Part IV: Implementing the Advanced Writing Curriculum

Part Four of Coming of Age, “Designing and Protecting the Advanced Writing Program,” is comprised of five essays that relate the attempts of different writing programs to establish a writing concentration or writing major.  In addition to giving practical advice about how to work with administrators, these authors talk about related issues, such as negotiating intradepartmental and interdepartmental politics.  McCormick and Jones write that "the establishment of our program became caught up in the typical 1990s institutional and disciplinary politics. This has, of course, long been the fate of writing and rhetoric programs as they have struggled within, against, or in harmony with departments of English."  Similarly, most of these authors work within English departments where the relationship between composition and literature must be carefully tended and where attempts to establish advanced writing programs leads to difficult debates over issues of secession (from English departments) and abolition (of first year composition).

In “From Profession to Discipline: The Politics of Establishing a Writing Concentration,” John Ramage recounts Arizona State University's English department’s move to establish a writing concentration.   While institutional support was not an issue, Ramage explains that negotiating with literature faculty and establishing a unified notion of “disciplinarity” among compositionists were difficult.  Proposing a writing concentration led to debates over the possibility of secession and abolition.  Ramage discusses the reasons for and against each possibility in terms of the specific material circumstances of ASU but states that the issues are still unresolved.  As advice to others, Ramage suggests that before approaching administration, programs should prepare a document that outlines the development of a writing concentration, demonstrates a relationship between the proposed action and university priorities, considers student demands, explains the ways that such a concentration will improve writing instruction and proposes a plan for measuring this improvement.

In “Needs, Numbers, and the Creation of a Writing Major,” Theresa Conefrey discusses her English department's successful attempt to create a writing major at the University of Hawai'i at Hilo.  Conefrey explains that as she lobbied for the writing major, she was careful to first address practical issues, such as improving career possibilities for students.  Additionally, she explains that she was mindful of territory boundaries and worked with the literature faculty who were published creative writers to help her build a secondary emphasis on creative writing.  Conefrey explains that her toughest resistance came, not from within the English Department, but from other humanities professors on overseeing committees, who "insisted that our writing program did not have 'enough' writing, since on-line writing was not 'really' writing" and "insisted that the only way to teach good writing was through literature."

Discussing their writing concentration at George Mason Univeristy, Ruth Overman Fischer and Christopher J. Thaiss suggest “Do what you can with what you have right where you are" as advice to other programs and deparments.  In "Advancing Writing at GMU: Responding to Community Needs, Encouraging Faculty Interests," Fisher and Thais discuss the reasons they have opted to maintain their writing concentration rather than pushing for a writing major separate from English. They suggest that other departments and programs take the following factors into consideration when working toward similar change: "faculty interests and strengths," the advantage of starting small, opportunities for program diversification by working with other programs and departments, and the availability of funding from outside the university.
 

Kathleen McCormick and Donald C. Jones describe the development of a major in the Rhetoric, Language, and Culture Department (which houses the first-year composition program) at the University of Hartford.  In "Developing a Professional and Technical Writing Major That Integrates Composition Theory, Literacy Theory, and Cultural Studies," McCormick and Jones write that the only possible way their newly created department could gain approval for its own major was if it were "money-generating."  For this reason, they opted for a Professional and Technical Writing major, which they tailored to their own interests, combining "key work in technical writing theory and practice with work in composition, literacy theory, and cultural studies."  They discuss the difficulty in building interdepartmental relationships and avoiding turf wars.

Part IV concludes with David Schwalm's "Getting Approval," which offers a number of practical suggestions for getting an advanced undergraduate writing curriculum approved.  Schwalm suggests beginning with a clear map of the bureaucratic path--deadlines, document guidelines, and key decision makers.  Next he suggests thinking carefully about audience and remembering that what is perfectly clear to compositionists may not be understandable, not to mention persuasive, to others. Further, he emphasizes the importance of researching student need and demand, estimating costs, and connecting the program proposal to larger goals of the department and university.


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