Part I: Advanced Composition, Past and Future

In Part I of Coming of Age, Lynn Z. Bloom, Robert A. Schwegler, Thomas P. Miller, and Linda K. Shamoon critique the ideology driving the undergraduate writing curriculum. These writers are concerned that the linear, narrow series of writing courses commonly offered in the university reflects an ideology that equates writing with a basic set of transferable skills. As Shamoon writes, “If there is no curricular presence . . . there seems to be nothing of substance to study, little to separate the area’s activities as distinctive, few skills to be learned, and little expertise to be mastered” (42). Taking historical and theoretical perspectives, this set of essays argues for the creation of an undergraduate writing curriculum that eliminates the black hole between first year comp and graduate studies, one that addresses writing as a field of study, reclaims the rhetorical traditional of civic engagement, and prepares students for careers as professional writers.

Lynn Z. Bloom’s essay “Advancing Composition” takes an historical look at advanced composition, reviewing a fifty-year sample of documents attesting to the nature of the ubiquitous but amorphous advanced composition course. Bloom identifies two primary problems with the course. At best it’s a “pig in a poke” that fails to set a standard for writing instruction. When defined, it’s often reductively approached as a mere continuation of first-year composition. Bloom urges us to abandon this linear rhetorical model and to adopt instead Richard Haswell’s “developmental approach.”

In “Curriculum Development in Composition,” Robert Schwegler argues that our narrow conception of writing as a set of transferable skills has inhibited the development of a rich and diverse writing curriculum. The belief that writing is a content-less study of skills while literature is a field of study has resulted in a rich and diverse literature curriculum and a narrow, utilitarian series of writing courses. Schwegler suggests that the advanced writing curriculum should address writing by its context-specific subject matter in a manner “analogous to canon formation in literary studies," creating a broad and diverse writing curriculum that would offer specialized study in different discursive and social fields, such as editing and publishing, writing for the community, media and political writing.

Thomas P. Miller’s “Rhetoric Within and Without Composition: Reimagining the Civic” analyzes the 18th century ceding of rhetoric to literary studies and draws a parallel between this occurrence and our contemporary situation. Miller argues that the nexus of current social, political, economic, and technological change offers us an opportunity to return to the roots of our civic tradition. In his cogent historical overview, Miller discusses the reasons rhetoric was reduced from a dynamic tool of political and social action to a quantifiable set of skills.

In “The Academic Effacement of a Career: ‘Writer,’” Linda K. Shamoon points out that Peterson’s Guide to Four Year Colleges fails to list “Writing” as an academic field. Shamoon interviews twelve professional writers in order to define the field of writing and begin to imagine what the undergraduate writing curriculum should look like.

Richard Bullock’s essay “Feathering Our Nest? A Critical View from Within Our Discipline” completes Part I, providing a balanced view of the advanced writing curriculum in a critical, but fair, assessment of the motivations behind its development. Bullock asks us to carefully assess our motivation for creating an undergraduate writing curriculum lest we put our own needs above those of our students. He argues that "The desire to work with talented, motivated writing students is not reason enough to offer advanced courses and undergraduate writing degrees if the job market doesn’t provide a place for our graduates” (22).

Predictably, rhetoric and composition’s relationship with literature surfaces frequently in these essays--and those in Part IV--as a tension between our desire to be like literature (or at least attain its previous status) and the desire to define ourselves in opposition to literature. Sharon Crowley's call for the abolition of first year composition also echoes throughout the text. However, as Robert Connors writes in his afterword, "[t]he contents of this book take us beyond abolitionism" (148). The authors offer the advanced writing curriculum as a constructive (rather than a destructive) means of achieving our goals and forging more equitable relationships with our colleagues throughout the university.


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