As an inquiry into the prospects of developing a direct link between the teaching of writing and the public sphere, the chapters in this volume bring together critical practices and social actions that have consequences for activist work. As a whole these chapters show composition studies extending the activist project of linking literacy education to social change by boldly proclaiming that effective citizens use reading and writing everyday to critically interrogate, and rhetorically intervene in, public affairs in which matters of justice and equality are of great concern.

This volume explores three major themes: composition studies taking on the establishment; composition studies institutionalising rhetoric and writing for social change; and composition studies and community activism. Taken together, coverage of these themes comes to represent rhetoric and literacy education working for genuine social change.