Here's a general discussion topic & request for feedback: I've recently signed a contract with Broadview press to bring out a text on "Writing About Literature: Prose Fiction." It's part of the press' new "writing in the disciplines" series--one designed to give undergraduate readers "insider knowledge" re: writing in various areas. In my proposal I noted that, unlike creative writing courses, where students read examples of fine poetry or prose fiction as models to be emulated, literature courses ask students to spend most of their time studying forms they will never be asked to write. My text proposes a teaching/studying aid--a cross between a rhetoric & a casebook (Stephen Crane's wonderful short story "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky" will be included in the text, & most advice on composition & critical approaches will reference "Yellow sky"). Anyway, here's my question: why, to date, has so little been written about the rhetoric of literary essays? I'm aware of Fahnestock and Secor's provocative piece, "The Rhetoric of Literary Criticism," but there seems little substantive (pedagogical) work in this area. I'll be looking, for example, at the relationship between first-year critical essays & their professional counterparts, & considering what students might learn by via a rhetorical analysis of professional models & methods & institutional contexts. I'm also interested in what CASLL members might like to see in such a text. Where might the sort of standard resource (I'm thinking of books by Griffith, Barnet, and Roberts) be improved? Do others see potential (as I do) in using contemporary rhetoric & composition theory to explain, interpret, & teach students how to write essays about literature? Feel free to reply on or off list. My email address is [log in to unmask] Regards, Will < < W.F. Garrett-Petts > > English & Modern Lang ._______ UCC, 900 McGill Rd | \ / | Voice: (250) 828-5248 Box 3010, Kamloops .--|.O.|.O.|______. FAX: (250) 371-5697 B.C. V2C 5N3 Can.__).-| = | = |/ \ | E-mail: [log in to unmask] >__) (.'---`.)Q.|.Q.|--. http://www.cariboo.bc.ca \\___// = | = |-.(__ `---'( .---. ) (__< \\.-.// `---'