Toward a Civil Discourse

Sharon Crowley is professor of rhetoric and composition at Arizona State University and a former professor at Penn State and Northern Arizona universities. She received her B.A. and M.A. in English from the University of Nebraska and her Ph.D. from the University of Northern Colorado. She has written articles on the history of rhetoric and composition and on postmodernism in the teaching of writing; her work has appeared in Journal of Advanced Composition, Rhetoric Review, and College Composition and Communication.

Crowley has served as chair of the Committee on Professional Standards to help improve the working conditions of college writing teachers. This stems from her interest in the history of writing instruction in the U.S. Her book, The Methodical Memory: Invention in Current-traditional Rhetoric, won the 1991 W. Ross Winterowd Award. In it, she explains what current rhetoric is and discusses its development. She has also written Composition in the University: Historical and Polemical Essays, Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students, and A Teacher's Guide to Deconstruction.

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