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Read more about Critical Expressivism: Theory and Practice in the Composition Classroom

Critical Expressivism: Theory and Practice in the Composition Classroom

(3 reviews)

Tara Roeder, St. John's University

Roseanne Gatto, St. John's University

Copyright Year: 2014

ISBN 13: 9781602356511

Publisher: WAC Clearinghouse

Language: English

Formats Available

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CC BY-NC-ND

Reviews

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Reviewed by Myra Salcedo, Senior Lecturer, Ph.D., University of Texas of the Permian Basin on 6/19/18

The text covers the subject appropriately from various perspectives. There is no glossary or index. However, there is a well-developed Table of Contents, and references to sources and authors. read more

Reviewed by Myra Salcedo , Senior Lecturer, Ph.D. , University of Texas of the Permian Basin on 5/21/18

The text covers the subject appropriately from various perspectives. There is no glossary or index. However, there is a well-developed Table of Contents, and references to sources and authors. read more

Reviewed by Doreen Piano, Associate Professor, University of New Orleans on 5/21/18

The collection spans numerous topics relevant to reclaiming a past theory of writing that has been dismissed and breathing new life into it by reconsidering new theories of subjectivity and how the personal can be a useful strategy that can inform... read more

Table of Contents

  • Front Matter
  • Preface: Yes, I Know That Expressivism Is out of Vogue, But ..., Lizbeth Bryant
  • Re-Imagining Expressivism: An Introduction, Tara Roeder and Roseanne Gatto

Section One: Critical Self-Construction

  • "Personal Writing" and "Expressivism" as Problematic Terms, Peter Elbow
  • Selfhood and the Personal Essay: A Pragmatic Defense, Thomas Newkirk
  • Critical Memoir and Identity Formation: Being, Belonging, Becoming, Nancy Mack
  • Critical Expressivism's Alchemical Challenge, Derek Owens
  • Past-Writing: Negotiating the Complexity of Experience and Memory, Jean Bessette
  • Essai—A Metaphor: Writing to Show Thinking, Lea Povozhaev

Section Two: Personal Writing and Social Change

  • Communication as Social Action: Critical Expressivist Pedagogies in the Writing Classroom, Patricia Webb Boyd
  • From the Personal to the Social, Daniel F. Collins
  • "Is it Possible to Teach Writing So That People Stop Killing Each Other?" Nonviolence, Composition, and Critical Expressivism, Scott Wagar
  • The (Un)Knowable Self and Others: Critical Empathy and Expressivism, Eric Leake

Section Three: Histories

  • John Watson Is to Introspectionism as James Berlin Is to Expressivism (And Other Analogies You Won't Find on the SAT), Maja Wilson
  • Expressive Pedagogies in the University of Pittsburgh's Alternative Curriculum Program, 1973-1979, Chris Warnick
  • Rereading Romanticism, Rereading Expressivism: Revising "Voice" through Wordsworth's Prefaces, Hannah J. Rule
  • Emerson's Pragmatic Call for Critical Conscience: Double Consciousness, Cognition, and Human Nature, Anthony Petruzzi

Section Four: Pedagogies

  • Place-Based Genre Writing as Critical Expressivist Practice, David Seitz
  • Multicultural Critical Pedagogy in the Community-Based Classroom: A Motivation for Foregrounding the Personal, Kim M. Davis
  • The Economy of Expressivism and Its Legacy of Low/No-Stakes Writing, Sheri Rysdam
  • Revisiting Radical Revision, Jeff Sommers
  • Contributors

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About the Book

Critical Expressivism is an ambitious attempt to re-appropriate intellectual territory that has more often been charted by its detractors than by its proponents. Indeed, as Peter Elbow observes in his contribution to this volume, "As far as I can tell, the term 'expressivist' was coined and used only by people who wanted a word for people they disapproved of and wanted to discredit." The editors and contributors to this collection invite readers to join them in a new conversation, one informed by "a belief that the term expressivism continues to have a vitally important function in our field."

About the Contributors

Authors

Tara Roeder is an Associate Professor with the Institute for Writing Studies at St. John's University. She earned her doctorate in English from the CUNY Graduate Center in 2014. Her research focuses on feminist theory and women's memoir; non-oedipal psychoanalytic theory and pedagogy; and queer theory and pedagogy.

 

Roseanne Gatto is an Associate Professor with the Institute for Writing Studies at St. John's University. She earned her doctorate in composition and rhetoric at Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 2011. Her research interests include archival research methods and social justice in composition/rhetoric.

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