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Delaware. After describing my own teaching philosophy, I then
detail my methods in those courses, from readings to writing
assignments, and explain my rationale behind it all.
And in the final chapter, I turn from this theoretical
explication about the “why” and the “how” of the dialectic and
survey those from within the field of composition and rhetoric
who have worked to bring such a thing to their very own writing
courses and, as a result, realize it through actual classroom
practice. In doing so, I also return to those freshman writing
courses I related in the previous chapter and scrutinize my very
own transition from theory to practice. Through doing so, I
explore how that dialectic between Uncertainty and Certainty and
its potential fared under my instruction: what I did, or did
not do, in those courses, with what results, and to what effect.
As I have already stated, this work is the culmination of
an exploration that began almost a decade ago. It is thus
essentially rooted in ruminations of the past: of my very own
past as a writer, a student, and a teacher as well as the past
of the field of composition and rhetoric.
It is furthermore
rooted in reflections upon how these two pasts intertwine and
interweave, the latter compelling the former in ways both known
and unknown. Because of this, it is deliberately retrospective:
a looking backwards more than it is a looking forwards. This is
not because of a disregard or distaste for recent currents of
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