Reviews for The End of Composition Studies

The average rating for The End of Composition Studies based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-08-29 00:00:00 Terry Thrams I can get behind his argument, but I think it glosses over some potential alternatives. But perhaps this is just a suspicion raised from how frequently the words "obviously" and "clearly" are used to introduce paragraphs. Like I said, I understand the argument and generally agree, but this book was horrible to read. Smit really needs to fire his copy-editor, and I realized at chapter four that all his arguments are basically variations on "this isn't specific enough," which is legit, but also very hard-nosed and repetitive. His constant repetition that our current lines of thought in composition theory have reached the limit of what they can tell us never struck me as qualified assertions. You can't always predict innovation--in fact you usually can't, so how can you assert that there's nothing else useful down a given idea path? On the other hand, I teach in a program that (I now suspect) took this book to heart in its structuring, and my program would not be a good representative of the traditionally GTA taught 101 course, so my annoyance as a reader was probably in part from the fact his interpretation didn't seem to fit with my own experience, even though I'm at the heart (demographically) of the problem he is addressing. I think if I were teaching the quintessential course he takes issue with (which I assume is normative), this book would be a much-needed sobering wake-up call.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-06-11 00:00:00 Laurie Porter Professional reading. Worthwhile.