In the Archives of Composition: Writing and Rhetoric in High Schools and Normal Schools

The archival turn in composition and rhetorical studies has yielded yet another gem. Lori Ostergaard and Henrietta Rix Wood’s edited collection demonstrates how small-scale, inductive work at local archives can open up social worlds, highlighting the intersectionalities of writing practices, individual lives, institutions, and gendered, classed, and raced identities. The editors set out to “depict the experiences of ordinary writing students in overlooked institutions; magnify the work of important, yet little-known pedagogues; and draw connections between secondary and postsecondary contexts” (2) as a corrective to established narratives about the history of composition that are rooted in the records of elite private institutions. With eleven contributed essays in addition to the editors’ introduction, a foreword by Kelly Ritter and an afterword by Jessica Enoch, the collection is organized in three sections focusing on composition practices at high schools (Part I) and normal schools (Part II), and the connections between secondary and...