The Making of Knowledge in Composition: Portrait of an Emerging Field

by Stephen M. North

In a style that combines scholarly care with remarkable readability, North examines the development of the field of composition in a way it has not been examined before. Rather than focusing on what people claim to know about teaching writing, he concerns himself primarily with how they claim to know it. Eight groups of knowledge-makers are treated in separate Practitioners, Historians, Philosophers, Critics, Experimentalists, Clinicians, Formalists, and Ethnographers. Each of these chapters orients the reader by tracing the mode's first uses in the field and listing its best known and most important adherents; then goes on to explain how the mode of inquiry works, illustrating key points with painstaking analysis of well-known studies. In his final three chapters, North turns from these individual modes to consider the field as a How have these different ways of making knowledge come together? What is Composition now, and what is it likely to become?

Paperback

First published March 17, 1987

Reviews

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book could be retitled “S. North vs Composition.” It sounds like he hates everyone. He doesn’t though; in fact, it seems like North wants people to stop hating themselves. Say it loud, you’re a Practitioner and you’re proud. North wants us all to know what kind of research we’re doing, do it very well according to its strengths and weakness and then understand everyone else’s research. This book is old enough that the field was still very young (when he describes ethnography in composition as few and sparse, I did a double-take) so some of his condemnations have sorted themselves out. Still, we are ignorant of the limitations of our research and sometimes don’t even know how to read someone else’s research in another vein. The other title for this book could be “How to Stop Worrying and Love Your Discipline.”

[Robin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book wasn't bad, just very very dry. It was extremely analytical and not overly fun to read. I didn't mind it, it just wasn't my favorite and not something I'd read again. There was useful information within the book, but it was just a struggle to get through it.