Composing Knowledge: Readings for College Writers

Higher education has its own rules — rules about who is heard, what counts as knowledge, what works as persuasion. They are conventions that must be learned — and taught. So it is no wonder that for new students, college can be a confusing place. Composing Knowledge asks students to examine their assumptions about learning. It provides them with a training ground for the sometimes disquieting experience of higher education, giving them the tools with which to understand their experience. For instructors, it offers provocative academic readings they themselves find engaging, allowing them to connect their scholarly interests to student experience. The readings explore the role of language in learning, the conventions of the classroom, the nature of persuasion, the importance of collaboration, the force of gender, the impact of technology, and the power of the image. When students contend with these issues, they see the ways that scholars view them, and enter the academic conversations that shape their college years — and their future professional and civic lives.

Higher education has its own rules -- rules about who is heard, what counts as knowledge, what works as persuasion. They are conventions that must be learned -- and taught. So it is no wonder that for new students, college can be a confusing place. Composing Knowledge asks students to examine their assumptions about learning. It provides them with a training ground for the sometimes disquieting experience of higher education, giving them the tools with which to understand their experience. For instructors, it offers provocative academic readings they themselves find engaging, allowing them to connect their scholarly interests to student experience. The readings explore the role of language in learning, the conventions of the classroom, the nature of persuasion, the importance of collaboration, the force of gender, the impact of technology, and the power of the image. When students contend with these issues, they see the ways that scholars view them, and enter the academic conversations that shape their college years -- and their future professional and civic lives.

ROLF NORGAARD teaches in the program for writing and rhetoric at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he has been a faculty member since 1987. His research and teaching interests lie in the areas of rhetoric and composition, critical thinking, analysis and argument, writing across the curriculum, the rhetoric of inquiry, curricular design, and writing program administration. He is a regular presenter at such conferences as CCCCs and is the author of a textbook on critical thinking and writing as well as numerous book chapters and journal articles on rhetoric and composition.