Exploring Composition Studies

Sites, Issues, Perspectives

Kelly Ritter and Paul Matsuda

Publication Year: 2012

<DIV><P>Kelly Ritter and Paul Kei Matsuda have created an essential introduction to the field of composition studies for graduate students and instructors new to the study of writing. The book offers a careful exploration of this diverse field, focusing specifically on scholarship of writing and composing. Within this territory, the authors draw the boundaries broadly, to include allied sites of research such as professional and technical writing, writing across the curriculum programs, writing centers, and writing program administration. Importantly, they represent composition as a dynamic, eclectic field, influenced by factors both within the academy and without. The editors and their sixteen seasoned contributors have created a comprehensive and thoughtful exploration of composition studies as it stands in the early twenty-first century. Given the rapid growth of this field and the evolution of it research and pedagogical agendas over even the last ten years, this multi-vocal introduction is long overdue. </P></DIV>

Published by: Utah State University Press

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Some fifteen years ago, Lynn Bloom, Don Daiker, and Ed White published . . .

Introduction: How Did We Get Here?

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pp. 1-10

Composition studies—an important subset of the larger field of rhetoric and composition—is an intellectual formation that draws insights from . . .

I: The State of the Field(s)

1. Creation Myths and Flash Points: Understanding Basic Writing through Conflicted Stories

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pp. 13-35

By now there is a well-developed literature attesting to the importance of stories—of narrative—for the development of institutional, cultural, . . .

2. Teaching Composition in the Multilingual World: Second Language Writing in Composition Studies

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pp. 36-51

The student population in U.S. college composition programs is not what it used to be. This statement rings true regardless of which period . . .

3. Remapping Professional Writing: Articulating the State of the Art and Composition Studies

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pp. 52-72

In 1993, Patricia A. Sullivan and James E. Porter published “Remapping Curricular Geography: Professional Writing in/and English” in the . . .

4. Writing Center Scholarship: A “Big Cross-Disciplinary Tent”

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pp. 73-88

In his keynote address at the 2004 Thomas R. Watson Conference, Neal Lerner captured an essential quality of research and scholarship . . .

5. WAC’s Disappearing Act

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pp. 89-104

In their contribution to this volume, “Creation Myths and Flash Points,” Linda Adler-Kassner and Susanmarie Harrington invite us to view the . . .

6. Scholarly Positions in Writing Program Administration

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pp. 105-119

II: Innovations, Advancements, and Methodologies

7. Reimagining the Nature of FYC Trends in Writing-about-Writing Pedagogies

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pp. 123-144

As the introduction to this volume notes, the advent of the field of composition studies was marked by the emergence of specialized theory- and . . .

8. Transfer, Portability, Generalization: (How) Does Composition Expertise “Carry”?

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pp. 145-166

Transfer, a term with myriad connotations, has become key to recent discussions in composition studies. The process it names encapsulates . . .

9. Writing Assessment in the Early Twenty-first Century: A Primer

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pp. 167-187

By definition, writing assessment is at the heart of composition studies: through pedagogically based assessment practices like responding to . . .

10. Studying Literacy in Digital Contexts: Computers and Composition Studies

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pp. 188-198

In a twenty-first-century world shaped increasingly by digital environments for creating and communicating meaning by electronic . . .

11. “What Goes On Here?”: The Uses of Ethnography in Composition Studies

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pp. 199-210

“What is the postmodernist critique of ethnography?” was a question posed to me by a member of the search committee on a campus visit for . . .

12. Archival Research in the Field of Rhetoric and Composition

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pp. 211-222

As researchers in rhetoric and composition, we are drawn to the pursuit of information that is revealed only in archival documents—the . . .

13. Writing Pedagogy Education: Instructor Development in Composition Studies

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pp. 223-240

Within composition studies, the work of mentoring writing teachers inhabits a curricular space that is similar in significant ways to that of . . .

Afterword: Redefining the Ineffable -- Or, Creating Scholarly Presence and a Usable Future: An Editor’s Perspective

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pp. 241-246

Most editors of professional journals, likely all, provide guidelines for evaluating manuscripts submitted for possible publication. A key . . .

Works Cited

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pp. 247-273

Index

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pp. 274-276

About the Authors

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pp. 277-281

E-ISBN-13: 9780874218831
Print-ISBN-13: 9780874218824

Page Count: 300
Publication Year: 2012

Edition: 1