↵PETER SMAGORINSKY is Assistant Professor, College of Education, University of Oklahoma, 820 Van Vleet Oval, Norman, OK 73019-0. He specializes in classroom literacy.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Ackerman J

Adams VA

Alloway E

Anderson RC

Applebee A

Appleman D

Arthur SV

Atwell N

Baden RC

Barrs M

Bazerman C

Berkenkotter C

Bleich D

Booth W

Burns HL

Calkins LM

Colomb G

Culler J

Cummings BJ

Davis K

Delaney MC

Denniston L

Dias P

Dreussi RME

Durst RK

Dutch WL

Ebbert GM

Elbow P

Emig J

Eschholz PA

Fahnestock J

Farrell E

Fish S

Flower L

Fox RF

Ganong FL

Gauntlett JF

Gevinson S

Graves D

Greene S

Hayes JR

Herrington A

Hilgers TL

Hillocks G

Hirsch ED

Hunt R

Irwin J

Johannessen L

Kael P

Kahn E

Kamler B

Klages M

Lamberg WJ

Langer J

Many J

McCann TM

Michael W. Smith

Murray D

Newkirk T

Norwood MCD

Odell L

Olson MC

Perkins D

Peter Smagorinsky

Polya G

Probst R

Purves A

Rabinowitz P

Reynolds HM

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The Nature of Knowledge in Composition and Literary Understanding: The Question of Specificity

Psychologists have long debated the extent to which people transfer knowledge from context to context. This debate has emerged in the study of literacy where researchers of composition and literary understanding have begun to examine the extent to which different tasks require particular knowledge and the extent to which different interpre-tive communities require specific understandings. This article reviews issues related to transfer and knowledge specificity as articulated in psychology and then examines theory and research in composition and literary understanding which parallel the debate in psychology. The authors identify three positions that have emerged in literacy debates: the case for general knowledge, the case for task-specific knowledge, and the case for community-specific knowledge. Each position carries with it certain assump-tions about learning and transfer, and each has clear implications for curriculum and instruction. The authors delineate the positions and the assumptions that drive them and detail their instructional consequences, arguing that researchers and teachers need an articulated understanding of their assumptions about knowledge and transfer in order to establish a clear and coherent relationship between theory and practice

Pfeter Smagorinsky

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The Nature of Knowledge in Composition and Literary Understanding: The Question of Specificity

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