Humble Pie and Can English Save the Planet?

Part I: Humble Pie

Two rejections in 24 hours. Balances out the good news from earlier in the week.

Part II: Can English Save the Planet?

Today, this guy came to U of A to talk about composition. At the beginning of his talk, he asked "Why teach writing?" and at the end he said "to save the planet." Critical Pedagogy. Bleh! Why can't I just teach writing so my students learn to write??? I was really disappointed because I'm using his text book (which I think is perfect so far) and he didn't even mention it, or how it might be a tool towards this world-changing way of teaching writing. I suppose he might have during Q&A, but I had to leave for class, so if he did, I missed it.

At any rate, I still don't see how comp classes can/are supposed to change the world/society/culture etc. Don't college freshmen have enough to worry about without being urged to become political activists of some sort? Or am I still misunderstanding critical pedagogy? It makes me a little bit crazy trying to figure it out. Which is why I am no longer studying composition.