Going North Thinking West: The Intersections of Social Class, Critical Thinking, and Politicized Writing Instruction

A long-time writing program administrator and well-respected iconoclast, Irvin Peckham is strongly identified with progressive ideologies in education. However, in Going North Thinking West, Peckham mounts a serious critique of what is called critical pedagogy—primarily a project of the academic left—in spite of his own sympathies there.

College composition is fundamentally a middle-class enterprise, and is conducted by middle-class professionals, while student demographics show increasin...