Deliberate Conflict cogently advocates reintegrating instruction in argumentation with the composition curriculum. By linking effective argumentation in the public sphere with the ability to effect social change, Roberts-Miller pushes compositionists beyond a simplistic Aristotelian conception of how argumentation works and offers a means by which to prepare students for active participation in public discourse.
Patricia Roberts-Miller is an associate professor of rhetoric and composition at the University of Texas–Austin. She is the author of Voices in the Wilderness: The Paradox of the Puritan Public Sphere and the editor of the Harcourt Brace Sourcebook for Teachers of Writing.