1.In most composition books, 'The' student who writes is anyone. "'The' student," argues Ohmann, "... is defined only by studenthood, not by any other attributes. He is classless, sexless though generically male, timeless. The authors assume that writing is a socially neutral skill, to be applied in and after college for the general welfare."

2. In his book Fragments of Rationality: Postmodernity and the Subject of Composition, Lester Faigely argues that for many years, American writing instruction hitched its wagon to the large cultural goal of subject formation. Literacy instruction taught students more than how to write, it taught them who they were to be, and because academic writing has traditionally and historically functioned as argument, it worked to solicit the student into a rational consciousness. With the emergence of composition studies in the 1960s, the subjectivity of the writer raised its ugly head. Along with theory in other disciplines, composition theory began to radically interrogate the assumed rationality of the writer. Yet in the midst of this theoretical shift, Faigley notes that the institutional practices of schooling remain quite unchanged. .