Intro to Writing Studies

Anyone who pursues a career as a college faculty member will teach writing—either formally, in a writing class, or informally, as we work with students who are new to our disciplines. However, many graduate students in the humanities have received no substantive training in the burgeoning field of writing studies. In English, career opportunities in writing studies have outpaced other field areas. The MLA’s 2016-2017 jobs list reported that 851 positions were advertised in English, 10% fewer than the previous year. Of those jobs, 217 were in writing studies, 187 were in British literature, and 172 were in American literature. Given that writing studies positions are also advertised elsewhere, the gap is likely larger. This seminar will explore key debates in writing studies research and teaching methodologies, program development, and disciplinary and institutional status. Writing studies is the newest name for “rhetoric and composition,” a field which declared its existence in the mid-1960s, and draws its praxes and theories from classical rhetoric, applied linguistics, cognitive and developmental psychology, literary criticism, civic education, creative writing, and progressive pedagogy. Scholarship in writing studies since the 1960s has sought to deepen our understanding of how transactions work among writers, readers, and texts. Writing studies prompts us to track how standards for “good” or “appropriate” academic writing change over time, and how the teaching of writing responds to social, political, institutional, and disciplinary forces. The readings in this course will help us to articulate our own philosophies of writing and shape approaches to pedagogy in our own fields. Topis will include the following: how writers develop; intellectual practices that foster community among learners; the ethics and politics of textual transactions, including assessment; students’ rights to their own language; literacy acquisition across media; working in transnational and translingual spaces; genre and rhetorical theory; fostering knowledge and skills transfer; the impact of intersectionality on pedagogy and program design; and labor justice. We will read works by foundational writing studies scholars including John Dewey, Wayne Booth, bell hooks, Victor Villaneuva, Jr. A. Suresh Canagarajah, and the current president of the Modern Language Association, Anne Ruggles Gere. Participants will have the opportunity to ask how writing studies can deepen the understanding of writing in our fields, regardless