A major tenet of feminist rhetorical theory is that there exists a "women's way" of writing. At the same time, much writing deals with the strong shift in the relationship between theory and practice in the fields of literature, composition, and cultural rhetoric. A study examined the intersection of genre and gender theory with the actual writing of students, and results indicated that practitioners have to be cautious when translating theory into their classrooms. In two sophomore writing sections ("205-one"), for a variety of genres encompassing the personal narrative (diary, letter, speech, etc.) students created a reader/writer's history of themselves at the start and the end of the course. In two other sophomore sections ("205-two"), concentration was on going deeply into only three genres--the personal essay, the argument essay, and the academic research essay. With the initial inventories of 205-one, while roughly half of the students fit traditional stereotypes (females preferring the diary and males preferring argument) the other half broke the mold; findings were similar in 205-two. Excerpts from student writings illustrate student voices and teacherly response. One tentative conclusion can be reached: most students found an extra thrill in writing "new" genres for them. Females took to the public speech; males plunged into the private diary. In these student reflections, theory and practice met in a post-theory classroom; the instructor was prompted to re-design the curriculum to explore current ideas on gender and genre. (NKA)