Visions and Cyphers: Explorations of Literacy, Discourse, and Black Writing Experiences

VISIONS AND CYPHERS is a rhetorical reader that takes a writing about writing approach to literacy and composition studies to encourage students to think through the role of writing and writing instruction in their academic and social development. Employing essays that consider race, culture, and difference in discussions about writing instruction and composition practices, Visions and Cyphers stresses the idea that writing is a fluid and purposeful mixture of language, design, and cultural choices. The essays featured in Visions and Cyphers are authored by an impressive range of diverse scholarly writers, each of whom is prominent in the field of composition and literacy studies and each of whom engages conversations about language, writing, culture, and rhetorical possibilities from intense and creative perspectives.

Complemented by discussion questions that prompt students to think about the authors rhetorical choices and the context and cultural relevance for writing, the essays in Visions and Cyphers help students puzzle through the complex theories that inform writing instruction to help them to take ownership of their writing development and their roles as social engineers and culture keepers.