Cross-Talk in Comp Theory: A Reader

This updated version of this "classic" in the field of Rhetoric/Composition is an excellent overview of the field. It provides the articles that every student (and faculty member--both researchers and teachers) should read in order to have a solid background in what the field is about. I use it in my graduate courses and students praise the book for preparing them to enter into the discourse of the field. I particularly like the range of articles and the organization of the book overall. I highly recommend this book for people who are interested in theories and practices of teaching writing and want an overview of the field from its origins to the current moment. It is a must-have for those in the field of Rhetoric/Composition and for writing teachers.

I found this text to be overdone and repetative. However, there is much merit in it - IF you are planning on teaching first year college writing courses. I am planning on secondary school so it left a lot of things unanswered for me. The quality of the craftmanship is poor - pages began to fall out right away. It's too heavy - the paper stock is very heavy - the reading is too heavy too (lol. Get the previous edition - it's cheaper and has pretty much everything as this edition.

I bought this book for a graduate course in the history of rhetoric and composition as an academic field. Though I don't know that I would use everything in the book, I can definitely see using Cross Talk as a reference guide for a long time to come. The book gives a good sense of the history of the field and many of the "big names" are represented here.

I enjoyed this easy to follow pedagogy for composition and critical thinking because of its easy to understand explanations of recent pedagogies for teahing English Composition. I like the explanations of the reasons that collaborative learning works. Villanueva presents the ideas of the foremost pioneering educators of the last thirty years or so. This is an excellent reference for any beginning instructor of Composition.

There were some good articles in there about composition pedagogy but then there were some very lengthy and boring ones. The binding is not very good, I'm lucky that mine still held together after this semester (several of my classmates were not so lucky).

Had to buy this for a master's level class. What an amazing compendium! Glad I bought it and didn't settle for a rental on this one!

Just what I needed!

The book arrived with a 1 inch rip in the spine and some crushed pages. Still readable and great text, but I'm a little disappointed at the condition it arrived.