What do you think?
Rate this book
The End of Composition Studies
In this provocative and persuasive treatise, David W. Smit calls for an end to the hegemony of writing instruction as an academic field. Setting forth an innovative new model for what it means to be a writing teacher in the era of writing across the curriculum, The End of Composition Studies urges a reconceptualization of graduate work in rhetoric and composition, systematically critiques the limitations of current pedagogical practices at the postsecondary level, and proposes a reorganization of writing instruction to make it the responsibility of all academic units.
The End of Composition Studies calls into question two major assumptions of the that writing is a universal ability and that college-level writing is in some sense foundational to advanced learning. Instead, Smit upholds, writing involves a wide range of knowledge and skill beyond the sentence level that cannot be solely learned in writing classes but must be acquired by immersion in various discourse communities in and out of academic settings. In other words, students do not learn to write in order to prepare themselves to write in a particular community; they need to be part of the community in order to learn how to write in that community.
Smit proposes that the field of composition should recognize the conceptual limits of what instructors may be able to know about how people learn to write by offering writing instruction in academic units most closely associated with the knowledge and genres students want or need to learn. Scholars, he says, should be trained to live in two one of composition theory and pedagogy and another of the discourse practices of particular communities. Similarly, they should be trained both as writers of the discourses they teach and as social critics of the communities they will help students join.
The End of Composition Studies also analyzes the limits of six major concepts in the what writing is, how writing is learned, how we compose, writing as a social practice, writing as thinking, and writing as the transfer of abilities from one context to another. These concepts, along with other paradigms and models that are used to understand how people write, are already known and widely accepted, making a complete reconceptualization of writing unlikely. As a result, Smit asserts, future research in the field will be what many scholars characterize as research will be historicized, contextualized, and contingent, limited in what it may tell about writing and its instruction.
In response to these limitations, The End of Composition Studies provides a compelling rhetoric and rationale for eliminating the field and reenvisioning the profession as truly interdisciplinary—a change that is necessary in order to fulfill the needs and demands of students, instructors, administrators, and our democratic society.
The End of Composition Studies calls into question two major assumptions of the that writing is a universal ability and that college-level writing is in some sense foundational to advanced learning. Instead, Smit upholds, writing involves a wide range of knowledge and skill beyond the sentence level that cannot be solely learned in writing classes but must be acquired by immersion in various discourse communities in and out of academic settings. In other words, students do not learn to write in order to prepare themselves to write in a particular community; they need to be part of the community in order to learn how to write in that community.
Smit proposes that the field of composition should recognize the conceptual limits of what instructors may be able to know about how people learn to write by offering writing instruction in academic units most closely associated with the knowledge and genres students want or need to learn. Scholars, he says, should be trained to live in two one of composition theory and pedagogy and another of the discourse practices of particular communities. Similarly, they should be trained both as writers of the discourses they teach and as social critics of the communities they will help students join.
The End of Composition Studies also analyzes the limits of six major concepts in the what writing is, how writing is learned, how we compose, writing as a social practice, writing as thinking, and writing as the transfer of abilities from one context to another. These concepts, along with other paradigms and models that are used to understand how people write, are already known and widely accepted, making a complete reconceptualization of writing unlikely. As a result, Smit asserts, future research in the field will be what many scholars characterize as research will be historicized, contextualized, and contingent, limited in what it may tell about writing and its instruction.
In response to these limitations, The End of Composition Studies provides a compelling rhetoric and rationale for eliminating the field and reenvisioning the profession as truly interdisciplinary—a change that is necessary in order to fulfill the needs and demands of students, instructors, administrators, and our democratic society.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 2004
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 1, 2014
I can get behind his argument, but I think it glosses over some potential alternatives. But perhaps this is just a suspicion raised from how frequently the words "obviously" and "clearly" are used to introduce paragraphs.
Like I said, I understand the argument and generally agree, but this book was horrible to read. Smit really needs to fire his copy-editor, and I realized at chapter four that all his arguments are basically variations on "this isn't specific enough," which is legit, but also very hard-nosed and repetitive. His constant repetition that our current lines of thought in composition theory have reached the limit of what they can tell us never struck me as qualified assertions. You can't always predict innovation--in fact you usually can't, so how can you assert that there's nothing else useful down a given idea path?
On the other hand, I teach in a program that (I now suspect) took this book to heart in its structuring, and my program would not be a good representative of the traditionally GTA taught 101 course, so my annoyance as a reader was probably in part from the fact his interpretation didn't seem to fit with my own experience, even though I'm at the heart (demographically) of the problem he is addressing. I think if I were teaching the quintessential course he takes issue with (which I assume is normative), this book would be a much-needed sobering wake-up call.
Like I said, I understand the argument and generally agree, but this book was horrible to read. Smit really needs to fire his copy-editor, and I realized at chapter four that all his arguments are basically variations on "this isn't specific enough," which is legit, but also very hard-nosed and repetitive. His constant repetition that our current lines of thought in composition theory have reached the limit of what they can tell us never struck me as qualified assertions. You can't always predict innovation--in fact you usually can't, so how can you assert that there's nothing else useful down a given idea path?
On the other hand, I teach in a program that (I now suspect) took this book to heart in its structuring, and my program would not be a good representative of the traditionally GTA taught 101 course, so my annoyance as a reader was probably in part from the fact his interpretation didn't seem to fit with my own experience, even though I'm at the heart (demographically) of the problem he is addressing. I think if I were teaching the quintessential course he takes issue with (which I assume is normative), this book would be a much-needed sobering wake-up call.
October 6, 2012
Professional reading. Worthwhile.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews