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Changing of Knowledge in Composition: Contemporary Perspectives
Lance Massey and Richard Gebhardt offer in this collection many signs that composition again faces a moment of precariousness, even as it did in the 1980s—the years of the great divorce from literary studies. The contours of writing in the university again are rapidly changing, making the objects of scholarship in composition again unstable. Composition is poised to move not from modern to postmodern but from process to postprocess, from a service-oriented "field" to a research-driven "discipline." Some would say we are already there. Momentum is building to replace "composition" and the pedagogical imperative long implied in that term with a "writing studies" model devoted to the study of composition as a fundamental tool of, and force within, all areas of human activity. Appropriately, contributors here use Stephen M. North's 1987 book The Making of Knowledge in Composition to frame and background their discussion, as they look at both the present state of the field and its potential futures. As in North's volume, The Changing of Knowledge in Composition describes a body of research and pedagogy brimming with conflicting claims, methodologies, and politics, and with little consensus regarding the proper subjects and modes of inquiry. The deep ambivalence within the field itself is evident in this collection. Contributors here envision composition both as retaining its commitment to broad-based, generalized writing instruction and as heading toward content-based vertical writing programs in departments and programs of writing studies. They both challenge and affirm composition's pedagogical heritage. And they sound both sanguine and pessimistic notes about composition's future.
335 pages, Paperback
First published April 16, 2010
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May 19, 2016
Nice follow up on discilplinary knowledge. I like Kristine's study about the different publications and the bibliometric study on MKC's influence (but the conclusions are flawed--the book is cited in peripheral journals because it's a move to signal composition bent, one that doesn't need to be made in CCC. Also, I suspect it's too foundimental a source for CCC, like citing North's other big work "the idea of a writing center" in WCJ.
Notes:
Introduction Massey and Gebhardt 1-10
“We now find ourselves on the brink of what may become an equally paradigmatic shift, as we hear ever more calls to replace traditional composition and the pedagogical imperative that term has long implied witha writing studies model deovted to the study of writing as a fundametal tool of and force within (1) all realms of human society” (2) (cf Down and Wardles, Miller 2005, cushman (1998) Foster 2007).
“A time-honored traditionin composition is to cal for us to cease looking at and writing about ourselves and get on with the work at hand (as if determining what that work entailed were not itself a part of our work” (4)
“On the place of Writing in Higher education (and why it doesn’t include composition)” Stephen M North 194-210”self-selection… does make a real difference” (199)
“...the promis is boug. ...That if a newly admitied student enrolled in a discipline-based course truly cannot produce writing acceptable to that course’s sponsoring professor, the odds that a fifteen-week composition class--forty-give hourse in class, ninety out--will transform that student into someone who truly can produce acceptable writing for tha tprofessor are very slim. Everything we know about the devleopme to fwiritng abilities confirms this: it just doesn’t work that way” (204) coposition belongs in departments of writing or writing studies (207).
“Stephen Northis MKC and the future of composition studies without paradogm hope” 213-235
“Clearly then composition studeise has developed a distinctibve form of scholarhip--the close reading of student texts in support of pedagogical practice or cultural analysis--that English studies as whol accepts as the quivalent to literary scolarshp. And composition has separated itself from literary studies in a variety of ways institutionally”...All this may reflect the pedagogoical and theoretical diversity in the profession, or it may be an indication that the fragmentation North predicted to proveeding apace. It maye be too early to tell” (221)
“Because writing is taught by people with such racially different methodologies for studying writing and such radically different ideologies about what writing is, how writing should be taught and indeed, what writing instruction should accomplish, composition studies has no central vision of whatit means to teach writing. Indeed, composition studies has no means for even talking about the differences that divide the profession” (225)
“Because composition studies has no common research tradition, no common research metholody, no common teaching practices, it has no common view of what it means to be a professional except an institutional one: a pressional in composition studies is someone in a tenure-track line at a college or university who does something related to writing or someone who regularly teaches writing as an instructor” (227)
“There is no suh thing as generic writinb” (231)
Kristine Hansen “Are we there yet? The making of a discipline in composition” (236-263)
Who else tlaks about discipline yes: lauer 2006 slevin 2001; no: haswell 2005, miller 2003) fleming 1998 “rhetoric as a course of study”
Notes:
Introduction Massey and Gebhardt 1-10
“We now find ourselves on the brink of what may become an equally paradigmatic shift, as we hear ever more calls to replace traditional composition and the pedagogical imperative that term has long implied witha writing studies model deovted to the study of writing as a fundametal tool of and force within (1) all realms of human society” (2) (cf Down and Wardles, Miller 2005, cushman (1998) Foster 2007).
“A time-honored traditionin composition is to cal for us to cease looking at and writing about ourselves and get on with the work at hand (as if determining what that work entailed were not itself a part of our work” (4)
“On the place of Writing in Higher education (and why it doesn’t include composition)” Stephen M North 194-210”self-selection… does make a real difference” (199)
“...the promis is boug. ...That if a newly admitied student enrolled in a discipline-based course truly cannot produce writing acceptable to that course’s sponsoring professor, the odds that a fifteen-week composition class--forty-give hourse in class, ninety out--will transform that student into someone who truly can produce acceptable writing for tha tprofessor are very slim. Everything we know about the devleopme to fwiritng abilities confirms this: it just doesn’t work that way” (204) coposition belongs in departments of writing or writing studies (207).
“Stephen Northis MKC and the future of composition studies without paradogm hope” 213-235
“Clearly then composition studeise has developed a distinctibve form of scholarhip--the close reading of student texts in support of pedagogical practice or cultural analysis--that English studies as whol accepts as the quivalent to literary scolarshp. And composition has separated itself from literary studies in a variety of ways institutionally”...All this may reflect the pedagogoical and theoretical diversity in the profession, or it may be an indication that the fragmentation North predicted to proveeding apace. It maye be too early to tell” (221)
“Because writing is taught by people with such racially different methodologies for studying writing and such radically different ideologies about what writing is, how writing should be taught and indeed, what writing instruction should accomplish, composition studies has no central vision of whatit means to teach writing. Indeed, composition studies has no means for even talking about the differences that divide the profession” (225)
“Because composition studies has no common research tradition, no common research metholody, no common teaching practices, it has no common view of what it means to be a professional except an institutional one: a pressional in composition studies is someone in a tenure-track line at a college or university who does something related to writing or someone who regularly teaches writing as an instructor” (227)
“There is no suh thing as generic writinb” (231)
Kristine Hansen “Are we there yet? The making of a discipline in composition” (236-263)
Who else tlaks about discipline yes: lauer 2006 slevin 2001; no: haswell 2005, miller 2003) fleming 1998 “rhetoric as a course of study”
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