Patricia Bizzell

Patricia Bizzell is a professor of English, emerita, and former Chairperson of the English Department at the College of the Holy Cross, United States, where she taught from 1978 to 2019. Bizzell is the 2008 winner of the CCCC Exemplar Award, and is a former president of Rhetoric Society of America. Bizzell, throughout her career, has focused on students coming from traditionally disadvantaged economic and social backgrounds in order to study how rhetoric and composition can be effectively taught to students coming from a diverse range of backgrounds.

Bizzell is also the subject of a profile chapter in Women's Ways of Making It in Rhetoric and Composition, edited by Michelle Balliff, Diane Davis, and Roxanne Mountford. The book aims to share both the successes and failures of women in the field of rhetoric and composition, with the aim of inspiring other women to enter the field. The book covers a range of topics from encountering sexism in the workplace and balancing a career and family life, issues that are further addressed in the chapter on Bizzell.

Bizzell's article "Cognition, Convention, and Certainty: What We Need to Know About Writing" explores the relationship between students' ability to engage in thoughtful contemplation and their writing abilities. The relationship between thought and language, according to Bizzell, needs to be given more careful consideration in the composition classroom. It is only by helping students learn to frame their thinking that teachers can help them to be productive and successful writers.

"What Happens When Basic Writers Come to College?" tries to answer one of the research questions that seems to be most central to Bizzell's research. This article examines what happens when students with diverse backgrounds, dialects, and class standings come together in a college composition classroom. Bizzell, using her own teaching experience as part of her research, delves into how these students can find success in college classrooms and settings.

Professional experience

Teaching positions Chair, Department of English, College of the Holy Cross, 2001-2005 Professor of English, Holy Cross, 1988–present: composition, rhetoric, American Literature Director, English Honors Program, 1999-2000 Director, College Honors Program, 1994-1998 Director, Writing Programs, 1981-1994 (Writer's Workshop and Writing-across-the-Curriculum Program) Associate Professor, Holy Cross, 1981-1988 Assistant Professor, Holy Cross, 1978–81 Assistant Professor, Rutgers University, 1975–78, and Director, Remedial Writing Program, 1975–77, and Teacher Training Program, 1977–78

Professional affiliations and activities President, Rhetoric Society of America, 2004-2006 Program Chair, RSA 2004 biennial national conference President, Board of Directors, Alliance of Rhetoric Societies, 2006 (ARS)

Academic background Ph.D. in English Literature, Rutgers University, 1975. B.A. summa cum laude, Wellesley College, 1970. Enrolled in the M.J.L.S. (Masters, Jewish Liberal Studies) program at Hebrew College

Prizes and external grants received Winner, National Council of Teachers of English Outstanding Book Award, 1992, for The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present (co-authored with Bruce Herzberg). Winner, National Council of Writing Program Administrators Best Book Award, 2000, for Coming of Age: The Advanced Writing Curriculum, eds. Linda Shamoon, Sandra Jamieson, Rebecca Howard, and Robert Schwegler, which included Bizzell's essay "Writing as a Means of Social Change".

Books published

(Alternate title: Negotiating Difference: Cultural Case Studies for Composition)