Reviews for Routledge Creative Writing Coursebook

The average rating for Routledge Creative Writing Coursebook based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-02-17 00:00:00 William Ruehle In "The Haunting Story of J: Genealogy As a Critical Category in Understanding How a Writer Composes," Sarah J. Sloane argues that we approach new writing environments and technologies with our prior assumptions, experiences, and emotions (52). In a way, our writing is "haunted" by our prior experiences (53). In "'English' at the Crossroads," Gunther Kress questions the curriculum of English departments, arguing that students need access to public communication, including the visual (66-67). Although visuals have existed for a long time, Kress sees the shift from the logic of page to screen as important, in that our semiotics is becoming increasingly synaesthetic. He argues that we need to shift from a pedagogy of critique to one of design (which still includes critique. "Design," he writes, "takes the results of past production as the resource for new shaping, and for remaking" (87). In "Hyper-readers and their Reading Engines," James Sosnoski taxonomizes types of reading on the screen, arguing that the "search engine" affects how we read. He claims we read through filtering (selectivity), skimming, pecking (reading but not in a linear fashion), imposing (context), filming (meaning from graphic elements), trespassing (loosening of textual boundaries), de-authoring (privileging the author less), and fragmenting (163). In "Les We Think the Revolution is a Revolution: Images of Technology and the Nature of Change," Cynthia L. Selfe analyzes visual representations of technology, showing how Americans have difficulty viewing new technology in ways different from prior narratives and social forces. For example, many of these images privilege Americans as "the smart ones" who use technology and connect others (295), and that these technologies fit into a romantic story of American landscape and gendered notions of technology users. In "Blinded by the Letter: Why Are We Using Literacy as a Metaphor for Everything Else?", Anne Frances Wysocki and Johndan Johnson-Eilola question the assumptions of literacy that we carry when we carry the term over to other interpretive acts, including the notion that literacy brings economic and social privileges (352). "Literacy" is deceptive in its connotations with skills, so why do we want to carry it over to new technologies (355)? They argue that we should re-conceive literacy "primarily as a spatial relation to information" (362), and the ability to move within information and make connections (363).

Review # 2 was written on 2015-01-22 00:00:00 Jason Dainty Although not designed for easily-extractable classroom ideas, the essays in Passions, Pedagogies, and 21st Century Technologies offer opportunities for reflection on literacy and technology, which have the potential to translate into concrete teaching practices and assignments. The essays in this collection range in approach/purpose, from historical surveys to case studies of student composition practices to attempts to raise broader socioeconomic issues of technology and access. Some of these essays were experiments in form that I found self-indulgent and/or dated. Below, a few essays that seemed to raise issues of interest for graduate instructors: Ch. 2 on the essay, or what the author refers to as "essayistic literacy." What is the value of assigning essays? What can the genre do for students' thinking and writing that other types of assignments do not make possible? Ch. 8 thinks through (or gives you the tools to think through) the instructor's role in online discussion forums. The third section on "Ethical and feminist concerns in an electronic world" might be worth checking out for instructors with an interest in feminist pedagogy. For example, Ch. 15 tackles visual representations of women (and their self-representation) on the web.