Towards Revitalization: Introducing a Dualistic Style to the First-Year-Writing Classroom

Scholars in the field of stylistics have recently claimed that teaching on the canon of style has gone missing in much of modern composition. For instance, in “Style: The Hidden Agenda in Composition Classes or One Reader’s Confession,” Kate Ronald admits that she feels that, although she does not explicitly teach style, she is still rewarding and punishing [her] students for their writing styles (197). As one of the classical canons of rhetoric, style can be a powerful tool for those students who comprehend it, but it seems that more and more students are missing out on opportunities to learn and practice style. To begin to solve the issue of how style might be revitalized in composition, this article puts forward the research question: What happens when a writing fellow attached to a section of first-year-composition introduces a dualistic style into the classroom?