Gaining Ground in College Writing: Tales of Development and Interpretation (S M U STUDIES IN COMPOSITION AND RHETORIC)

GAINING GROUND is a thorough and lucid piece of scholarship that dissects the very complex interrelation between teacher assessment, student writing, and intelletual development. The author has digested and integrated an enormous wealth of knowledge from psychology, sociology, philosophy, and linguistics. The genius of the book is in its balance of theory and research. When Haswell turns to examining issues such as gender differences in personal style, mistakes versus errors, writer's block, sentence structure, chained and unchained patterns of logic, and the plight of remedial writers, it becomes clear that he is no mere theorist or researcher but an experienced teacher dedicated to helping students learn. Because of his appreciation of the link between developmental theory and language, he is able to describe the type of class sequence, syllabus, and diagnosis that take into account the interaction of student, teacher, and environment. The opening question of the book--how can teachers measure improvement in student writing--evolves into a "transformative tale" that grapples with the larger, more complex issue: how can teachers facilitate that lasting personal change that language brings about? For me (a writing teacher of some ten years hungry for effective advice about how better to teaching writing), this study of "why" and "how" is a welcome contribution to my understanding and appreciation of teaching, language, and the field of composition. If I were asked to recommend the most important book in my own development as a teacher, GAINING GROUND would be it.