A Theory of Literate Action makes a significant contribution to the field and enriches and deepens our perspectives on writing by drawing together such varied and wide-ranging approaches from social theory and the social sciences—from psychology, to phenomenology, to pragmatics—and demonstrating their relevance to writing studies.

Undertaken by one of the most learned and visionary scholars in the field, this work has a comprehensive and culminating quality to it, tracking major lines of insight into writing as a human practice and articulating the author's intellectual progress as a theorist and researcher across a career.

A Theory of Literate Action makes a significant contribution to the field and enriches and deepens our perspectives on writing by drawing together such varied and wide-ranging approaches from social theory and the social sciences from psychology, to phenomenology, to pragmatics and demonstrating their relevance to writing studies

Community Literacy and the Rhetoric of Public Engagement explores the critical practice of intercultural inquiry and rhetorical problem-solving that encourages urban writers and college mentors alike to take literate action. Author Linda Flower documents an innovative experiment in community literacy, the Community Literacy Center in Pittsburgh, and posits a powerful and distinctively rhetorical model of community engagement and pedagogy for both marginalized and privileged writers and speakers. In addition, she articulates a theory of local publics and explores the transformative potential of alternative discourses and counter-public performances. In presenting a comprehensive pedagogy for literate action, the volume offers strategies for talking and collaborating across difference, forconducting an intercultural inquiry that draws out situated knowledge and rival interpretations of shared problems, and for writing and speaking to advocate for personal and public transformation. Flower describes the competing scripts for social engagement, empowerment, public deliberation, and agency that characterize the interdisciplinary debate over models of social engagement. Extending the Community Literacy Center’s initial vision of community literacy first published a decade ago, Community Literacy and the Rhetoric of Public Engagement makes an important contribution to theoretical conversations about the nature of the public sphere while providing practical instruction in how all people can speak publicly for values and visions of change. Winner, 2009 Rhetoric Society of America Book Award

This book, offered here in its first open-access edition, addresses a wide range of writing activites and genres, from summarizing and responding to sources to writing the research paper and writing about literature. This edition of the book has been adapted from the fifth edition, published in 1995 by Houghton Mifflin. Copyrighted materials--primarily examples within the text--have been removed from this edition.