Customer Reviews

Composition and Resistance

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Why isn't every teacher of composition, interdisciplinary writing, cultural studies (etc.) reading this book? And why is it so hard to get hold of? Hurlbert and Blitz provide a collection of essays by composition scholars AND newcomers to the field that demonstrate how bloody hard it is to teach writing and to make sense of a drive for literacy in a society that doesn't seem to value writing. Hurlbert and Blitz also supply transcripts of conversations among these writers-- the real stuff, not phony-baloney oratories about how perfectly they teach their little classes! I have been to those conferences and discussion groups and am bored stupid by the way that composition teachers like to pretend that they have found "THE WAY" to do it! Composition and Resistance tells a different story. It tells us that teaching writing is a struggle, that it doesn't always work, that, at best, it's a process of recognizing and overcoming "resistances" from students and teachers alike. A very good and important book that should be required reading in graduate programs in rhetoric and composition!