College Composition and Communication Jul 2023

Toward a New Neurobiology of Writing: Plasticity and the Feeling of Failure

Edward Comstock

Abstract

This article will explore the potential of recent neuroscience to inform a writing pedagogy aimed at a habitus of plasticity and emotional intelligence. Arguing that our field has never fully realized the embodied pedagogy called for decades ago by compositionists such as Brand and McLeod, by placing affect theory in our field in conversation with neuroscience, the article theorizes the value of understanding the plasticity of embodied affects as meaningful in writing processes. It demonstrates that neuroscience offers advances in our understanding of the emotions involved in learning while providing practical resources to “recategorize” emotional experiences in ways that will enable students to persist in writing-related tasks and to better realize their rhetorical and social goals. Ultimately, addressing the limits of reason and metacognition, the article claims that our pedagogies must confront the new forms of woundedness and ossification that pose increasing challenges to learning today.

Journal
College Composition and Communication
Published
2023-07-01
DOI
10.58680/ccc202332523
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Open Access
Closed
Topics
rhetorical criticism writing pedagogy affect and writing
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Citation Context

Cited by in this index (2)

  1. Walker (2025)
    Machine Learning’s Unintended Curriculum: The Impact of Large Language Models o…
    College English
  2. Mack (2024)
    Developing Dispositions for Transfer
    Pedagogy

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CrossRef global citation count: 5 View in citation network → Build reading path →

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