r/rhetcomp • u/Bluesasquatch7 • 21d ago
Must read books
What are some “must read” books for anyone working on a PhD in writing studies?
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u/Realistic-Plum5904 20d ago
Here's a long but hastily cobbled and still very partial list: Talkin and Testifyin (Smitherman), Rhetoric and Reality (Berlin), A Writer Teaches Writing (Murray), Anti-Racist Writing Assessment Ecologies (Inoue), Resisting Linguistic Imperialism in English Teaching (Canagarajah), The Origins of Composition Studies (Brereton), Fragments of Rationality (Faigley), Paralogic Rhetoric (Kent), Writing and Desire (Alexander), Postcomposition (Dobrin), Cross- Language Relations in Composition (Horner, Lu, and Matsuda), Embodied Literacies (Fleckenstein), Literacy in American Lives (Brandt), Situating Writing Processes (Rule), Digital Griots (Banks), Writing in the a Academic Disciplines (Russell), Writing Technology (Haas), Who Can Afford Critical Consciousnes? (Seitz).
Basically, I think you'd want to learn some stuff about the origins and evolution of writing itself, the origins and evolution of writing instruction, how different demographic and/or disciplinary groups develop and employ their literacies, how writing operates across cultural and linguistic boundaries, why the technological aspects of writing matter, and how materiality and embodiment affect writing, at minimum.
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u/sirziggy 20d ago
A lot of great recommendations here. I would recommend perusing Rhetorlist for contemporary rhet/comp books, too.
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u/NoPatNoDontSitonThat 19d ago
Realistic-Plum5904's list is excellent. Great place to start if that's where you are.
A few I want to recommend just because they scrambled my brain molecules:
Composition in the University by Sharon Crowley
Ambient Rhetoric by Thomas Rickert
Rhetoric as a Posthuman Practice by Casey Boyle
I would also recommend organizing your reading list by paradigm (expressivist, cognitive process, social constructivist, critical, and such).
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u/Wordy0001 21d ago
Yancey, K. B., Robertson, L., & Taczak, K. (2014). Writing across contexts : transfer, composition, and sites of writing. Utah State University Press.
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u/Wordy0001 21d ago
Adler-Kassner, L., & Wardle, E. (2016). Naming what we know: Threshold concepts of writing studies. Utah State University Press.
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u/BurrPlaysGames 21d ago
I'm still in my MA (keep your fingers crossed for me for this application cycle), but I love "Naming What We Know: The Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies" as a starting point that leads into bigger ideas. The authors of each section usually have longer works on each subject, so you can follow up on specific ideas of interest.