutionary; because it is the same as hatred of the falseness in one's character and of the needless and unnatural promises in one's institutions. Stanley Cavell, An Audience for Philosophy

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Composition theory generally has ignored grammar over the past 15 years, focusing instead on what has been described as “classifications of texts and relations among writers, readers, and subject matter.” Nevertheless, composition has been and continues to be strongly influenced by the model of language that is implicit in modern grammar. This model proposes that language is rule governed and, as a result, is deterministic. Transformational-generative grammar is the most well-known articulation of the model among composition specialists. This article describes the general features of the model and discusses some of the ways it has influenced composition. After assessing the various weaknesses of the rule-governed model, the article outlines a new model of language that is being developed in cognitive science by David Rumelhart, James McClelland, and others working in parallel distributed processing. This alternative model is associational and probabilistic and is grounded in connectionist theory and research. An association model of language provides composition specialists new perspectives on writers, research, and theory. The article concludes by suggesting possible ways to reconsider the act of composing and related theories.

Technical writing theory and research about communication in large organizations mostly ignore from-the-top control of rhetoric. The usual emphasis on an individual writer negotiating with a known audience and generally free to decide on matters of style, organization, and so on can hide the ways that power relations often silently control internal rhetoric. Conclusions are based on two case studies: In the later Middle Ages, professional letters had to conform to a rhetorical format that necessarily foregrounded unequal power relations. In a contemporary nuclear power station, similar power relations purposely obscure writer and audience while procedures dictate format and content.

under attack, and social constructionism-the view that good writers must master the accepted practices of a discourse community-was widely adopted as an alternative. The purpose of this article is to defend expressivism against this attack, particularly against two charges. First, responding to the charge that expressivism, following the romantics, is tied to the ideal of the isolated writer, Steve Fishman argues on historical grounds that it was the social reform dimension of German romanticism that inspired expressivism. Second, Lucille McCarthy responds to the charge that expressivism disempowers students because it does not help them learn disciplinary and professional languages. She presents Fishman's class as one which is committed both to the mastery of philosophic method and to the development of student voices, committed, that is, to achieving social constructionist goals within an expressivist environment. Part I presents a theoretical perspective on expressivism; Part II shows the practical implementation of that theory in the classroom.

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The almost exclusive reliance on evidence developed from documentary analyses, specifically analyses of textbooks, in composition historiography has resulted in an agonistic, heroes-and-villains image of the history of writing instruction, whereby modern composition scholars have defined themselves in terms of their opposition to what has come to be called “current-traditional rhetoric.” This article promotes the use of oral evidence in composition historiography to guard against overgeneralization and simplistic reduction of composition history to binary oppositions. Oral interviews also can serve as a way of collecting information that would otherwise be lost, of exploring the thoughts, motivations, feelings, and values of informants, and of giving voice to those marginalized politically, socially, and professionally. This article also defends oral data against positivistic attacks on its reliability as evidence and argues that the evidentiary value of any piece of historical data depends not on some abstract ranking of different kinds of evidence but on the historian's understanding of the rhetorical context informing the production of that data.

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Harris argues that linguistic theory is useful for solving certain problems encountered in technical writing theory and pedagogy [1]. However, he undermines his purpose by introducing irrelevant distinctions between competing syntactic theories (Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar and Transformational Grammar) and by failing to exploit the full potential of the few applications he mentions. The passive rule is a case in point. It not only constitutes an operational test for identifying passive sentences, it also contributes to the flow of discourse by rearranging both thematic roles (e.g. agent and patient) and given/new information. The passive rule is only one of a class of noun phrase-moving operations that technical writing specialists may find useful.

Although teachers of technical writing have long considered themselves as the vanguard, they too have shown considerable resistance to change, despite recent theoretical advances in composition theory. This author proposes that the technical writing community review its traditional views and attitudes toward the teaching of writing to incorporate insight derived from cross-disciplinary research.

Medical and scientific writing have traditionally occasioned debate. The earliest critics of scientific language were harsh because they were promoting a plain style of writing free from rhetorical embellishment, not because they questioned the writing ability of those they censured. Writing and language were central parts of scientific inquiry. Modern critics are likewise frequently harsh and derisive, but they have lost sight of the integrated approach to language and science that their predecessors had. This article examines three texts published within the last ten years that seem to reverse some trends in medical writing. Tapping non-scientific fields from philology to aesthetics to composition theory, these texts suggest ways in which the humanities can be reintegrated with the study of medical and scientific writing.

Considerations of audience awareness are receiving increased attention in composition theory and pedagogy. Sensitivity to audience characteristics exerts demonstrable effects on composing processes and products. Audience awareness is often conceived as a unitary, global construct, however. In fact, the distinctly identifiable dimensions of social cognition include (1) subskills, (2) coordination of perspectives, (3) content domain, (4) content stability, and (5) audience determinateness. These dimensions and their components are discussed along with their interaction with composing processes. This multidimensional conception of social cognition provides a framework for further composition research and teaching.

As technical writing programs grow, English departments may alleviate the problems of the unprepared instructor by offering technical writing theory and pedagogy courses. Such courses should combine theory and pedagogy with assignments that are practical and introduce graduate students to the theoretical issues in the field. This article provides a syllabus and the reactions of students who completed such a course.