This book was written to help the growing number of students whom traditional methods don't reach. Compositionists can either continue to hold the high ground against the influences of popular culture or, as Diane Penrod's book argues, accommodate it creatively, turning its pervasiveness in film, videos, cyberspace, and language itself into engaging, immediately useful writing instruction.
The fourteen essays in this anthology address a host of issues: What is cultural studies and how does it benefit composition? What can we do with it? How does this approach help students think and write creatively? The first seven essays present perspectives on the intersection of pop culture with politics. In the four essays that follow, the authors challenge the concept of interdisciplinarity in the writing classroom through the use of computers and other visual and aural technologies. The final essays discuss the impact of the language of the university on our students' decisions. In each of these essays, the classroom becomes a site where changes in students' thinking and writing take place.
