Published in the June 2005 issue, Richard Fulkerson’s “Composition at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century” brought comments from several readers. In the spirit of this free-wheeling discussion reminiscent of rather lengthy letters to the Editor, these appear as submitted, virtually all of their rambunctiousness intact (with the exception of customary yet spare copyediting). Following these is a response by Professor Fulkerson. If your own copy of the June 2005 issue isn’t handy, Fulkerson’s article can also be found on CCC Online (www.inventio.us/ccc).

I argue that examining two collections of essays designed for the preparation of new writing teachers and published twenty years apart provides some important clues to what has occurred to composition studies in the interval. Building on the framework I established in two previous CCC articles, I argue that composition studies has become a less unified and more contentious discipline early in the twenty-first century than it had appeared to be around 1990. The present article specifically addresses the rise of what I call critical/cultural studies, the quiet expansion of expressive approaches to teaching writing, and the split of rhetorical approaches into three: argumentation, genre analysis, and preparation for “the” academic discourse community.

For the Sake of Argument: Practical Reasoning, Character, and the Ethics of Belief by Eugene Garver. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. 272 + xi pp. Being Made Strange: Rhetoric Beyond Representation by Bradford Vivian. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004. 229 + xiv pp. Deliberate Conflict: Argument, Political Theory, and Composition Classes by Patricia Roberts‐Miller. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004. 263 + x pp. Liberating Voices: Writing at the Bryn Mawr Summer School for Women Workers by Karyn L. Hollis. Southern Illinois University Press, 2004. 192 + xiii pp.

Robert Scholes. The Rise and Fall of English: Reconstructing English as a Discipline. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998. Pp. Xiv + 203. Sharon Crowley. Composition in the University: Historical and Polemical Essays. Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 1998. Xi + 306 pages. W. Ross Winterowd. The English Department: A Personal and Institutional History. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1998. Xii + 261. Molly Meijer Wertheimer, ed. Listening to Their Voices: The Rhetorical Activities of Historical Women. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1997. 408 pages. $47.50 cloth; $24.95 paper. Mary Lynch Kennedy, ed. Theorizing Composition: A Critical Sourcebook of Theory and Scholarship in Contemporary Composition Studies. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1998. 405 pages. John Schilb. Between the Lines: Relating Composition Theory and Literary Theory. Portsmouth: Boynton/Cook, 1996. Xv + 247. Hephzibah Roskelly and Kate Ronald. Reason to Believe: Romanticism, Pragmatism, and The Teaching of Writing. Albany, NY: State U of New York P, 1998. xiv + 187 pages. Thomas Newkirk. The Performance of Self in Student Writing. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Heinemann, 1997. xiii + 107 pages. Kay Halasek. A Pedagogy of Possibility: Bakhtinian Perspectives on Composition Studies. Southern Illinois University Press, 1999. 223 pages.

We have here four books, a sort of mini-groundswell, dealing in different ways with “affective issues” in composition, to use McLeod’s relatively focused term, or with “the domain beyond the cognitive,” to use the more expansive phrasing of Brand and Graves. (Fulkerson 101).

Jacqueline de Romilly. The Great Sophists in Periclean Athens. Translated by Janet Lloyd. Oxford University Press, 1992. 260 pages. $75.00. Ira Shor. Empowering Education. University of Chicago Press, 1992.286 + vii pages. Lester Faigley. Fragments of Rationality: Postmodernity and the Subject of Composition. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press 1992. 285 pages. Crowley, Sharon. The Methodical Memory: Invention in Current‐Traditional Rhetoric. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1990. xviii + 207 pages. Horner, Winifred Bryan. Nineteenth‐Century Scottish Rhetoric: The American Connection. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1993. x + 211 pages. Johnson, Nan. Nineteenth‐Century Rhetoric in North America. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1991.313 pages. Rewriting the nineteenth century Chris M. Anson, Joan Graham, David A. Jolliffe, Nancy S. Shapiro, Carolyn H. Smith. Scenarios for Teaching Writing: Contexts for Discussion and Reflective Practice. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1993. xiii + 160 pages. Mark Backman, Sophistication: Rhetoric and the Rise of Self‐Consciousness. Woodbridge, CT: Ox Bow Press, 1991. Douglas Walton. The Place of Emotion in Argument. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992. 294 pages. $45.00 cloth, $14.95 paper.

George A. Kennedy, trans. Aristotle: On Rhetoric (subtitled A Theory of Civic Discourse). Oxford University Press, 1991. 335 + xiii pages. The Importance of George A. Kennedy's Aristotle: On Rhetoric Kennedy's Aristotle: On Rhetoric as a Pedagogical Tool Kennedy's Rhetoric as a Contribution to Rhetorical Theory Kennedy's Aristotle: on Rhetoric as a Work of Translation∗ James J. Murphy, ed. A Short History of Writing Instruction: From Ancient Greece to Twentieth‐Century America. Davis, CA: Hermagoras Press, 1990. 241 + v pages. Teaching the History of Writing Instruction Thomas Miller. The Selected Writings of John Witherspoon. Southern Illinois University Press, 1990. 318 + viii pages. Patricia Harkin and John Schilb, eds. Contending with Words: Composition and Rhetoric in the Postmodern Age. New York: Modern Language Association, 1991. iv + 242 pages. Sandra Stotsky, ed. Connecting Civic Education and Language Education: The Contemporary Challenge. New York: Teachers College Press of Columbia University, 1991. Janis Forman, ed. New Visions of Collaborative Writing. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers, 1992. 200 pages. $23.50.

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masterful book...one of the most thorough books on rhetoric I've seen.--Olivia Castellano, California State University, Sacramento beautiful work. The first text I have so far seen that operates fully from the principles we have learned about writing and the teaching of writing in the last fiftenn years.--Ronald Shook A dramatic, invention-centered approach to the teaching of writing skills, this comprehensive text actively involves students in the writing process, drawing on the language capabilities they bring to the classroom.