1. Introduction: Composition theory, linguistics, and improving student writing. 2. Review of approaches in composition studies. 2.1 The cognitivist approach. 2.2 The expressionist approach. 2.3 The social-epistemic approach. 2.4 Multiculturalism, the contact zone, and Bakhtin’s heterogeneity of voices 2.5 The context of written discourse: The rhetorical situation. 1. Exigence: The occasion and motivation for speaking/writing…