CRITICAL EXPRESSIVISM THEORY AND PRACTICE IN THE COMPOSITION CLASSROOM Edited by Tara Roeder and Roseanne Gatto CRITICAL EXPRESSIVISM: THEORY AND PRACTICE IN THE COMPOSITION CLASSROOM PERSPECTIVES ON WRITING Series Editor, Susan H. McLeod The Perspectives on Writing series addresses writing studies in a broad sense. Consistent with the wide ranging approaches characteristic of teaching and scholarship in writing across the curriculum, the series presents works that take divergent perspectives on working as a writer, teaching writing, administering writing programs, and studying writing in its various forms. The WAC Clearinghouse and Parlor Press are collaborating so that these books will be widely available through free digital distribution and low-cost print edi- tions. The publishers and the Series editor are teachers and researchers of writing, committed to the principle that knowledge should freely circulate. We see the opportunities that new technologies have for further democratizing knowledge. And we see that to share the power of writing is to share the means for all to articulate their needs, interest, and learning into the great experiment of literacy. Recent Books in the Series Sarah Allen, Beyond Argument: Essaying as a Practice of (Ex)Change (2015) Steven J. Corbett, Beyond Dichotomy: Synergizing Writing Center and Classroom Pedagogies (2015) Christy I. Wenger, Yoga Minds, Writing Bodies: Contemplative Writing Pedagogy (2015) Terry Myers Zawacki and Michelle Cox, WAC and Second-Language Writers: Research Towards Linguistically and Culturally Inclusive Programs and Prac- tices, (2014) Charles Bazerman, A Rhetoric of Literate Action: Literate Action Volume 1 (2013) Charles Bazerman, A Theory of Literate Action: Literate Action Volume 2(2013) Katherine V. Wills and Rich Rice (Eds.), ePortfolio Performance Support Systems: Constructing, Presenting, and Assessing Portfolios (2013) Mike Duncan and Star Medzerian Vanguri (Eds.), The Centrality of Style(2013) Chris Thaiss, Gerd Bräuer, Paula Carlino, Lisa Ganobcsik-Williams, and Aparna Sinha (Eds.), Writing Programs Worldwide: Profiles of Academic Writing in Many Places (2012) Andy Kirkpatrick and Zhichang Xu, Chinese Rhetoric and Writing: An Introduc- tion for Language Teachers (2012) Doreen Starke-Meyerring, Anthony Paré, Natasha Artemeva, Miriam Horne, and Larissa Yousoubova (Eds.), Writing in Knowledge Societies (2011) Martine Courant Rife, Shaun Slattery, and Dànielle Nicole DeVoss (Eds.), Copy(write): Intellectual Property in the Writing Classroom (2011) CRITICAL EXPRESSIVISM: THEORY AND PRACTICE IN THE COMPOSITION CLASSROOM Edited by Tara Roeder and Roseanne Gatto The WAC Clearinghouse wac.colostate.edu Fort Collins, Colorado Parlor Press www.parlorpress.com Anderson, South Carolina The WAC Clearinghouse, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523 Parlor Press, 3015 Brackenberry Drive, Anderson, South Carolina 29621 © 2015 by Tara Roeder and Roseanne Gatto. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license. ISBN 978-1-64215-057-5 (pdf) | 978-1-64215-058-2 (epub) | 978-1-60235-651-1 (pbk. DOI 10.37514/PER-B.2014.0575 Produced in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Critical expressivism : theory and practice in the composition classroom / edited by Tara Roeder and Roseanne Gatto. pages cm. -- (Perspectives on writing) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-1-60235-651-1 (pbk. : acid-free paper) -- ISBN 978-1-60235-652-8 (hardcover : acid-free paper) -- ISBN 978-1-64215-057-5 (pdf) -- ISBN 978-1-64215-058-2 (epub) 1. English language--Rhetoric--Study and teaching. 2. English language--Composition and exercises--Study and teaching 3. Expressivism (Ethics) 4. Authorship--Study and teaching. I. Roeder, Tara, 1980- editor. II. Gatto, Roseanne, 1975- editor. PE1404.C748 2015 808’.04207--dc23 2015006807 Copyeditor: Don Donahue Designer: Tara Reeser Series Editor: Susan H. McLeod The WAC Clearinghouse supports teachers of writing across the disciplines. Hosted by Colo- rado State University, it brings together scholarly journals and book series as well as resources for teachers who use writing in their courses. This book is available in digital format for free download at wac.colostate.edu. Parlor Press, LLC is an independent publisher of scholarly and trade titles in print and multime- dia formats. This book is available in paperback, cloth, and Adobe eBook formats from Parlor Press at www.parlorpress.com. For submission information or to find out about Parlor Press publications, write to Parlor Press, 3015 Brackenberry Drive, Anderson, South Carolina 29621, or email [email protected]. In memory of Anthony Petruzzi Acknowledgments Many thanks to Matthew T. Bird. We are tremendously grateful for your time, knowledge, and patience. CONTENTS Preface: Yes, I Know That Expressivism Is Out of Vogue, But … . 3 Lizbeth Bryant Re-Imagining Expressivism: An Introduction . 7 Tara Roeder and Roseanne Gatto SECTION ONE: CRITICAL SELF-CONSTRUCTION ..................... 13 “Personal Writing” and “Expressivism” as Problem Terms . 15 Peter Elbow Selfhood and the Personal Essay: A Pragmatic Defense . 33 Thomas Newkirk Critical Memoir and Identity Formation: Being, Belonging, Becoming . 55 Nancy Mack Critical Expressivism’s Alchemical Challenge . 69 Derek Owens Past-Writing: Negotiating the Complexity of Experience and Memory . 79 Jean Bessette Essai—A Metaphor: Writing to Show Thinking . 93 Lea Povozhaev SECTION TWO: PERSONAL WRITING AND SOCIAL CHANGE ........... 105 Communication as Social Action: Critical Expressivist Pedagogies in the Writing Classroom . 107 Patricia Webb Boyd From the Personal to the Social . 123 Daniel F. Collins “Is it Possible to Teach Writing So That People Stop Killing Each Other?” Nonviolence, Composition, and Critical Expressivism . 131 Scott Wagar Contents The (Un)Knowable Self and Others: Critical Empathy and Expressivism . 149 Eric Leake SECTION 3: HISTORIES ..................................... 161 John Watson Is to Introspectionism as James Berlin Is to Expressivism (And Other Analogies You Won’t Find on the SAT) . 163 Maja Wilson Expressive Pedagogies in the University of Pittsburgh’s Alternative Curriculum Program, 1973-1979 . 189 Chris Warnick Rereading Romanticism, Rereading Expressivism: Revising “Voice” through Wordsworth’s Prefaces . 201 Hannah J. Rule Emerson’s Pragmatic Call for Critical Conscience: Double Consciousness, Cognition, and Human Nature . 219 Anthony Petruzzi * SECTION FOUR: PEDAGOGIES ................................ 247 Place-Based Genre Writing as Critical Expressivist Practice . 249 David Seitz Multicultural Critical Pedagogy in the Community-Based Classroom: A Motivation for Foregrounding the Personal . 261 Kim M. Davis The Economy of Expressivism and Its Legacy of Low/No-Stakes Writing . 281 Sheri Rysdam Revisiting Radical Revision . 289 Jeff Sommers Contributors . 305 viii CRITICAL EXPRESSIVISM: THEORY AND PRACTICE IN THE COMPOSITION CLASSROOM PREFACE: YES, I KNOW THAT EXPRESSIVISM IS OUT OF VOGUE, BUT … Lizbeth Bryant Purdue University Calumet Critical Expressivism: Theory and Practice in the Composition Classroom offers those of us with “Yes-But” syndrome a solution. I was reminded of this syn- drome in a webinar in which Richard Johnson-Sheehan claims, “I think Chuck [Paine] and I are still process people despite some of the theoretical arguments for post-process. We still believe we are teaching students a writing process, and in a sense, genres guide us from the beginning of the process to the end.” John- son-Sheehan and Paine explain and justify their decision to teach writing as a process with a “yes-but” approach: Yes, I know that in our growth as a discipline we have moved from a focus on writing as a process to the social and cultural factors that impact language in our electronic worlds, but I still teach writing as a process and assist my students with developing their processes. Johnson-Sheehan, a scholar in rhetoric and composition, admits in 2012 that he knows this approach to writing has been trashed by scholars who have controlled our meta-narrative, but admits that he sees a need for it. I have faced the same struggle to justify how I teach writing and what I study. Colleagues have asked, “Liz, how can you still focus on teaching expressivism and voice when there are new theories to study?” That’s simple—I build new theories and practices into my meta-narrative of Composition Studies. This either/or episte- mology doesn’t work. But, composition scholarship leads us to believe that we “are” one or the oth- er. In our scholarship one cannot “be” both/and because the significant scholars in our field have said that a social epistemic view of writing precludes an Expres- sive and Cognitive view of writing. However, as I work with the myriad of writ- ers in my classes from first-year writing to graduate thesis writing, I experience writers thinking and composing in various paradigms. Havier from East Chi- cago struggles with translating his mixture of black dialect and Spanglish into Standard American English. When Paul asks me if he should include a piece of research and a quote in his report, I ask him to see his writing situation from the cognitive paradigm: “Does your audience need this information to understand and be convinced of your position?” Charmaine struggles to write the findings DOI: https://doi.org/10.37514/PER-B.2014.0575.1.1 3 Bryant from her original research into the final drafts of her