Farther Along: Transforming Dichotomies in Rhetoric and Composition

Perceiving composition studies as increasingly fragmented into camps that stake out political, methodological, and theoretical territories, Kate Ronald and Hephzibah Roskelly brought together 12 colleagues whose work they saw as synthesizing rather that divisive and asked them to suggest ways in which particularly damaging splits in composition theory and practice might be under stood and made whole. The result is this collection, whose title reflects its editors' vision and aim.

The goal of Farther Along is to encourage readers to explore the dichotomies that limit the way English teachers think of themselves and their work. It will help them find new ways to transform the dichotomies into something productive rather than limiting by encouraging them to seek dialectical, mediating principles in what they attempt to do in their classrooms.

The book is an excellent introductory text in rhetoric and composition studies for graduate students and new teaching assistants. It is also ideal for pre- and in-service courses for both secondary and elementary teachers, particularly with its emphasis on the extent to which teaching practice needs to grow out of and inform learning theory.

Kate Ronald is the Roger and Joyce L. Howe Professor of English at Miami University, where she teaches composition and rhetoric and directs the Howe Writing Initiative in the School of Business. She and Joy Ritchie have taught and written together for the last fifteen years. Their most recent collaboration, the impetus for Teaching Rhetorica, was Available Means: An Anthology of Women’s Rhetoric(s).

A former high school teacher, Hephzibah Roskelly conducts workshops with high school teachers across the country. She is professor of English at the University of North Carolina Greensboro where she teaches classes in rhetoric and composition, American literature, and women's studies. Her previous books include An Unquiet Pedagogy (Heinemann-Boynton/Cook, 1991), with Eleanor Kutz.