Like What We Imagine: Writing and the University

David Bartholomae has been a prominent figure in the field of composition and rhetoric for almost five decades. Throughout his career, his focus has always been on teaching, writing, and the teaching of writing. These essays, written over the past dozen years, are arranged and unified by a thread that connects some of the books and ideas, people and places, students and courses that have shaped and sustained his work as a teacher of writing. The essays trace his formation as a teacher, writer, and scholar, and open doors to paths of study that speak directly to issues related to global understanding across linguistic and cultural divides. Taken together, the pieces in this collection reveal Bartholomae's ideas about writing studies and the ways in which student writing and the teaching of writing contribute to and are central to the mission of the university.

David Bartholomae has been a prominent figure in the field of composition and rhetoric for almost five decades. This is an end-of-career book, a collection of late essays that reflect on the teaching of reading and writing, on the challenges and value of students' work, and on the place of English in the university curriculum. The chapters are unified by a thread that connects some of the books and ideas, people and places, students and courses that shaped and sustained his work as a scholar and teacher over time. Several chapters present and discuss extended examples of student writing. The essays trace his formation from the early days of "Basic Writing" to his final engagements with study abroad and travel writing, where he had the chance to think again, and in radically different settings, about the fundamental problems of communication across linguistic and cultural divides.