The Social Uses of Writing: Politics and Pedagogy

This volume explores how a political and social theory of writing can inform pedagogy, including an analysis of how students’ educational histories limit teacher and student roles, and how we might work to enlarge both. Through a critique of ethnography and an exploration of Friere’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, the author develops an interactive theory of teaching writing. In three central chapters, the volume treats gender, class and race issues in the teaching of writing by examining case studies of freshman writers. Within the case studies, the author shows how an interactive pedagogy helps students see how socially-held values, such as beauty, objectivity, upward mobility, and assimilation deeply affect how students write. The case studies give a sense of actuality to the author’s ideas. Finally, the author argues that interpretation should replace evaluation as the central activity of writing courses.