College Composition and Communication Sep 2024

A Commonplace Problem: Uncovering Composition’s Tacit Axiologies of Reading

Lizzie Hutton ; Carolyne M. King

Abstract

Composition studies seems relatively unified in the belief that “active,” “rhetorical,” and “conversational” modes of reading are students’ best hope for facing the challenges of college reading and writing tasks. As commonplaces, however, these descriptors mask both reading outcomes and the specific practices presumed to support them. Through an analysis of three popular composition textbooks, we disentangle and reveal some of the reading axiologies most fundamental to the field and which we contend these commonplaces gesture toward but leave vastly undertheorized. We argue that more precise explications of these distinct reading axiologies ultimately provide a contextualist framework for reading, helping students approach their reading-writing tasks with greater clarity, flexibility, and purpose.

Journal
College Composition and Communication
Published
2024-09-01
DOI
10.58680/ccc202476190
CompPile
Open Access
Closed
Topics
Export
BibTeX RIS

Citation context

Cited by in this index (1)

  1. Carillo (2026)
    Mindful Reading Beyond First-Year Writing
    Across the Disciplines

References (69) · 18 in this index

  1. Adler-Kassner (2005)
    The Outcomes Book
     ↗
  2. Adler-Kassner (2007)
    Reading Practices in the Writing Classroom
    WPA: Writing Program Administration - Journal of the Council of Writing Program Administrators
  3. Allington (2009)
    Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It
  4. Anson (2017)
    What Is College Reading?
     ↗
  5. Bakhtin (1981)
    The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays
Show all 69 →
  1. Bartholomae (1986)
    Inventing the University
    Journal of Basic Writing  ↗
  2. Bartholomae (2020)
    Ways of Reading: An Anthology for Writers
  3. Bazerman (1980)
    A Relationship between Reading and Writing: The Conversational Model
    College English
  4. Bean (2014)
    Reading Rhetorically
  5. Beaufort (2007)
    College Writing and Beyond: A New Framework for University Writing Instruction
  6. Beaufort (2004)
    Developmental Gains of a History Major: A Case for Building a Theory of Discipl…
    Research in the Teaching of English
  7. Berlin (1987)
    Rhetoric and Reality: Writing Instruction in American Colleges, 1900-1985
  8. Bird (2019)
    Next Steps: New Directions for/in Writing about Writing
     ↗
  9. Block (2008)
    Comprehension Instruction: Research-based Best Practices
  10. Bosley (2008)
    I Don’t Teach Reading: Critical Reading Instruction in Composition Courses
    Literacy Research and Instruction  ↗
  11. Brent (1992)
    Reading as Rhetorical Invention: Knowledge, Persuasion, and the Teaching of Research-Base…
  12. Bruffee (1984)
    Collaborative Learning and the ‘Conversation of Mankind.’
    College English
  13. Burke (1941)
    The Philosophy of Literary Form
  14. Carillo (2016)
    Creating Mindful Readers in First-Year Composition Courses
    Pedagogy
  15. Carillo (2019)
    MLA Guide to Digital Literacy
  16. Carillo (2014)
    Securing a Place for Reading in Composition: The Importance of Teaching for Transfer
  17. Carillo (2018)
    Teaching Readers in Post-Truth America
     ↗
  18. Carmichael (2021)
    Teaching Anti-Racist Reading Practices in First-Year Writing
    Writing Program Administration
  19. Carter (2007)
    Ways of Knowing, Doing, and Writing in the Disciplines
    College Composition and Communication
  20. (2021)
    CCCC Position Statement on the Role of Reading in College Writing Classrooms
    Conference on College Composition and Communication
  21. Charlton (2009)
    Seeing Is Believing: Writing Studies with ‘Basic Writing’ Students
    BWe: Basic Writing E-Journal
  22. Cohn (2021)
    Skim, Dive, Surface: Teaching Digital Reading
  23. Connors (1986)
    Textbooks and the Evolution of the Discipline
    College Composition and Communication
  24. Corrigan (2012)
    Attending to the Act of Reading: Critical Reading, Contemplative Reading, and Active Reading
    Essays in Reader-Oriented Theory, Criticism, and Pedagogy
  25. Crowley (2004)
    Ancient Rhetoric for Contemporary Students
  26. Downs (2010)
    Teaching First Year Writers to Use Texts: Scholarly Readings in Writing-about-Writing in …
    Reader: Essays in Reader-Oriented Theory, Criticism, and Pedagogy
  27. Fish (1980)
    Is There a Text in This Class?: The Authority of Interpretive Communities
  28. Fulkerson (2005)
    Summary & Critique: Composition at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century
    College Composition and Communication
  29. Geisler (1994)
    Academic Literacy and the Nature of Expertise: Reading, Writing, and Knowing in Academic …
  30. Giordano et al. (2022)
    Guest Editors’ Introduction: The Changing Realities of Open-Access Reading: Whe…
    Teaching English in the Two-Year College
  31. Graff (2006)
    They Say, I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing
  32. HAAS (1994)
    Learning to Read Biology: One Student's Rhetorical Development in College
    Written Communication
  33. Haas et al. (1988)
    Rhetorical Reading Strategies and the Construction of Meaning
    College Composition and Communication
  34. Harkin (2005)
    The Reception of Reader-Response Theory
    College Composition and Communication
  35. Harris (2017)
    Rewriting: How to Do Things with Texts
  36. Helmers (2003)
    Intertexts: Reading Pedagogy in College Writing Classrooms
     ↗
  37. Horning (2013)
    Reconnecting Reading and Writing
  38. Ihara et al. (2018)
    What We Mean When We Talk about Reading: Rethinking the Purpose and Contexts of…
    Across the Disciplines
  39. Inoue (2020)
    Teaching Antiracist Reading
    Journal of College Reading and Learning  ↗
  40. Iser (1972)
    The Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach
    New Literary History  ↗
  41. Jordan (2005)
    Rereading the Multicultural Reader: Towards More ‘Infectious’ Practices in Multicultural …
    College English
  42. Keller (2014)
    Chasing Literacy: Reading and Writing in an Age of Acceleration
  43. Keller (2013)
    Feature: A Framework for Rereading in First-Year Composition
    Teaching English in the Two-Year College
  44. Knoblauch (2011)
    A Textbook Argument: Definitions of Argument in Leading Composition Textbooks
    College Composition and Communication
  45. Lunsford (2020)
    Everyone’s an Author
  46. McComiskey (2017)
    Post-Truth Rhetoric and Composition
     ↗
  47. Miller (1982)
    ‘Is There a Text in This Class?’
    Freshman English News
  48. Rheingold (2012)
    Net smart: How to thrive online
  49. Rosenblatt (1994)
    Theoretical Models and Processes of Reading
  50. Salvatori (1996)
    Conversations with Texts: Reading in the Teaching of Composition
    College English
  51. Salvatori (2015)
    Guest Editors’ Introduction
    Pedagogy
  52. Salvatori et al. (2012)
    What Is College English? Stories about Reading: Appearance, Disappearance, Morp…
    College English
  53. Shanahan (2011)
    Analysis of Expert Readers in Three Disciplines: History, Mathematics, and Chemistry
    Journal of Literacy Research  ↗
  54. Sullivan (2017)
    Deep Reading: Teaching Reading in the Writing Classroom
  55. Sullivan (2023)
    Deep Reading, Deep Learning
     ↗
  56. Sullivan (2017)
    Deep Reading: Teaching Reading in the Writing Classroom
  57. Sweeney et al. (2015)
    Difficulty Paper (Dis)Connections: Understanding the Threads Students Weave bet…
    College Composition and Communication
  58. Traester et al. (2021)
    Pedagogy to Disrupt the Echo Chamber
    Pedagogy
  59. Wardle (2020)
    Writing About Writing
  60. Welch (1987)
    Ideology and Freshman Textbook Production: The Place of Theory in Writing Pedagogy
    College Composition and Communication
  61. Wineburg (1991)
    On the Reading of Historical Texts: Notes on the Breach between School and Academy
    American Educational Research Journal  ↗
  62. Wineburg (2019)
    Lateral Reading and the Nature of Expertise: Reading Less and Learning More When Evaluati…
    Teachers College Record  ↗
  63. (2014)
    WPA Outcomes Statement for First-Year Composition (Revisions Adopted 17 July, 2014)
    WPA: Writing Program Administration
  64. (2022)
    Writing about Writing Network, 23 Mar. 2021
    A WPA Roundtable: Implementing Program-Wide Writing Studies-Based Composition Pedagogies
CrossRef global citation count: 0 View in citation network → Build reading path →

Related articles

  1. Computers and Composition Sep 2026
    When writing students design AI chatbots: Integrating design thinking as a critical AI literacy practice ↗
    Jialei Jiang; Gustav Verhulsdonck
    modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism first-year composition writing pedagogy technical communication qualitative research literacy studies community literacy
  2. Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric Feb 2026
    Voices from Rock Bottom: Queering Addiction Recovery Rhetoric & Community Literacy ↗
    Danielle Bacibianco
    rhetorical criticism archival research multimodality literacy studies gender and writing public rhetoric community literacy
  3. Pedagogy Oct 2025
    Contributors ↗
    modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism genre theory cultural rhetorics first-year composition writing pedagogy advanced composition creative writing writing across the curriculum graduate education two-year college service learning teacher development technical communication professional writing labor and working conditions archival research multimodality artificial intelligence literacy studies race and writing gender and writing disability studies literary studies editorial matter
  4. College Composition and Communication Sep 2025
    From Cheating to Cheat Codes: Integrating Generative AI Ethics into Collaborative Learning ↗
    Kristi Girdharry
    modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism writing pedagogy argument collaborative writing writing centers artificial intelligence literacy studies
  5. Pedagogy Apr 2025
    Contributors ↗
    modern rhetorical theory rhetorical criticism african american rhetorics cultural rhetorics first-year composition writing pedagogy basic writing graduate education two-year college teacher development writing centers technical communication professional writing labor and working conditions digital rhetoric multimodality social media literacy studies race and writing gender and writing community literacy literary studies editorial matter