Technological Performativity: Mapping the Rhetoric of Student Valuation and Identity in Composition Textbooks
type: CreativeWork
description: For composition teachers who subscribe to critical pedagogy and employ some form of writing textbook--such as anthologies of readings, manuals of rhetoric, handbooks of grammar rules, and composition books that combine all three--the questions concerning writing textbooks are essential. The questions are essential because the answers they invite expose how the books may support and thwart the mission of critical pedagogues to empower students, as they reflexively teach them to analyze, create, and enact the discourse of a democratic society. As they adopt books for their classrooms and programs, teachers and writing program administrators (WPAs) might ask, How can we conscientiously and reflexively use textbook X to prepare students to create writing that shapes their lives in a democracy? With its instructional apparatus, how can we employ textbook X to empower our students' voices in the classroom? What ideological functions might textbook X serve? These representative questions regarding textbooks suggest some of the core values of critical pedagogues in composition studies.Many studies about writing textbooks have directly and indirectly addressed these questions as scholars have investigated anthologies, manuals, and composition books for their ideological functions, publication practices, and reflection of contemporary theory and historical circumstances. The extant research theorizes about the rhetorical effects of writing textbooks on race, class, and gender identity and on the types of thinking and writing the books promote. Though the scholarship on writing textbooks is extensive and productive to help critical pedagogues accomplish their goals, a review of the literature reveals additional areas left unexplored. One unexplored area of significance for critical pedagogy includes the implications of the taken-for-granted use of the word <italics>tool<italics> and its cognates when scholars refer to books for writing instruction. This dissertation develops <…
abstract: For composition teachers who subscribe to critical pedagogy and employ some form of writing textbook--such as anthologies of readings, manuals of rhetoric, handbooks of grammar rules, and composition books that combine all three--the questions concerning writing textbooks are essential. The questions are essential because the answers they invite expose how the books may support and thwart the mission of critical pedagogues to empower students, as they reflexively teach them to analyze, create, and enact the discourse of a democratic society. As they adopt books for their classrooms and programs, teachers and writing program administrators (WPAs) might ask, How can we conscientiously and reflexively use textbook X to prepare students to create writing that shapes their lives in a democracy? With its instructional apparatus, how can we employ textbook X to empower our students' voices in the classroom? What ideological functions might textbook X serve? These representative questions regarding textbooks suggest some of the core values of critical pedagogues in composition studies.Many studies about writing textbooks have directly and indirectly addressed these questions as scholars have investigated anthologies, manuals, and composition books for their ideological functions, publication practices, and reflection of contemporary theory and historical circumstances. The extant research theorizes about the rhetorical effects of writing textbooks on race, class, and gender identity and on the types of thinking and writing the books promote. Though the scholarship on writing textbooks is extensive and productive to help critical pedagogues accomplish their goals, a review of the literature reveals additional areas left unexplored. One unexplored area of significance for critical pedagogy includes the implications of the taken-for-granted use of the word <italics>tool<italics> and its cognates when scholars refer to books for writing instruction. This dissertation develops <…
author: Rendleman, Eliot
keywords: composition, performativity, rhetoric, technological, textbook
date published: 2009
date modified: 2026-07-27T21:47:25Z
provider: University of Nevada - Reno
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Nevada - Reno

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/11714/4065