Sustaining a critical literacy in composition studies: The place of current-traditional rhetoric in composition theory and practice

Composition's early critique of "current-traditional rhetoric" was intense and dismissive, but then it faded quickly as social composition gained momentum. Social compositionists argued that knowledge and learning were primarily social phenomena. They put aside earlier emphases on individual writers' composing strategies. For years, the critique of conventional writing instruction has been implicit within composition studies. Newcomers have been trained to regard conventional instruction as a historical problem. Many newcomers today are therefore unfamiliar with the specific workings of conventional pedagogy, even though it persists all around them. Extant critiques of conventional writing instruction are rarely discussed, and more recent critiques lack the detail needed by newcomers to understand both its systemic and practical natures. Compositionists must revisit the critique of conventional pedagogy and articulate how such pedagogy conditions students, the profession, conventional wisdom, and policy today. They must pose viable alternatives, make persuasive critiques, and continue reform efforts. This work must be grounded in an accurate understanding of conventional writing instruction as a contemporary phenomenon, not merely a historical problem. Composition scholars should historicize the problem of "current-traditional rhetoric" without dismissing it as history.; This dissertation elaborates this argument in several directions: a specific critique of conventional writing instruction; a review of the problems in K--12 writing instruction; a history of the term "current-traditional rhetoric"; a review of the fading critique of conventional instruction from 1980--2000; an ideology critique of that pedagogical system; and suggestions for pedagogical and public resistance to it.