Composition In The University

Composition in the University examines the required introductory course in composition within American colleges and universities. Crowley argues that due to its association with literary studies in English departments, composition instruction has been inappropriately influenced by humanist pedagogy and that modern humanism is not a satisfactory rationale for the study of writing. Crowley envisions possible nonhumanist rationales that could be developed for vertical curricula in writing instruction, were the universal requirement not in place. Composition in the University examines the required introductory course in composition within American colleges and universities. According to Sharon Crowley, the required composition course has never been conceived in the way that other introductory courses have been--as an introduction to the principles and practices of a field of study. Rather it has been constructed throughout much of its history as a site from which larger educational and ideological agendas could be advanced, and such agendas have not always served the interests of students or teachers, even though they are usually touted as programs of study that students "need." If there is a master narrative of the history of composition, it is told in the institutional attitude that has governed administration, design, and staffing of the course from its beginnings--the attitude that the universal requirement is in place in order to construct docile academic subjects. Crowley argues that due to its association with literary studies in English departments, composition instruction has been inappropriately influenced by humanist pedagogy and that modern humanism is not a satisfactory rationale for the study of writing. She examines historical attempts to reconfigure the required course in nonhumanist terms, such as the advent of communications studies during the 1940s. Crowley devotes two essays to this phenomenon, concentrating on the furor caused by the adoption of a communications program at the University of Iowa. Composition in the University concludes with a pair of essays that argue against maintenance of the universal requirement. In the last of these, Crowley envisions possible nonhumanist rationales that could be developed for vertical curricula in writing instruction, were the universal requirement not in place. Crowley presents her findings in a series of essays because she feels the history of the required composition course cannot easily be understood as a coherent narrative since understandings of the purpose of the required course have altered rapidly from decade to decade, sometimes in shockingly sudden and erratic fashion. The essays in this book are informed by Crowley's long career of teaching composition, administering a composition program, and training teachers of the required introductory course. The book also draw on experience she gained while working with committees formed by the Conference on College Composition and Communication toward implementation of the Wyoming Resolution, an attempt to better the working conditions of post-secondary teachers of writing.

To many academics, composition still represents typewritten texts on 8.5” x 11” pages that follow rote argumentative guidelines. In Toward a Composition Made Whole, Jody Shipka views composition as an act of communication that can be expressed through any number of media and as a path to meaning-making. Her study offers an in-depth examination of multimodality via the processes, values, structures, and semiotic practices people employ everyday to compose and communicate their thoughts. Shipka counters current associations that equate multimodality only with computer, digitized, or screen-mediated texts, which are often self-limiting. She stretches the boundaries of composition to include a hybridization of aural, visual, and written forms. Shipka analyzes the work of current scholars in multimodality and combines this with recent writing theory to create her own teaching framework. Among her methods, Shipka employs process-oriented reflection and a statement of goals and choices to prepare students to compose using various media in ways that spur their rhetorical and material awareness. They are encouraged to produce unusual text forms while also learning to understand the composition process as a whole. Shipka presents several case studies of students working in multimodal composition and explains the strategies, tools, and spaces they employ. She then offers methods to critically assess multimodal writing projects. Toward a Composition Made Whole challenges theorists and compositionists to further investigate communication practices and broaden the scope of writing to include all composing methods. While Shipka views writing as crucial to discourse, she challenges us to always consider the various purposes that writing serves.

This volume describes the formative years of English composition courses in college through a study of the most prominent documents of the time: magazine articles, scholarly reports, early textbooks, teachers' testimonies-and some of the actual student papers that provoked discussion. Includes writings by leading scholars of the era such as Adams Sherman Hill, Gertrude Buck, William Edward Mead, Lane Cooper, William Lyon Phelps, and Fred Newton Scott.

In a data-driven world, anything can be data. As the techniques and scale of data analysis advance, the need for a response from rhetoric and composition grows ever more pronounced. It is increasingly possible to examine thousands of documents and peer-review comments, labor-hours, and citation networks in composition courses and beyond. Composition and Big Data brings together a range of scholars, teachers, and administrators already working with big-data methods and datasets to kickstart a collective reckoning with the role that algorithmic and computational approaches can, or should, play in research and teaching in the field. Their work takes place in various contexts, including programmatic assessment, first-year pedagogy, stylistics, and learning transfer across the curriculum. From ethical reflections to database design, from corpus linguistics to quantitative autoethnography, these chapters implement and interpret the drive toward data in diverse ways.

"What college writing instructors should know about working-class students--their backgrounds, experiences, identities, learning styles, and skills--in order to support them in the classroom, across campus, and beyond. Contributors explore the nuanced and complex meaning of "working class" and the values these writers bring"--Provided by publisher.

Edited by four nationally recognized leaders of composition scholarship, Composition, Rhetoric, and Disciplinarity asks a fundamental question: can Composition and Rhetoric, as a discipline, continue its historical commitment to pedagogy without sacrificing equal attention to other areas, such as research and theory? In response, contributors to the volume address disagreements about what it means to be called a discipline rather than a profession or a field; elucidate tensions over the defined breadth of Composition and Rhetoric; and consider the roles of research and responsibility as Composition and Rhetoric shifts from field to discipline. Outlining a field with a complex and unusual formation story, Composition, Rhetoric, and Disciplinarity employs several lenses for understanding disciplinarity—theory, history, labor, and pedagogy—and for teasing out the implications of disciplinarity for students, faculty, institutions, and Composition and Rhetoric itself. Collectively, the chapters speak to the intellectual and embodied history leading to this point; to questions about how disciplinarity is, and might be, understood, especially with regard to Composition and Rhetoric; to the curricular, conceptual, labor, and other sites of tension inherent in thinking about Composition and Rhetoric as a discipline; and to the implications of Composition and Rhetoric’s disciplinarity for the future. Contributors: Linda Adler-Kassner, Elizabeth H. Boquet, Christiane Donahue, Whitney Douglas, Doug Downs, Heidi Estrem, Kristine Hansen, Doug Hesse, Sandra Jamieson, Neal Lerner, Jennifer Helene Maher, Barry Maid, Jaime Armin Mejía, Carolyn R. Miller, Kelly Myers, Gwendolynne Reid, Liane Robertson, Rochelle Rodrigo, Dawn Shepherd, Kara Taczak

"This volume is an inquiry into community college first-year pedagogy and policy at a time when change has not only been called for but also mandated by state lawmakers who financially control public education. It also acknowledges new policies that are eliminating developmental and remedial writing courses while keeping mind that, for most community college students, first-year composition serves as the last course they will take in the English department toward their associate's degree. This volume also serves as a call to action to change the way community colleges attend to faculty concerns. Only by listening to teachers can the concerns discussed in the volume be addressed; it is the teachers who see how societal changes intersect with campus policies and students' lives on a daily basis."--Adapted from back cover

In Sounding Composition Steph Ceraso reimagines listening education to account for twenty-first-century sonic practices and experiences. Sonic technologies such as audio editing platforms and music software allow students to control sound in ways that were not always possible for the average listener. While digital technologies have presented new opportunities for teaching listening in relation to composing, they also have resulted in a limited understanding of how sound works in the world at large. Ceraso offers an expansive approach to sonic pedagogy through the concept of multimodal listening—a practice that involves developing an awareness of how sound shapes and is shaped by different contexts, material objects, and bodily, multisensory experiences. Through a mix of case studies and pedagogical materials, she demonstrates how multimodal listening enables students to become more savvy consumers and producers of sound in relation to composing digital media, and in their everyday lives.