In Rational Irrationality, H. James Jensen presents an effective way of teaching composition that is an alternative to current teaching methods used and taught by composition teachers at many colleges, high schools, and universities. Jensen instructs teachers in classroom techniques and evaluation, goes over common problems and dangers in writing pedagogy and in classroom discussion, discusses the viability of distance learning, its drawbacks and how it might be used, and sets up models of actual courses that have proven to be successful. Based on existing workshop models and artistic principles that professional writers have used for centuries, Jensen lays out in simple form, the ways in which a course in composition can be taught.