Collects 22 essays which draw on multiple traditions and modes of genre inquiry: rhetorical criticism, critical pedagogy, feminist and psychoanalytical criticism, linguistic analysis, curricular debate, case studies, cultural criticism, autobiography, and personal reflection. Explicit concerns include student writing, the acquisition of genre familiarity, and the several possible social functions of genre. By design, the pieces often echo one another, or argue dialectically in order to pursue lines of inquiry about textual forms and functions. No index. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.