The Composition Commons: Writing a New Idea of the University

Drawing on archival and classroom evidence from public colleges and universities and written in a lively, autoethnographic voice, Yood names "genres of the commons" intimate, informal writing activities that create peer-to-peer knowledge networks. She shows how these unique genres create collectivity--an academic commons--and calls on scholars to invest in composition as a course cultivating reflective, emergent, shared knowledge. Yood departs from movements that divest from the first-year composition classroom and details how an increasingly diverse student population composes complex, evolving cultural literacies that forge social bonds and forward innovation and intellectual and civic engagement. The ethnographic data, historical research, and new approach to literacy and genre theory speaks to writing studies scholars, first-year composition teachers, and educators seeking fresh approaches to building a more accessible academic environment.

The Composition Commons reclaims the commons as critical idea and writing classroom activities as essential practices for remaking higher education in the United States.