CRITICAL C

CRITICAL EXPRESSIVISM
Tara Roeder is an Associate Professor with the Institute for Writing Studies at St. John’s University. She earned her doctorate in English from the
CUNY Graduate Center in 2014. Her research focuses on feminist theory
and women’s memoir; non-oedipal psychoanalytic theory and pedagogy;
and queer theory and pedagogy.
Roseanne Gatto is an Associate Professor with the Institute for Writing
Studies at St. John’s University. She earned her doctorate in composition
and rhetoric at Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 2011. Her research
interests include archival research methods and social justice in composition/rhetoric.
Perspectives on Writing
Series Editor, Susan H. McLeod
The WAC Clearinghouse
Roeder
& Gatto
CRITICAL EXPRESSIVISM
Critical Expressivism: Theory and Practice in the Composition Classroom is an
ambitious attempt to re-appropriate intelletual territory that has more often
been charted by its detractors than by its proponents. Indeed, as Peter Elbow
observes in his contribution to this volume, “As far as I can tell, the term ‘expressivist’ was coined and used only by people who wanted a word for people
they disapproved of and wanted to discredit.” The editors and contributors to
this collection invite readers to join them in a new conversation, one informed
by “a belief that the term expressivism continues to have a vitally important
function in our field.”
CRITICAL
EXPRESSIVISM
THEORY AND PRACTICE IN
THE COMPOSITION
CL ASSROOM
Fort Collins, CO 80523-1052
http://wac.colostate.edu
3015 Brackenberry Drive
Anderson, SC 29621
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S A N: 2 5 4 - 8 8 7 9
ISBN 978-1-60235-653-5
WAC
Clearinghouse
Parlor
Press
Edited by
Tara Roeder
and Roseanne Gatto
PERSPECTIVES ON WRITING
Series Editor, Susan H. McLeod
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 editions. 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 Practices, (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 Introduction 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 80523-1052
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.
Printed 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)
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, 1975editor.
PE1404.C748 2015
808’.04207--dc23
2015006807
Copyeditor: Don Donahue
Designer: Tara Reeser
Series Editor: Susan H. McLeod
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
The WAC Clearinghouse supports teachers of writing across the disciplines. Hosted
by Colorado 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 http://wac.colostate.edu.
Parlor Press, LLC is an independent publisher of scholarly and trade titles in print
and multimedia formats. This book is available in paperback, cloth, and Adobe
eBook formats from Parlor Press at http://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 editor@parlorpress.
com.
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