Composition Studies in the New Millennium: Rereading the Past, Rewriting the Future

A collection of twenty-four essays assessing and challenging the current state of writing instruction, Composition Studies in the New Millennium: Rereading the Past, Rewriting the Future emerges from presentations given at the national Writing Program Administrators conference held at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in 2001. Like its acclaimed and widely-used predecessor, Composition in the Twenty-First Century: Crisis and Change, this timely collection by leading scholars in composition studies responds to concerns about the evolution and future of this field of study.

Charting new directions, the contributors grapple with seven distinct questions: What do we mean by composition studies—past, present, and future? What do and should we teach when we teach composition? Where will composition be taught, and who will teach it? What theories and philosophies will undergird our research paradigms, and what will those paradigms be? How will new technologies change composition studies? What languages will our students write, and what will they write about? What political and social issues have shaped composition studies in the past and will shape this field in the future?

In addressing these queries, the essayists approach composition studies from perspectives ranging from rhetorical to cultural, political to economic, administrative to technological; and they do so with a style and organization appropriate for composition instructors, scholars, and administrators at all levels, from teaching assistants to college presidents. The result is an invaluable vision of the future of composition studies in the new millennium.

Lynn Z. Bloom is the Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor and Aetna Chair of Writing at the University of Connecticut.

Donald A. Daiker is a professor of English at Miami University.

Edward M. White, professor emeritus of English at California State University, serves as an adjunct professor of English at the University of Arizona.