21:5 3 M_LlBFiARY
Ichigan State
30 90‘ University

 

 

This is to certify that the
dissertation entitled

Negotiating Literacy: the Implications of Writing Program
Reform in one University

presented by
Michele R. Fero

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for the

Ph.D. degree in Rhetoric and Writing

 

 

 

 

MSU is an Afiinnative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer

-.—--—-c-n-.-o-I--

 

PLACE IN RETURN BOX to remove this checkout from your record.
TO AVOID FINES return on or before date due.
MAY BE RECALLED with earlier due date if requested.

 

DATE DUE DATE DUE DATE DUE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5108 K'lProi/AccaiPresICIRC/Dateoue indd

 

NEGOTIATING LITERACY: THE IMPLICATIONS OF WRITING PROGRAM
REFORM IN ONE UNIVERSITY.

By

Michele R. Fero

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Rhetoric and Writing

2009

“‘4' '-l

Copyright by
MICHELE R. FERO
2009

ABSTRACT
NEGOTIATING LITERACY: THE IMPLICATIONS OF WRITING PROGRAM
REFORM IN
ONE UNIVERSITY
By

Michele R. Fero

This study will analyze the process of revising a first-year writing program at a
large Midwestern university. The institutional structure and practice of first-year writing,
particularly the connected subject of basic writing, creates a site where many interrelated
areas of research converge—disciplinary, pedagogical, institutional, and especially larger
social concerns about diversity and equal opportunity in education. Thus, while the
reform effort is internally motivated, there are numerous external factors to consider.

The primary goal of this study is to understand and represent the reform effort as
situated within larger social and institutional contexts. The over-arching question is this:
What is at stake and for whom in revising the current curriculum? This question allows
me to explain the impact of institutional history, the role of administrative processes, and
the significance of different strands of research. Using critical theory, especially critical
theories of discourse, this study will highlight the complex relationship between
institutions, persons, and social change. In particular, institutional documents will be

examined for the key role they play in the process of change.

ACKNOWLEDGEMET

This dissertation simply would not exist without the encouragement, support, and
especially the patience of the many incredible people I’ve met in graduate school. Over
the years, my professors, advisers and committee members have witnessed the complete
spectrum of my emotions—my personal and academic challenges, my successes and
failures, and my ongoing struggle to understand what it really means to pursue and be
awarded with a PhD. They have given more than their time and expertise; they have
given of themselves. For this, I will always be grateful. For those closest to me and this
project, I owe you all.

Special thanks to Linda Adler-Kassner for introducing me to an area of study that
shaped the rest of my graduate life, including this dissertation. Thank you for the
opportunity to write about things that mattered to me and for all of your help in and out of
the classroom. You are a wonderful teacher and mentor. Thank you Julie Lindquist many
times over for all things great and small, and for more things than I can possibly list here
or anywhere. Thank you Stacy for enduring a year of ABD. I know it wasn’t easy.
Thanks also to family and friends who encouraged me not to quit, though I certainly
thought I wanted to. And thanks to several others in and out of the academy for helping
me find my perspective when it was lost.

I can honestly say that I have learned as much about myself as my field of study.
My understanding of my place in the world, in my community, and in the institution of

higher education has been forever changed by my experiences. Maybe that is the real

iv

purpose of an education after all. I am not sure this work or any other can really capture

it, but I believe this project reflects at least some of that development.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

The Road to Literacy is Paved with Good Intentions ......................................................... 1
Researching the Researcher ............................................................................................ 5
Study Overview .............................................................................................................. 7

CHAPTER ONE

Becoming an Academic: Class and the Hidden Dangers of Intellectual Labor ................ 10
Trading Class for Classes: fiom something to do to something to be .......................... 12
Investigating Literacy and the Educational Enterprise ................................................. 17
Putting Literacy into Context ........................................................................................ 22
Institutionalized Literacy .............................................................................................. 26

CHAPTER TWO

Writing Instruction at the University: A Brief Survey of Challenges, Politics and

Possibilities ....................................................................................................................... 33
The Emergence of a Discipline: What is Composition Anyway? ................................ 36
Finding the Meaning of “Work” in Composition ......................................................... 39
Recognizing the Work of “Others:” Historical Perspectives on Basic Writing ........... 44
Composition at the Institutional Level .......................................................................... 51
How do We Change a Curriculum and Will it Really Matter if We Do? ..................... 54

CHAPTER THREE

Defining Writing in an Inter-disciplinary Department ..................................................... 56
The Research Site: An Institutional Snapshot .............................................................. 56
Chapter Methodology ................................................................................................... 57
F irst-Year Writing Here: What Counts and Who Says So? .......................................... 62
Growing Pains and a Curious Graduate Student .......................................................... 68
Living with Ghosts: A Brief History of American Thought and Language. ................ 69
Behind the ATL Mission: Negotiating Writing in an Interdisciplinary Department... 70
Rethinking Writing and the Process of Change ............................................................ 74
Rethinking Writing. Again. .......................................................................................... 79
What’s Really in a Name? We are WRAC ................................................................... 85
Summary: What is a Curriculum Anyway? .................................................................. 92 -

CHAPTER FOUR

Persistence and Resistance: the Discourse of a Changing Writing Program .................... 94
Theoretical Orientation ................................................................................................. 95
Applying Discourse Theory to a Changing Writing Program .................................... 101
The Year of the Proposal: ATLAS and Other Options for ATL ................................ 110
Now Tell Me What You Really Think ....................................................................... 118
Conclusions ................................................................................................................. 1 27

vi

CHAPTER FIVE

The Implications of Writing Program Reform in one University ................................... 130
Study Summary ........................................................................................................... 130
It’s Only a Matter of Time: History, Bureaucracy, and Tenacity ............................... 133
The Discourse of a Discipline ..................................................................................... 141
Discourse, Power, and Possibility ............................................................................... 143
Discourse, Policy, and Advocacy ............................................................................... 145

Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 147

vii

Introduction

The Road to Literacy is Paved with Good Intentions

This is a study of one institution’s challenges in creating and sustaining a first-
year writing curriculum. This study brings together a range of research emphases because
writing instruction is linked to so many areas of inquiry—curricular, pedagogical,
administrative, institutional, and even political. Each individual area contributes to what
it means to design a writing program.1 The various attempts at curricular reform I studied
(only some of which succeeded) can be seen as entirely local, motivated by specific
university and departmental events. However, those same efforts can also be seen as
representing much larger concerns within the discipline of Composition and Rhetoric,
broader discussions of literacy and literacy instruction, and even issues about the
educational system.

Composition, for example, has a complicated history and (perhaps arguably)
didn’t gain much academic recognition until the 19505 or 19608. Writing instruction was
already a fixture in higher education and had been the subject of research and debate for
many years.2 However, the teaching writing was only beginning to be professionalized.
The National Council for the Teaching of English (N CTE) and Conference on College
Composition and Communication (CCC) had both been formed (N CTE long before the
CCCs) but the work of teaching writing was dispersed. Professionals whose work

emphasized writing were likely to be in English programs, only some which would have

 

' Though this study is specific to a university setting, many of the same questions and concerns could be
applied to writing programs in other settings, such as community centers.

2 Interestingly, writing instruction faced critiques for the same things that would turn up years later in
Composition literature.

offered any specific course work or training in Composition and Rhetoric. It wasn’t until
the 1970s that graduate programs in Composition and Rhetoric begin to grow.

Since then, there have been many versions of Composition’s history and just as
many suggestions for its future. This project is more closely linked to disciplinary
developments, the issues that emerged as graduate programs were appearing and new
professionals were trying to define a specific field, not a subject matter buried in an
existing field. It is the act of defining that raises questions about the history, purpose,
status, and overall development of what we now call Composition.

One source of debate in Composition can be put under the umbrella of work.
Because Composition (long before it emerged as a distinct field) is so closely tied to
writing instruction in colleges, especially first-year instruction, there is a strong link to
teaching as necessary work. As the field has grown, though, the importance of teaching
could be seen as diminishing, or at least as being overshadowed by the need for more
research, the need of theoretical models, and of course the need for more scholarship.3 In
fact, some teachers and scholars would argue that teaching writing has never been
awarded much status—not before Composition “became” a field or after. Then, the
possible distinction between teaching and research placed teaching even lower on work
ladder (so some would argue).

Research is definitely part of what sustains a discipline (it is. disciplinary work),
but there are also concerns with what we might call working conditions, which can
include salaries and the ability to earn tenure, availability of physical space and

departmental support and even life for some administrators—WPA work, for instance, is

 

3 Some early contributors include Stephen North, Louise Phelps, Gary Tate, James Berlin, and Sharon
Crowley.

often difficult and not well supported. In some cases, a writing program administrator
may not even hold that title, and might have numerous other obligations to juggle. When
conditions are questioned, the perceived value of all kinds of work comes under scrutiny
(e. g. Homer, Marshall, Bousquet).

In the gray area of value judgments and the meaning of work, adjuncts and
especially basic writing students and teachers comprise a particularly interesting group.4
Scholarship in basic writing routinely points out that basic writing classes are
predominately filled with minority and/or working class students (e. g. Rose, Gilyard,
Shor). The consistent demographic make up then leads to the ongoing argument that
basic writing is a tool to sort and separate students. Interestingly, adjuncts, graduate
students, or newly appointed faculty members are frequently at the fiont of basic writing
classrooms, making it possible to also argue that basic writing serves to sort students and
workers (Crowley).5

Further, because writing is closely linked to notions of literacy, it is important to
consider research that looks outside of typical classrooms and investigates a variety of
literacy practices in the home, community, and/or workplace (e. g, Heath, Gee, Brandt,
Cushman, Grabill). To fully understand the practices students bring with them to school,
we need some understanding of what happens in other areas. Finally, any discussion of
literacy must include some attention to larger shifting social and political contexts. Again,

schools deserve particular attention because schooling is a system—a very powerful

 

4 Basic writing can be considered independent of Composition, but is often classified as a sub-set, or sub—
discipline. In this project, basic writing is placed under the Composition umbrella because the program
under investigation offers both “regular” writing courses and basic writing courses.

5 This argument can be made of first-year writing more generally, especially if the school does not offer a
specific basic writing course.

social system—with consequences for those who cycle through it. Sometimes the
consequences are good; sometimes not.6

Thus, while the focus of the study is very specific, one particular department and
its challenges, the overall project should be understood as one part in a much larger
structure. The primary question driving the project is this: What is at stake and for whom
in changing the writing program? This question allows me to discuss the planning and
development process, to examine interrelated research emphases and importantly, to
explain some of the resistance to change I uncovered through the course of my research.
This study is not designed to evaluate changes, per se, but to describe the various
conditions and constraints surrounding the change process. The outcome of this project
will be of interest to anyone affiliated with a writing program, whether as an
administrator, full professor, or adjunct.

The descriptive nature of this study required several different types of data, along
with different theoretical and methodological approaches. Personal interviews and a wide
range of institutional documents (reports, meeting minutes, course descriptions, mission
statements, etc.) account for the majority of the data collected. However, these data serve
different functions throughout the project. In some cases, the data is meant only to
provide historical information about the department and university. Even many of the
personal interviews were designed solely to gather information. In other cases though,
especially in reference to certain documents, the selected data will be read using theories

of discourse (e. g. Fairclough, Foucault).

 

6 Studies that include the role of social class in education have much to offer in understanding why some
students may have adverse experiences with school.

Researching the Researcher

The stakes in literacy education are always, already high, but the stakes are higher
for some. My own educational experience provides a nice example fi'om which to begin.
When this project was first taking shape, I thought I would be studying a pilot course for
developmental writers at my university. I planned to cover both the planning phase (the
administrative work) but I also wanted to observe the course, learn about and from the
students—most importantly gain first-hand knowledge about how they experienced not
just the course but life in the university. For various reasons, however, the course didn’t
reach the pilot stage and I had to adjust my research trajectory. As it turned out, the
failure to get the pilot course approved and running within the anticipated time frame is
entirely representative of other attempts at change in this department. In fact, resistance
to change and an ever expanding time frame emerged as a key theme.

The shift in my study makes it incredibly difficult to discuss one of the more
pressing issues related to education and especially writing instruction, the impact of
social class for the students and perhaps for teachers, as well. If the demographics of the
pilot class would have been consistent with trends in basic writing, it would have
provided an excellent site. That isn’t to say the work I’ve done here isn’t interesting or
important. I believe it is. And, this project is still every bit about class, it’s just less
obvious. Education is never neutral and one of the ways in which schools (at all levels)
try to enact ideologies is through their curricular models. At the most theoretical level,
curriculums can be seen as representing social norms (often dominated by certain
groups), specific beliefs, and/or specific political leanings (see Lippi-Green, Schmidt,

Cadiero-Kaplan, for example). Unfortunately, curriculums ofien exist at a level far

removed fiom the people most affected by them. Furthermore, pro gram development is
largely an administrative act, involving a sometimes absurd amount of planning,
meetings, and paperwork, all of which can seem to result in absolutely nothing, a sea of
proposals, reports and minutes that never actually get approved and therefore, never have
a chance affect change. In this case, “seem” is an important term. As will be noted in
various places throughout this project, change can be hard to capture and just because
there have been no specific outward changes, things that can be measured or at least
documented, it does not mean that a change hasn‘t taken place. As such, studies like this
have much to offer the educational community, especially those working in writing
programs.

This study also contributes to conversations about literacy more broadly. While
the project is ultimately very specific in focus—one institution’s writing program—
educators at all levels must be aware of the shifting nature of literacy. Changing
technologies, new modes of communication, and numerous other variables affect what it
means “to be literate.” (Graff, Brandt, Kress, New London Group). Additionally, cultural
background, class background, and other identity markers can affect literacy learning and
literacy practices, which can then impact academic performance in a variety of ways. All
educators (and especially language educators) participate in furthering particular views of
literacy, so it is crucial that we all understand what underlies our courses, institutions, and
our own ideologies. A curriculum is ultimately a statement about what is valued, what is

expected, and also what is not.7

 

7 To be fair, even the best intentioned, well planned, well researched, and ethical curriculum might face any
number of roadblocks—no administrative support, loss of funding, poor timing, poor proposal writing, and
so forth.

Study Overview

Because the curricular focus masks class issues, chapter one is the place where I
bring together critical studies of schooling, work in literacy studies, and studies of social
class. The goal of this chapter is first to present schooling as a powerful social system
(following Swartz, Bourdieu, Douglas, Foley, and Holland). This chapter will also
include reference to studies of literacy because schools rely heavily on notions of literacy
(Heath, Cushman, Grabill). Finally, the role of social class will surface at various points
because class plays a significant role in how people experience education (Lindquist,
Lareau, etc.) Basic writing research is included not only because the program I studied
has a basic writing course, but because basic writing research also highlights the impact
of class in educational settings.

Chapter two examines the emergence of Composition as a distinct field, noting
disciplinary developments and institutional variables, such as where and how writing
programs come to exist within colleges. Because notions of writing and literacy and
inexorably linked, Composition holds a unique position on the academic landscape. All
of the social and political issues revolving around “literacy” often surface in writing
courses, especially first-year writing, which is often viewed as a proving ground or
training ground for teachers and students alike (Crowley). And while college writing
courses certainly pre-date what we now call Composition, a disciplinary focus is
especially important for this study because the attempts to integrate composition specific
practices into the writing program I studied were (and still are) a source of tension. Work

in Writing Program Administration and program development more generally will be

also referenced as a way to better explain the administrative aspects of curricular decision
making.

Chapter three discusses the specific writing program and department under
investigation. The majority of the data comes fi'om interviews and a range of institutional
documents, such as meeting minutes, departmental memos, mission statements, and
reports. The primary goal of chapter three is to describe the history of the department and
the various attempts to make changes, curricular and otherwise. In fact, one important
variable in the overall evolution of the department (of lack thereof) is rooted in the
department’s history. This chapter also helps to identify other points of contention within
the department and provides a glimpse of the key role administrative processes have
played here. The importance of creating persuasive reports and proposals, as well as
moving them through bureaucratic channels, is obvious.

Chapter four then analyzes key proposals and reports through the lens of
discourse theory, especially following the work of Norman Fairclough. Documents are
one of the primary ways in which the department I investigated actually argues for
change. Whether or not change happens is another matter. For the purposes of this
chapter, the written documents are the focal point. Discourse plays a key role in how
disciplines and institutions make knowledge, and discourse both reflects and shapes
social realities. After the administrative dust settles, the documents present particular
views of writing and teaching writing. The arguments these documents make, and make
possible, will be elaborated.

Chapter 5 closes this project. Whereas the overall project starts broadly and

narrows with each chapter, chapter 5 does the opposite. I start with specific local

implications for the program I studied and move outward. One surprising find was that
the goals and objectives for the writing program were not always a primary source of
disagreement. The bigger argument seems to be have been rooted in how the goals and
objectives would be met—with what materials and teaching styles, for example, along
with what resources. Then, I move to broader implications for disciplinarily growth and
other institutions. For professionals working in various strands of writing studies
(Composition, Composition and Rhetoric, English, etc.) this study offers both strategies
and pitfalls to consider when managing change. In closing, I address implications for

those groups that may be disadvantaged in higher education.

 

Chapter One

Becoming an Academic: Class and the Hidden Dangers of Intellectual Labor

1 never wanted to write a dissertation. I never wanted to go to college at all, and
finally did so out of desperation, the result of automation and company downsizing. I
probably could have found another distribution center, but even then, most of us doing
the work knew that labor jobs were in permanent decline. And, though it was ultimately
my decision to finally go to college, I went with caution and much skepticism. My early
resistance (and later, complete aversion) to college is perhaps the most critical part of this
story, though it won’t come up much after this chapter. Perhaps it seems self-indulgent to
put myself first, but who I think I was before college, who I think I started to become in
college, and who I flat out refused to become in graduate school, has everything to do
with this project—both for what it is and for what it is not. So, I can’t in good faith pass
on the product without disclosing a bit more about my educational process, which began
the moment I entered community college, but didn’t really get “interesting” until I
reached graduate school. It was in grad school that I started learning about why I felt
conflicted by school, and why I was especially miserable as a graduate student. It is
deeply ironic.

At 25, I left the manual labor world behind and threw myself into student life at a
local community college. Unable to completely give up working (had to eat, after all) I
initially moved to another distribution center that needed part time help. I later

“upgraded” to a part time office job. I swore I would never look back, no more hard

10

labor, a bright future. Hope. I didn’t have a plan and I didn’t have a clue, both of which
would come back to haunt me. At that moment, though, I felt adventurous and college
was fun. I took classes that sparked my curiosity and dropped the ones that didn’t (this
too would come back to haunt me). My course load varied from one semester to the next,
based in part on finances, but mostly based on my whims and my work schedule. After
three years and a very strange and circuitous route, which included everything from
business writing to basic guitar and Judo, I managed to earn an associates degree in
general studies. Still dissatisfied with my career outlook (why didn’t anyone tell me
liberal studies didn’t necessarily translate into better employment?) I decided I might as
well finish what I started. I took the next step and transferred to a nearby university,
swearing that one moredegree would be the end of it. Just two more years and I would
be on the road to “success.”

I could not have predicted the next several years. I have felt more than once like I
got sucked into a black hole and just recently got spit out the other side. The university
was not like the community college. Suddenly, my part time job didn’t have much of an
impact on the cost tuition and books. I couldn’t just take classes whenever I felt like it
and I couldn’t just overlook the ones that didn’t appeal to me. If there was going to be a
degree, there would have to be changes. I needed more daytime availability, which cut
into work. I already had an associate’s degree, so I needed upper—level classes with far
fewer sections to choose from. Even more aggravating, though, was my introduction to
university bureaucracy. Beyond the fact that I had problems with my financial aid
package (problems which lasted for two degree programs), what I thought would take

four semesters to complete was actually going to take five or more because not all of my

11

 

community college courses met equivalency. I had never been introduced to a transfer
guide. The credits counted toward my class standing, and my overall credits, but didn’t
count toward my degree.

More time. More money. More years in an occupation that I didn’t like. My office
job beat the warehouse I left behind, but production clerical turned out to be a not-so-
distant relative of manual labor. It was cleaner and less physically demanding, but it was
no less repetitive and mind numbing than putting books into boxes all day and it actually _
paid worse. In an effort to expedite things, I actually left the office life for a retailer so I
could work a varied schedule. Absorbing yet another pay cut, I started counting on
student loans to make up the difference, a mistake I might literally be paying for, for the
rest of my life. I swore I would never get into debt trouble. I watched my family struggle
under the burden of debt, always barely scraping by, and I vowed not to let that happen to
me. In fact, cost was one of the many things that made college seem pointless,
unreasonable, and unreachable. Later, I learned it was much more than that. I had
borrowed some to get through the first two years, but it was manageable, negligible even.
I still sometimes wonder if I should have just taken my Associate’s Degree and called it
good. But I didn’t. Instead, I invested even more into the educational system, with what I

perceive to be mixed results at best.

Trading Class for Classes: from something to do to something to be
The difference between doing academic things and being an academic is an
important distinction, one I didn’t recognize until academia went from a place where I

took classes to get a job, to the job itself. Student life was certainly different from what I

12

was used to, but it wasn’t that difficult to adjust. At the community college, in particular,
many people were returning adults with kids, jobs, and all kinds of life experiences. I did
not stand out at all, just another displaced worker trying to get ahead. At the university
level, it was a little more jolting, especially at first. I was frequently the oldest student in
the class; I didn’t live near campus; I didn’t participate in typical student life. It was very
lonely at times, but I managed to meet a few older folks in my major and life went on.
When I look back, I can honestly say I had a lot fun in many of my classes.

At the graduate level though, especially the doctoral level, the demands on my
sense of self were suddenly severe. In fact, much of my time in graduate school has been
troubling for me. I have met wonderfirl people and made great fiiends. I have even
enjoyed many of the classes I’ve taken. But the nature of academic work, and the life that
seems to go with it, have taken a toll on me. I sensed something was wrong during my
first semester as an MA student, but attributed it to all kinds of things—a very heavy
work load, the introduction to graduate life, teaching for the first time, and generalized
anxiety at everything being so different from my undergraduate life. I felt completely
unprepared. I talked to my MA advisor, my peers, and other professors. Everyone seemed
to think my anxiety level was “normal.” Plus, I was doing quite well. No one seemed
concerned but me. Graduate school was not supposed to be easy. It was meant to
challenge me, to push me. In good faith, I told myself it would get better and I committed
to finishing my first year before making any major decisions.

It was in that first year of coursework that I started to learn about the role of social
class in education, about the politics of literacy and literacy instruction, and began to

investigate what it really means to be educated. I was introduced to these issues largely

l3

"‘7'

 

through the scholarship on basic writing, a big part of the required first-semester course
for all new TAs. Basic Writing has been labeled many things—a subject, a discipline, a
sub-discipline of Composition, a political statement, a political nightmare, a cash-cow for
colleges and universities, an unfair sorting mechanism, a place for students to grow into
college level writing, and more. Basic writing is an area rich with research potential and
important implications for students, educators, and institutions of learning. This is not the
place for a literature review, but it is the place to explain a bit about the role of basic
writing in my graduate life. One extremely important part of my development came with
the discovery that certain groups of students turn up in basic writing courses time and
time again. Minority students, students from lower socioeconomic brackets, first-
generation college students, and various combinations of the three seem to be good
predictors. The other important discovery was that students in basic writing courses
seemed to struggle with much more than writing. For some students, struggling with
issues of identity, culture, and belonging also came with a college education.

The attention to notions of self was what struck me because despite my outward
success in all things academic, I don’t know that I have ever been truly comfortable being
“an academic.” Victor Villanueva’s Bootstraps remains one of the most powerful books I
have ever read (followed perhaps by Annette Lareau’s Unequal Childhoods). I remember
reading Bootstraps and crying because I “got it.” In fact, I “got” a lot of my required
reading. I am not a minority student, and I actually struggled very little with writing, but I
do have a working class (or even working poor) background and I recognized much of
myself and the students I taught. Many of them seemed suspicious, unconvinced that

college was going to be worth it. Others were totally convinced that college was the

14

 

magic potion they needed. Most of them worked more than they should have, given their
course loads. But like me, many of them needed to work to help finance their educations,
and though I do not know for sure, I think several were contributing to a household
income. They sometimes shared their struggles, in papers or in person, and many times, I
understood. During a cleaning binge (something I started doing to avoid doing this) I
found some old undergraduate work and took the time to read my portfolio from a non-
fiction writing course I took in my last year. Each piece centered on my collegiate life,
and reflected my uncertainty and underlying dissatisfaction with the whole experience. In
my final reflection for the course, I said very bluntly that I was glad I had come to
college, but that I knew it wasn’t “me” and I was glad to be finishing. Why did I write
that? What did that even mean?

Since then, most of my graduate career has been spent trying to understand
feelings of discomfort (for lack of a better word) in educational settings. I have learned a
lot about why the school system seems to work well for some, but not for others. I’ll
openly admit that I’ve argued with many folks about whether or not this system has
worked for me. The fact that I was able to become a Ph.D. student in a major research
university is certainly a marker of success, or at least a significant piece of social and
cultural capital. This is a dissertation, after all. Yet, I have never been able to shake the
feeling that something is not quite right. As meaningfirl as a Ph.D. should be, so should
be my permanent sense of unease in higher education. At least now I know I’m not alone
in my feelings.

Though I’ve spent most of my time learning about higher education, I’ve learned

that students can experience similar things across grade levels. I’ve also come to

15

understand that it matters who we are, where we come from, and who we decide we will
and won’t become as we go through school. What it means “to be educated” is far from
universal and different people experience education very differently. I have willingly
(sort of) become entrenched in a complicated, strange, and potentially hostile system.
Mostly because of my degree emphases—an MA. in Written Communication with an
emphasis on teaching writing, and a Ph.D in Rhetoric and Writing with an emphasis on
critical studies in literacy and pedagogy—writing, literacy, and literacy instruction are
focal points in my research.

Because literacy is a core concept in nearly all institutions of learning, it is critical
to investigate who gains access to what types of literacy experiences. Access, like
literacy, is a loaded term. And like literacy, access is affected by many of the same
things, such as class and institutional conditions. Additionally, identity markers, to
_ include class but also race, gender, and other subject positions, provide the lenses through
which people view education, and perhaps more importantly, shape the experience of
being educated. For instance, research indicates that minority students and/or students
from working-class class or working-poor backgrounds often experience both academic
and personal challenges in school (e. g. Rogers, Gee, Heath, Purcell-Gates). These
students seem to experience a conflict of beliefs, a conflict of self, and other forms of
dissonance as they are “being educated.” Literacy educators must find ways to
understand the complicated process of being educated. We must find ways to better
understand the full implications of what we do and attempt to discover why it doesn’t

often “wor ” for the same groups of students time and again. Only then can we

16

 

effectively train teachers, write about best practices, and design curriculums that don’t
automatically advantage some at the expense of others.

The remainder of this chapter will provide several perspectives on literacy
(broadly), literacy instruction, and the role of the educational system. Each section
focuses on a specific area: schooling as a social system, changing definitions of literacy,
and literacy in multiple contexts. None are comprehensive in nature. Rather, each section
is meant to provide an introduction to the wide range of issues and concerns associated

with literacy education, especially formal education.

Investigating Literacy and the Educational Enterprise

This section references a body of research and scholarship that has taken up
questions about the social consequences of mass education and serves to highlight the
powerful, systematic way schools function. Concerns about necessary and expected
literacy levels are hardly new, and mass literacy education has a long history of
questionable “sponsors,” (see Brandt) motivations, and results (see also Larson, Cadiero-
Kaplan). And while schools are not the only institutions involved in literacy education,
they are among the most socially influential. Therefore, research into literacy and literacy
learning must include some investigation of schooling as a particular kind of system—
one whose practices, values, goals, and effects, should not be seen as neutral, objective,
or even necessarily desirable.

The Cultural Production of the Educated Person: Critical Ethnographies of
Schooling and Local Practice is a fascinating and useful collection about the social

effects of schooling. The editors, Bradley Levinson, Douglas Foley, and Dorothy

l7

Holland, include ethnographies of schooling in a variety of places—the US, France,
Taiwan, Mexico, Bolivia, and more. The global perspective helps illuminate aspects of
the educational system that Americans may simply take for granted. For instance,
schooling takes children out of the home and emphasizes certain ways of thinking and
acting, while deemphasizing others. Whether or not this is desirable is actually quite
dependent. In “Formal Schooling and the Production of Modern Citizens in the
Ecuadorian Amazon’” Laura Rival describes the impact of formal schooling among the
Huaorani, a group of “hunters-and-gatherers” (153). The effects were quite remarkable.
Whole groups were forced to make significant changes their cultural practices, first by
having to stay near the school village when they normally would not. Schooled children
dressed differently and did not maintain many of their cultural behaviors, causing
differences between the formally—schooled children and the community-schooled
children.

Considering whether this is “good” or “bad” is less important than recognizing
that schooling is a powerful force with social consequences. At the same time, people are
not at the mercy of the educational experience. The editors use the term cultural
production to describe a theoretical fiamework for understanding the impact of
schooling: “Cultural production enables us to use the insights of structuralists as well as
culturalists as we probe how it is that groups construct identities inside specific sites”
(xi). This notion of cultural production studies the space between structure and agency,
seeing them in a dialectical relationship. Yes, schools send particular kinds of messages,
but students do not passively receive them; nor do they accept, resist or redefine those

messages only within school environments. The tension between structure and agency, as

18

part of the way people make sense of education, will be examined throughout this
chapter.

David Swartz also provides a useful theoretical foundation by revisiting the work
of Pierre Bourdieu. In Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu Swartz does
an excellent job of introducing and explaining some of Bourdieu’s key themes, such as
social class, capital, symbolic power, habitus, and field. Education figures prominently in
Bourdieu’s work and according to Swartz, Bourdieu’s concern with “. . .exploring the
intimate connections between class, culture, and power in modern stratified societies
ultimately leads him to study educational institutions” (189). Swartz says further that,
“Bourdieu sees the educational system as the principal institution controlling the
allocation of status and privilege in contemporary society” (189). This is a large claim,
yet access to better schooling (more prestigious, better equipped, better funded, better
staffed, etc.) typically leads to better social realities.

Chapter 8, “Education, Culture, and Social Inequality,” is especially noteworthy.
Here, Swartz elaborates on key aspects of Bourdieu’s analysis of the French Academy.
For example, Bourdieu’s work points to stratification within French higher education—
the most elite schools recruit and accept only the most socially elite. Through this
arrangement (and many others), “the educational system. . .reinforces rather than
redistributes the unequal distribution of cultural capital” (Swartz 191). Swartz
acknowledges that these theories might not easily apply to other countries, including the
US, but literacy studies in the US. support a similar pattern (see Heath, Anyon. Lareau).

Taken together, Swartz (via Bourdieu) and Levinson, Foley, and Holland provide

an important framework for thinking about the system of schooling. The idea that the

19

educational system is actually a powerful social tool that can (and does) create, maintain,
and otherwise influence complex social relationships is an important and recurring theme
in various types of educational research. How the system works, and how people work
within, without, and around the system, ultimately leads to deeper inquiries into notions
of literacy, which then lead to questions about class and access. In Response to Reform:
Composition and the Professionalization of Teaching, Margaret Marshall describes this
progression. This book is primarily about teaching (mostly teaching writing in college)
but literacy is an important underlying concept and Marshall devotes a significant amount
of time explaining her particular use of the term.

Citing Geraldine Clifford’s work, Marshall notes that each time the majority of
the population reaches an expected literacy level, the expectations increase. Then, once a
current view of literacy becomes widespread it becomes culturally significant; thus the
population gains a “literacy consciousness.” According to Clifford, this kind of literacy
consciousness shapes “institutional structures, political and social interactions and
values” (qtd. in Marshall, 6). Literacy levels then, become a marker that can be used for
social stratification. Similarly, Marshall cites John Trimbur, who argues that recurring
“literacy crises” and critiques aimed at schools are the results of “an ideology that uses
reading and writing abilities as a means of sorting the population into ‘masters’ and
‘servants’ (qtd. in Marshall, 6). While I find the terms master and servant archaic, I
accept the basic concept. Schools regularly sort students into a variety of categories,
many of them negative. Marshall then offers examples that support both Clifford and

Trimburs: the spread of literacy and the subsequent rise in arguments for more common

 

8 For more examples of how literacy and literacy campaigns have functioned on a broader scale, see Harvey
Graff’s “The Nineteenth-Century Origins of Our Times,” in Literacy: a Critical Sourcebook. Graff shows

20

schooling near the beginning of the nineteenth century, the literacy crisis of the 1980’s,
and especially the growing concern for writing ability in higher education.9

Rising literacy demands will always create advantages for some students and
disadvantages for others. In Defending Access: A Critique of Standards in Higher
Education, Tom Fox argues (rightfully) that standards have a history of performing gate-
keeping fimctions in higher education. Any time the status quo is threatened (as it was
during the 19605, for example) the calls for new and better standards appear. These
standards claim to be neutral and objective, but are always political. So, debates about
access are always also debates about standards. Fox is primarily concerned with Afiican
American students (Chapter 2 provides a concise account of Afiican American literacy
growth in the 19th century) but also mentions other groups who can be disadvantaged by
standards, such as working-class students.

In sum, the above work helps to identify education as the socially powerful
system it really is. Fox and Marshall both point out systematic strategies and patterns
which help to create, and then reinforce, various kinds of inequality. The collection of
ethnographies (Levinson, Foley, and Holland) provides more examples of the ways in
which schools alter social realities and perhaps more importantly, offer examples of how
people actually negotiate the impact of schooling. Despite some specific examples,

however, the references here are best read for their macro-level research contributions.

 

how, in the United States, particular notions of literacy, furthered through mass education, were essentially
designed to separate groups of people. The biggest beneficiaries of education were, arguably, not those who
needed it most.

9 Specific to writing/writing instruction, various strands of research in Composition (and especially Basic
Writing) addresses the role of institutions in social stratification because writing tends to be one way
students are “sorted” into categories. Some scholars have voiced harsh criticisms against preparatory
writing classes in particular, saying they serve only to stratify higher education because minority students
(many of whom are also working/lower class) are over-represented in lower-level writing courses (e. g.
Shor).

21

The following section will provide Specific examples of how literacy is
constructed and negotiated in different contexts. It provides a necessary supplement to
macro-level studies because context shapes literacy needs, desires, and demands, for
institutions and individuals. Recognizing how notions of literacy change from one
instance to another makes it possible to understand how definitions of literacy, and
subsequent practices, frequently come to compete or conflict with one another, especially
for at-risk students. For other students, home and school practices often complement one
another. Therefore, it is within specific contexts that we can see even more clearly the

tension between structure and agency.

Putting Literacy into Context

Conventional thinking would have it that more literacy is better. But who gets to
decide how much more, and more of what exactly? Further, who gets to decide the use(s)
of literacy? The term literacy has been become an identifier for a variety of concepts:
media literacy, critical literacy, information literacy, and even multi-literacies. This
indicates that definitions of literacy are highly contextual and constructed; they change
depending on a variety of individual, situational, and institutional constraints. Because
what it means to be literate is not fixed, it is crucial to consider the individual, group, or
institution doing the defining and those on the other side of the defining.

The following books and articles draw attention to a range of complex
relationships between literacy learning, people, and institutions. These references
highlight many of the complicated processes embedded defining literacy and literacy

learning, including but not limited to writing. Key points include the role of institutions in

22

 

determining what counts as literacy, how literacy skills will be taught and evaluated, and.
who should be involved in determining the goals and objectives.10 Any writing
curriculum can be seen as an institutional statement about literacy, and underlying all
definitions of literacy are assumptions about what counts as valuable knowledge in the
first place—assumptions that must be continually questioned. There are numerous books
and articles to draw from, but in the confines of one chapter, I can only include a small
sample of work. I have chosen books and articles that show a conflict or disconnect
between the literacy expectations of a determining agent and the people meant to become
“more literate.”

For instance, changing technologies affect assumptions about what it means to be
literate and so have implications for curricular decisions. Consider, for example, “A
Seven Power Lens on 2ls‘-Century Literacy: Instilling Cross-Disciplinary Visual, News
Media, and Information Literacy Skills.” Author Debbie Abilock presents a teaching
method which asks students to look at news media through seven different lenses: senses,
inference, research, contexts, evaluation, synthesis, and teaching. Abilock writes that
“Explicit teaching of 215t-century literacy metaskills can position students to analyze and
evaluate news reporting in today’s visually drenched world” (30). She begins with the
senses noting that, “The visual language of the news can be read” (30, fig. 1). Each new
lens asks students to consider the image, and attached news article in a more complex
way, taking into consideration all the variables involved in producing it. This article is
worth noting because it implies that these are necessary literacy skills for the 21St century.

While it is certainly true that more and more print material is actually online material, and

 

‘0 It is important to point out here that institutions are not represented as all-powerful, however. Institutions
cannot function without people, and people choose to engage with institutions in a variety of creative ways.

23

 

it is mostly true that print communication is actually a combination of print, pictures,
sound bytes, and even interactive modules, it is not necessarily true that all students have
had equal access to the kinds of technologies that make Abilock’s sequence useful or
even possible.ll

In a similar article, Ladislaus Semali is concerned with media literacy, saying that
“The explosion of media literacies has outpaced our pedagogy, our curricula and methods
of instruction, and the definition of what it means to be literate in a multimedia society”
(271 ). “Ways with Visual Languages: Making the Case for Critical Media Literacy” is
consistent with other articles that consider k-12 education and the tension between new
media and our current climate of school reform. Semali mentions several states that have
enacted one or more major school reform policies. One consequence seems to be a move
away from new media and a refocusing on what we might call traditional print. This is
cause for concern because, “. . .new literacies education. . .would strive to develop literate
people who are able to read, write, listen, talk, analyze, evaluate and produce
communication in a variety of media, including print, television, music, video film, radio,
and Internet technologies” (Semali 272).

For Semali, this is critical media literacy, meant to train democratic citizens, enact
social change, and resist dominant power relationships: “Media literacy aims to move
audiences from awareness to action, from passivity to engagement, from denial to
acceptance of responsibility for what each of us can do. . .as participants of our media-

dominated society” (275). What Semali is advocating is closer to what some scholars

 

” Here, I am not suggesting that poor or working class students (or citizens in general) could not benefit
from the kind of critical examination advocated here, or that any group should be excluded from particular
pedagogies. I am merely suggesting that access is not universal. Any pedagogical approach should be
examined for its possible impact on a range of students, not just the “ideal" student.

24

might call critical pedagogy. However, his hope for active and engaged citizens is
noteworthy and other scholars have supported the idea that student productions (which he
advocates) allow for increased agency. As with Abilock, however, the ability to enact this
kind of pedagogy is weighted with assumptions about not only what students need, but
about what they do and don’t already know. Why would we assume that students are
passive or unaware?12
Many educators see “media literacy” or “visual literacy” as an important trend
and it would be unwise to ignore the importance of emerging technologies (see also
Bustle, George, New London Group, Kress, Selber). We live in a visually saturated
culture and technology is changing the ways in which we all communicate. It is important
that educators help students critically assess, use, and produce knowledge in new ways.
Yet, a significant amount of this research and practice is linked to digital technologies—
current hardware and software at the very least—and the changing nature of writing. No
one can produce a personal web page or a video for a course without access to the right
equipment and the right training. Unfortunately, not everyone can expect to receive either
one. In “The Digital Divide as a Complex and Dynamic Phenomenon” Jan van Dijk and
Kenneth Hacker show that unequal access to technologies is still common. They argue
that access means more than material access; true access also requires experience, skills,

and opportunities for usage. Therefore, it is possible to have material goods, such as a

computer, but still fail to have adequate access.

 

'2 Because curricular choices, and even whole education programs, can rest on assumptions about what
students are supposed to know, student who don’t know specific things can be disadvantaged before they
ever enter the classroom. Thus, definitions of literacy (especially when they change) can serve a “gate
keeping” function in education. Teachers and scholars have written much about the notion of gate keeping,
especially as it relates to writing and language education more broadly. Gatekeeping will be referenced
again later in this chapter and in the next.

25

”in!

 

Age, income, education, race, and ethnicity were shown to affect access, with
income and education being especially important. Lower income and/or educational
attainment correlated with limited access (van Dijk and Hacker). It might follow then,
that certain students need this type of literacy instruction even more, that certain students
would benefit from it even more because a gap in access exists. I would argue, though,
that such a pedagogical assumption could easily work in reverse, giving students that
already have advantages even greater advantages and widening the gap even further for
other students.

The issues and concerns identified with the use of technology are not limited to
technology; technology provides a good example because it is so prevalent. The
underlying issue is actually one of access, agency and opportunity within a structured
system (schooling, in this case). Any writing curriculum can be seen as an institutional
statement about literacy, and underlying all definitions of literacy are assumptions about
what counts as valuable knowledge in the first place—assumptions that must be

continually questioned.

Institutionalized Literacy

The remaining references engage these questions more thoroughly. For example,
all literacy programs have goals and objectives, but the ways in which those goals and
objectives come to be, and the ways in which people choose to engage with them (or
resist them) is hardly uniform. In Community Literacy Programs and the Politics of
Change, Jeff Grabill more explicitly investigates the relationships between literacy,

people, and institutional variables. Though Grabill uses work in Composition and

26

Rhetoric to help situate his project, he looks specifically at writing that takes place
outside of academia. Looking outside the typical school classroom (college or otherwise)
is important because, as the title suggests, this is not a book about academia or academic
models of literacy.

Grabill analyzes adult basic education (ABE) in two contexts, a workplace
literacy program and an ABE class. Through examples and interviews, Grabill
demonstrates a variety of conflicts and conflicting ideals. For example, the ABE class
seems to rely on a functional, a-contextual model of literacy learning, one that many
academics would not favor. Media literacy and/or multi-literacies were not a factor here.
Yet, students continued to attend and two indicated (in interviews) that they were very
happy with the instruction. In the workplace program however, some students chose not
to attend certain classes and those that did attend had reasons that did not necessarily
relate to work.

Why this mismatch? Grabill’s book takes into account the important role of
institutions in the definition and deployment of “literacy skills” and literacy programs. In
fact, in the very first chapter, Grabill writes that “Perhaps the key concept in this book is
“‘institution.”’ I will argue that institutions give literacies existence, meaning, and
value...” (7). In short, what it means to be literate might be defined by an employer, a
school, or a test (among other possibilities). At the same time, Grabill points out that
people are a necessary part of institutions. I find the space between the individual and the
institution a compelling area of inquiry because defining a curriculum is very much like
defining and regulating access—what information is privileged and why? Who will

decide? In response, Grabill lays out a model for good program design, which he calls

27

“Participatory Institutional Design.” Good design, in this case, is democratic in its ideal,
and must strive to include those affected and especially those not normally represented.

The brief article “Leadership Through Language and Literacy: How Immigrants
Repositioned Themselves into Active Community Participants Through Classroom
Discourse,” by Sherry Drobner also identifies conflicts in a community based literacy
program. The article discusses an initiative called, “The Write to Read” program. At the
time, Write to Read was one of many programs being offered in different California
libraries. The Write to Read program was designed to broaden literacy services by
moving to small group instruction (from one-to-one tutoring). According to Sherry
Drobner, she wanted to write about the program because “. . .the students found the
process provocative, exciting, and life changing...” (1 1). The program ran for three years
and became known as “The Leadership Class.” The actual data represented comes from
interviews, focus groups, entries from written journals and fi'om student evaluations. The
participant list is small, just six adults (four immigrants), ranging in age from 30—55. Five
are women.

The students entering the class primarily wanted to improve their skills, especially
in conversation. However, the teacher (Michael James) “. . .had much higher goals for the
students.” (12). Rather than seeing themselves as immigrants, the students could see
themselves as citizens, voters, and leaders. Personal narratives provided a vehicle for
students to explore their social positions. Various quotes from the students seem to
indicate that they did develop a more critical awareness of their own positionality in and
through society. The teaching approach outlined here closely follows that of Paulo Freire,

whose book Pedagogy of the Oppressed is often cited as “the” model for teaching critical

28

literacy. Michael James studied with Freire and Drobner even calls this model education
for fieedom. What I would have liked to see, though, is her engagement with the fact that
many students dropped the class. Drobner mentions this briefly, saying only that, “As the
goals of the class became clearer, only those students interested in stronger community
involvement remained with the project” (11). I wonder why the need or desire to improve
communication skills is not considered a worthy goal, or why the students’ goals were
not taken into consideration.

A similar tension can be seen in “The Politics of Teaching Literate Discourse,” by
Lisa Delpit. This article is largely a response to a set of papers authored by the linguist
James Gee. Delpit challenges several of Gee’s main claims. For example, in “Literacy,
Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction and What Is Literacy?” Gee claims that students
can really only be fluent in their home discourse (primary) and that success in secondary
discourses (like that of schools) is predicated on the relationship between the two.13
Basically, Gee claims that the only way to really have fluency in a dominant discourse
(and thus be successful) is to be born into it. If Gee is correct, then most dominant models
of literacy represent locked doors with keys that can only be handed down in the family.
This doesn’t bode well for minority groups and/or working class students, as these groups
tend to be the ones who struggle most. Delpit takes Gee to task for such an overly
deterministic view. To counter, Delpit points to numerous examples of successful Afiican
American students, all of whom managed to learn the language of school with real

SUCCESS .

 

'3 Work in discourse studies, linguistics, and educational ethnography (among others) has shown that
language practices outside of school settings, such as those practiced at home, also influence educational
experiences. Home practices that more closely match those at school provide advantages for students.

29

 

What is equally important to note is that Delpit points to many “liberal” or
“progressive” teachers who claim it is oppressive to teach students the dominant
discourse. Instead, these teachers want to validate students’ home languages and help
them find their authentic voices (whatever that meansl). Delpit points out that many poor,
working class, and/or minority students complain bitterly because they want to learn
Standard English. This article raises important questions about educational agendas and
whose will get privileged. If educators do not help students learn how to negotiate
academic language, then once again, the social gains of literacy learning may be lessened.
Delpit’s article also points to the complex relationship between literacy, identity, and
access because “appropriate” language skills are linked to increased access (to further
schooling and better jobs, for instance). The students with already limited access wanted
the cultural capital that comes with the “right” language. Failure to acknowledge their
perspective is both selfish and unfair.

One final book (for now) that openly addresses potentially competing visions of
education is Stephen Fishman and Lucille McCarthy’s Whose Goals? Whose
Aspirations? Learning to Teach Underprepared Writers Across the Curriculum. This
book is primarily about F ishman’s experiences with under-prepared writers in his
Introduction to Philosophy course. The authors frame the study as a teacher-research
project, with the impetus coming from Fishman’s desire to find ways to help
underprepared writers in his course. For the purposes of this book, Fishman defines
underprepared writers as, “pupils whose lack of experience reading and writing in the so-
called standard code puts them at a disadvantage in his classroom” (Fishman and

McCarthy 5). F ishman is a philosophy teacher, not a writing teacher. His philosophy

30

 

 

course met a general education requirement, so the students in the course needed the
credits to graduate. The course was considered writing intensive, but philosophy was the
core content. Co-researcher and co-author Lucille McCarthy is a composition researcher
who observed F ishman’s course, looked at student writing, and also spoke with the
students that make up the majority of the book.

The blending of student, teacher, and outside researcher perspectives make this
book unique. Their perspectives sometimes agree, sometimes conflict, and sometimes
overlap. For instance, in one case example, Neha (an Indian woman) already held a
degree from an Indian university; yet, her writing did not meet academic expectations.
She resented being forced to take the course and was fi'ustrated because she felt her true
goals (to return home) were being delayed. Both F ishman and McCarthy explore their
particular positions as another way to understand their responses to the students’ writing
and the students as people. Fishman is a privileged white male, but onewith a particular
minority experience due to his Jewish heritage. McCarthy is a woman, yet her ethnic
background (Anglo-Scandinavian) provided her with a very different kind of social
capital. Still, both Fishman and McCarthy recognize their privileged positions respective
to the students. Tellingly, the case studies are of non-white students (two Afiican
American women and one ESL student, along with Neha). This is regretfully typical in
research about under-prepared students.

To this point, the common denominator I’ve tried to highlight is the tension that
can exist between institutional demands and actual people. People that don’t seem to
meet various institutional expectations or models, or choose to challenge them, are often

the same groups. And all too often, the same groups are institutionally marked by labels,

3]

 

placements, pedagogies, and educators that (usually) have the students’ best interests at
heart. Of all things, this is perhaps the most perplexing and serious question to ponder.
How can institutions like schools genuinely meet the needs of a diverse population,
taking into consideration multiple perspectives and significant variables—from individual
goals to much broader concerns like public pressure, budgets, and administrative actions?
Is it even possible?

In sum, this chapter provides a framework for thinking about the remainder of the
book. First, the educational system is about the business of creating literate persons and
writing is inexorably linked to notions of literacy. Yet, literacy is an incredibly vague
term, almost meaningless without additional context (which can be found in homes,
schools, work places, and communities). Therefore, it is important to understand how
multiple influences all work to construct literacy, literacy learning, and the ways in which
people experience becoming literate. For some, the experience is unpleasant at best, and
downright harmful at its worst. With so many institutional constraints, the concept of
literacy rrright seem impersonal and completely out of the hands of actual literacy
learners; this is not the case. Institutions are powerful players, but people are, too. People
can engage, disengage, or engage in unexpected ways, and they do. While the remainder
of this project will narrow substantially in focus, first by discussing the development of
composition as a discipline, and then to analyzing a specific university department and its
changing writing program, this chapter should be remembered for its implications about

the work educators dO—whether in the classroom, conference room, or break room.

32

Chapter Two
Writing Instruction at the University: A Brief Survey of Challenges, Politics and

Possibilities

“Those of us who teach composition to undergraduates are engaged in the newest level of

common school literacy” (Marshall 4).

The previous chapter presented the view that schooling is a powerfirl social
system that relies heavily on notions of literacy. Chapter one also introduced specific
issues related to literacy education, such as the shifting and highly contextual nature of
literacy, the role of institutions in defining and evaluating literacy, and the ways in which
identity markers like culture and class (among other things) can affect literacy learning—
and by extension, can affect the entire educational experience. ‘4 This chapter will
examine a specific type of literacy instruction: writing courses at the university level. In
particular, this chapter will discuss a very specific type of institutional creation—first-
year writing.

Writing is hardly new to the standard college curriculum, but first-year writing is
unique in its institutional position and firnction. Because first-year writing courses, and
the various programs that sustain them, are in the business of perpetuating specific types
of literacy as students first enter college, they deserve careful study. At most universities,

students must take and pass one or more writing courses to graduate. If students do not

 

'4 Despite the significant role of institutions, it is important to keep in mind that institutions are not all—
powerful. The relationships between people and various institutions are in a state of constant negotiation.
People can and do find creative ways to accept, resist, modify, or otherwise engage with institutional
demands.

33

 

 

pass, they risk being held back from other studies, they can incur extra tuition costs, and
in the worst case, they may not receive a degree. Students who don’t already possess or
quickly acquire “appropriate” kinds of academic literacy may also be labeled in a variety
of ways, from under-prepared to merely unmotivated.15 This process in not new, but
continued work in literacy studies (e. g. Brandt, Delpit) along with the influence of critical
approaches in educational research (e. g. Pennycook, Rogers, Gee) has continued to raise
serious questions that literacy educators of all levels should take into consideration.16
“Literacy” is not a universal concept and it should not be seen as neutral. There are
consequences attached to literacy, literacy education, and the educational experience, all
of which can be associated with first-year writing.

For the purposes of this chapter, and as a way to frame the specific writing
program I studied, 1 will bring together references from three areas: institutional,
administrative (Writing Program Administration and local institutional variables) and
disciplinary (primarily from Composition and/or Composition and Rhetoric). The
administrative and institutional elements are closely related and will frequently overlap.
Each of the three areas has its own body of work, but all three are important in
understanding first-year writing. First-year writing is first and foremost an institutional
structure, which might stand alone, but could also be represented by one or more classes
offered within a larger department (such as English, Composition or a Composition and

Rhetoric program, among other possibilities). For instance, the writing program I studied

 

‘5 Basic writing courses are the sites where many “under-prepared” students find themselves, sometimes by
choice, but more often by placement. Some uniVersities have basic writing courses and some do not. Basic
Writing can be considered a discipline; its research and scholarship is unique in many ways. But basic
writing is sometimes considered a sub-field of Composition. The writing program I studied does include
basic writing courses, so research on basic writing is relevant and will be addressed later in this chapter.

'6 See chapter one for a brief review of literature related to changing definitions of literacy and some of the
implications of literacy instruction.

34

 

is embedded in a larger, interdisciplinary department, offering a variety of writing
courses (many advanced) and also courses in American Cultural Studies. Additionally,
the department itself is part of a specific college within the university, the College of Arts
and Letters. As such, there are numerous stake holders involved in the evolution of the
writing program—different faculty members within the department, various college
administrators of all levels, and of course, the students.

While there are numerous ways to approach first-year writing, a disciplinary lens
provides a useful entry point because the development of Composition as a discipline has
meant a body of research and scholarship that deals very specifically with writing, the
writing process, writing pedagogy, and life as a professional writing teacher/scholar.
Certainly, there has been research on writing prior to Composition’s appearance, but the
appearance of Composition as something definable has made possible more sustained
research in writing (which has then made it possible to produce more scholarship). I will
refer to this body of work to help frame particular developments in the writing program I
studied.

Another important and related area of study comes from the Writing Program
Administrator’s council (WPA). WPA work and Composition are necessarily affiliated
because both share a concern with writing, teaching writing, and training teachers of
writing. As the name would suggest, though, WPA work focuses on administrative
concerns, such as program development, program administration, and program
assessment. Still, WPA work isn’t far fiom Composition. In “The Essential Unity of
Language Arts Programs: Its Pedagogical Implications,” a brief article in just the second

the ever WPA journal, Greg Larkin notes that:

35

As administrators of language arts programs, we are all painfully aware of
the multiplicity of our calling. We must train new faculty, and what is

worse, retrain old ones. We must keep up with the explosion of knowledge
in the area of composition and rhetoric, and we must apply that knowledge

to our programs in practical ways. (25)

Taken together then, an awareness of issues in literacy and literacy education, work in
Composition (and Rhetoric) and writing program administration provide a much more
comprehensive view of what it really means for a college to have a writing program. The
remainder of this chapter is not meant to address “everything you ever wanted to know
about Composition and WPA work.” There simply isn’t room. The references and
subsequent discussions in this chapter are meant to introduce key issues that surface
again and again in the field’s scholarship and perhaps more importantly, in the program I

studied.

The Emergence of a Discipline: What is Composition Anyway?

Though teaching writing is not new to the college curriculum, Composition is still
comparatively new as a discipline. Prior to the mid-1970s, there were virtually no
graduate programs with a Composition emphasis, and it seems it took quite a few years of
flux just to get a writing emphasis within the discipline of English. According to early
Composition scholar, Stephen North, the late 19503 and early 1960s are marked by an
emergence of English as a discipline, not merely as a school subject, even though the

Conference on College Composition and Communication was formed in 1949 (North 9).

36

 

North points to certain shifts in education to support his stance: an emphasis on the. long
terms goals and nature of English apart from immediate classroom needs and the idea that
English encompassed language, literature, and composition. The three strand approach
created more space for Composition as a distinct field.

With this distinction, however, came significant challenges. The quest to define
Composition led to difficult questions about the field’s boundaries and purpose, about the
kinds of research that should take place, about the role of different theories (and the
probable need for new ones) and about its affiliation (or not) with other disciplines.17 In
other words, professionals were asking, who are we and what do we do? Where do we
belong? For any discipline to evolve and answer tough identity questions it must produce
new research and new scholarship—and Composition did just that.18 Yet, then and now,
there seems to be no clear answer to the same nagging questions. With its nearly
inseparable relationship to first-year writing, Composition must always be concerned
with teaching. In fact, for some Composition professionals, teaching is a primary (or
only) duty. At the same time, many would argue that teaching is, and has always been,
under-appreciated and under-valued.19 So, questions about the “real” nature of

Composition are not easily answered.

 

'7 At different times, writing instruction has been linked to English, Communication courses, and even
Linguistics. Its pairing with Rhetoric, though, has been lasting.

'8 There are numerous scholars that could be identified as making early contributions to Composition’s
growth, even though they were writing long before Composition and Rhetoric could be called a discipline.
See Berlin’s Rhetoric and Reality: Writing Instruction in American Colleges, 1900-1985 for a good
overview of the conditions that fireled the need for more specialized training in teaching writing. For the
purposes of this study, early refers primarily to the 19703 and 1980S, when specialized degrees were
becoming available. For instance, Stephen North offers a research-based approach, Louise Phelps offers a
more theoretical approach, Kenneth Bruffee writes of his experiences with “Freshman English” and
collaborative learning (in the I980S and well beyond), Janet Emig is well known for her study of the
composing process, and Gary Tate offers his very early contributions to professionalizing teaching writing.
'9 This issue definitely surfaced in the program I studied.

37

All of the debates about Composition’s identity and purpose have been
generative in some ways, but the drive for a legitimate space in academia has also
continued to cause conflicts. With so many internal possibilities—differences among
professionals within the field—and so many external variables (institutional constraints,
public pressure of all kinds, budgets, employment conditions and so forth) it is difficult to
imagine a consistent vision or version of Composition. Over time, the apparent lack of
disciplinary definition has simply become part of the landscape.

For instance, in “Crisis and Panacea in Composition Studies: A History,” Robert
Connors argues that composition scholarship differs greatly fi'om other professional
(academic/disciplinary) literature because it has not been concerned with new research or
advancing new theories: “Instead, the historian finds a tremendous amount of literature
devoted to the cultural and professional conditions within the field: forensic bows to what
has come before, deliberative discourse on what must or should be done, and especially
epideictic praise or blame for the conditions described” (86). And while there is
scholarship that specifically addresses research and theory, even that can be interpreted as
a question of identity making and the meaning of work in the field. After all, teaching,
publishing, conducting research, training teachers, creating and evaluating programs, and
all the other practices of disciplinarity require work. Perhaps the real issue, then, is the
perceived meaning and/or value of the work. The following section will examine some of
the ways in which professionals have broached the subject of work in Composition. As
will become clear, notions of class and status are issues of great concern for professionals

and students alike.

38

Finding the Meaning of “Work” in Composition

From the purely conceptual to the realities of day to day working conditions,
scholars have picked apart the discipline’s treatment of its work and its workers. What
counts as legitimate work? What type(s) of work should Composition focus on? In
Composition in the University: Historical and Polemical Essays, researcher Sharon
Crowley claims that “The history of composition studies has been written in the fortunes
of the required introductory course in composition. Unfortunately, this course enjoys very
little status within the university...” (4). Crowley suggests that once full time faculty
realized “there was no professional future in teaching a course that produced no
research,” required courses were passed first to graduate students, and later, as postwar
enrollments became overwhelming, to adjuncts (4). Research became the legitimate
work, teaching writing the grunt work. Crowley argues further that Composition remains
unfortunately linked to its initial service ethic, claiming to meet the needs of the
academic community, the student community, and even the broader community.

Unlike other disciplines that can proudly claim a service ethic (such as science
and even philosophy) the service work of Composition is held in low esteem. Why?
Primarily, it has been linked to the required Composition course. Following Susan Miller,
Crowley claims that Composition is actually used “. . .to make student writing available
for surveillance until it can be certified to conform to whatever standards are deemed to
mark it, and its authors, as suitable...” (253). Crowley goes on to say that, “The
marginalization of the entire freshman class. . .serves to underscore and enforce the
exclusivity of academic discourse, both with regard to the academy’s newest members

(students and teachers alike) and with regard to the culture at large” (253). Crowley

39

would see the required first-year course abolished and believes that doing so would allow
Composition to gain status, not to mention removing a major academic sorting
mechanism. Crowley’s book is aging now (written in 1998) and for better or worse,
Composition is still firmly rooted in most universities. Yet, her arguments should not be
overlooked because similar arguments continue to surface, albeit through different lenses.
For instance, in Terms of Work for Composition: A Materialist Critique, Bruce
Horner argues that professionals in the field need to reconceptualize the terms they use to
talk about what they do. In six chapters, Homer presents six key terms: work, students,
politics, academic, traditional, and writing, “. . .because, in the inflections given these
terms and those with which they are associated, I identify a tension between
Composition’s desire for disciplinary status and its material location(s)” (xv). In many
institutions, Composition can still be said to have a lower status than other disciplines,
especially in material terms (pay, instructor/professor status, institutional support, and so
forth.) He reviews the various and competing definitions found in published and
unpublished discourse on Composition to show how the competing constructions of these
terms either completely overlook material realities or see them as overly determinant.
According to Homer, a failure to fully confront the complex materiality of
Composition has led to a series of binary dilemmas. For instance, either abolish first-year
writing and lose its institutional base or assign it as “service;” either force tenure-track
faculty to teach the courses or exploit adjuncts; either make Composition more theoretical
or design it to teach students to be successful in business and trades (thus reproducing
dominant power structures). His argument is, “. . .that these dilemmas result from a

failure to confront the materiality of all work in composition, including that work deemed

40

9”

‘theoretical’ or ‘scholarly (xvi). Like others, Homer agrees that Composition is
conflicted. In his materialist view, it all hinges on conceptions of work and the idea that
everything we do is material social practice—located in a specific historical period,
operating under a variety of specific institutional and social constraints.

Margaret Marshall also takes a long, in-depth look at the discourse surrounding
teaching and teachers, going back to the beginnings of public education in this country.
In Response to Reform: Composition and the Professionalization of Teaching, her
approach is similar to Homer’s in that she is concerned with notions of work and the
rhetoric we use, but her argument is nearly opposite. Instead of pushing us to think of
our work in different ways, she suggests that aligning teaching with work (through
attempts at unionizing, for example) has equated teaching with manual labor, making it
all the more difficult to change conceptions. In her book, she reveals a compelling
history filled with inequality (especially for women); an early and marked distinction
between teaching and “real” intellectual work; persistent blarrring of teachers for the
failure of education; and the consistent (though often failed efforts) for teachers to be
recognized as true professionals and intellectuals.

Marshall points to ongoing discussions about the use of adjunct faculty as
teachers of first-year composition courses, the prevalence of women in those positions,
and the fact that more women receive advanced degrees but fewer of them receive
tenured positions. She suggests that at least some of these stratifications have been

inherited from composition’s past and that an awareness of this history can help affect

change. Marshall analyzes the history, language, and practice of composition, paying

41

particular attention to the ways in which the discourse of the field has and still does
enforce particular and long standing academic hierarchies.

In Chapter 4, “A Mere Factory Hand” Marshall provides clear examples of the
patterns she lays out in earlier chapters. Unlike other chapters, this one relies less on
textual evidence and more on actual labor conditions, past and present. She provides a
lengthy example of the history of teachers and union movements, arguing that the
association with labor and the predominance of working class women and immigrants
further contributed to teaching being viewed as mere work, not a real profession.
Marshall claims that, “we need to recognize the traps created by the discursive patterns
we inherit and work to conscientiously construct alternatives if we hope to improve either
the material conditions of classroom teachers or the relative value of teaching within the
structure of higher education” (94). Though she suggests the argument can apply
generally to higher education, she indicates a specific focus on composition and provides
examples of current conditions in her own institution.

As a final example for now, “Reimagining the Landscape of Composition,” by
Art Young, takes a different approach, arguing that common corporate practices have
invaded academia, such as importing staff and replacing full time jobs with temporary

6

and contract labor: ‘. . .the demand for temporary composition teachers across the nation
each fall semester the week school begins exemplifies delivering just-in-time education
with a just-in-time workforce” (99). Young’s essay is useful because it addresses a
difficult issue in a very realistic way. Citing several different studies, Young shows that

tenure track jobs are shrinking and the use of adjuncts is growing. This is consistent with

other forms of “dejobbing America” currently taking place (Young 98). At the same time,

42

he also shows that more writing classes are being added. Some schools are requiring a
writing course for the fist time, while others are moving to two writing requirements.
What this means is that current labor practices are unlikely to change because, in the
current economy, there will never be enough tenure line jobs to adequately staff the
number of composition courses being offered.20 The concerns about the institutional
location and purpose of first-year writing, along with interrelated labor concerns, have
become commonplace within the discipline. Labor issues are intertwined with this
particular study, too, because some of the recommendations for change speak directly to
the institution’s current labor practices.

Despite its growing pains and persistent labor concerns, Composition has become
a recognizable fixture in many universities, particularly in the form of first-year writing.
Most universities have some type of writing program, though they can vary significantly
in institutional structure, pedagogical approach, credit load, and content. Regardless of
institutional location and structure however, nearly all first-year college students will take
at least one required writing course. Because the course(s) are required, the stakes can be
high. If students do not pass, they risk being held back from other studies, risk incurring
extra tuition costs, and in the worst case, risk not graduating. Depending on the college or
university, there may also be one or more preparatory courses. In either case, students are
not likely to have many choices. If the school has only one course, all students must take

it. If the school offers preparatory courses, students are typically evaluated and placed

 

20 This essay comes from the collection Composition Studies in the New Millennium, published in 2003.
The state of labor conditions is highly debatable and dependent on numerous things—degree type, type of
institution, personal work preferences, and numerous other variables. The bulk of concern also seems to
focus on the use of graduate teaching assistants and adjuncts. A close second might be the status of
writing/teaching writing within English departments, though that seems to changing, too. The primary point
here, as with the other references in this section, is to show that labor debates aren’t new to the field.

43

into them based on standardized tests, taken long before they ever enroll. Students who
don’t already possess the expected kinds of literacy (primarily the type needed to test

well) may then find themselves in basic writing courses.

Recognizing the Work of “Others:” Historical Perspectives on Basic Writing

“. . .basic writing reflects both this country’s promise and its deepening contradictions. It
signifies struggles for inclusion, diversity, and equal opportunity. . .It has played a key
role. . .in illuminating the politics of writing in terms of race, class, ethnicity, and other
social structures that would have remained invisible in the mostly white, middle-class

classrooms that have traditionally constituted the “mainstream.”’ (Mutnick 183)

Basic writing can be considered a specific discipline (see the Bedford
Bibliography for Teachers of Basic Writing). However, because much basic writing work
takes place at the community college level, or other non-academic sites, it is necessary
for this study to place basic writing within the structure of first-year writing, within the
slightly more prestigious field of Composition. Like composition, basic writing has a long
and difficult history, more difficult in some ways. Many researchers point out that the
first freshman composition class originated in 1.874, as Harvard responded to “poor
writing” by its upperclassmen. And, as early as the 1920’s, the phrase “remedial” was
being used in the academy. However, the term basic writing, as it has been referred to in
recent years, (and as I refer to it here) is something different. Writing has long been used

to mark and separate people; literate from illiterate, formally educated from informally

educated, cultured from uncultured, and appropriately educated from under-educated.
Inevitably, schools have become the primary institutions to decide what counts as
appropriate written literacy and for many years now, schools have been trying to account
for “poor” writing. Basic writing is hardly a new phenomenon. Yet, as the opening quote
suggests, basic writing continues to be troubling on many levels.

It is important to know that Mutnick’s quote speaks to a particular view of basic
writing (Basic Writing hereafter). Histories of literacy and schooling can predate or
simply overlook two important moments that create the need for a distinct definition—the
emergence of Composition as a unique field of study (whether affiliated with English or
not) and the subsequent emergence of Basic Writing as a specific area of study and a
specific institutional creation. Though various kinds of preparatory writing courses have
been a part of the college curriculum for years, the current understanding of Basic
Writing (and the one I will be using) emerged in the 1970’s, when colleges began to
Change their admission policies, some even going to open admissions. The result was an
influx of students that universities were just not prepared to teach. Many of these new
students, often minorities, did not have cultural or educational backgrounds that
supported the kind of literacy valued (and expected) in the academy. Their writing, in
particular, diverged from the “norm,” forcing colleges into a difficult position. Either fail
large numbers of students, design classes to meet their perceived needs, or, as more
recent developments would suggest, find ways to keep these particular students out of
universities all together.

Then and now, the particulars of Basic Writing represent significant challenges

for higher education. Debates about how to understand and work with seemingly under-

45

 

prepared students often lead to vigorous debates about rights, access, and equal
opportunity because under-prepared students so often come from “non-mainstream”
backgrounds. Basic writing students tend to be incredibly diverse, racially, ethnically,
and socio-economically. This is as true today as it was in 1970, perhaps even more so.
Then and now, growing student diversity is often perceived as a threat to dominant social
structures and can be met with measures that seek to limit access (such as entrance
exams). Though the open-admissions era did not last and access to higher education
continues to be threatened by various economic and political trends, it is possible to see
the 1960 and 19703 as permanently changing the “typical” student population. Whereas
Harvard’s poor writers would still have been predominantly white males, the poor writers
of the 19703 represented an entirely new student body, including more women,
minorities, and working-class (or even poor) students. These students wouldn’t have been
allowed access to universities previously, and their presence demanded change.

In her chapter contribution to A Guide to Composition Pedagogies, Deborah
Mutnick recounts her initial experience with Basic Writing and basic writers beginning in
1986. She writes that she was not prepared “for the gritty, urban working-class scene I
encountered. . .What could I possibly say to these students or write in the margins of their
papers that would help them?” (184). Stories of overwhelmed and under-trained teachers
are not surprising, especially during grth stages of Basic Writing, when degrees in
Composition were still much less common. Many teachers had literature (or other)
degrees, with little or no experience working with diverse populations or even with

teaching writing. This arrangement still exists, especially in universities where teaching

46

assistants and part-time faculty, in particular, may or may not have the training or desire
to help under-prepared students become better writers (or to teach writing at all).

Basic Writing is a particular kind of institutional creation, with a particular kind
of history, with a particular relationship to variously marginalized groups (students, basic
writing teachers, Composition more generally). Current conceptions of Basic Writing still
encompass many of the original concerns—appropriate pedagogy, issues of social class,
models of assessment (in classrooms and institutions), labor issues, disciplinary issues,
and even political issues. Yet, I suggest that most of these issues can be understood as
manifestations of just one thing—class difi"erences. The impact of class, within the
academy and within the day to lives of students and teachers underpins nearly every
troubling question raised by Basic Writing. And while I would suggest that class
differences matter in many different sites of Basic Writing work, they are particularly
glaring in university settings.” Similar to Composition, then, basic writing has a long and
difficult history, more difficult in some ways. The influx of students who would become
labeled “basic writes” forced colleges into a difficult position, either fail large numbers of
students, or design classes to meet their perceived needs. Composition teachers and
researchers began trying to explain the “problems” in students’ writing, hoping that
defining the problems would make fixing them possible.

From this perspective, basic writing is primarily concerned with pedagogy. Mina
Shaughnessy’s germinal book Errors and Expectations was written in direct response to
her teaching experience at The City University of New York (CUNY) after the university

became an open admissions school. In the field of basic writing, this book is considered

 

2' Continued work in areas suCh as literacy studies (e. g. Brandt, Delpit), critical work in education (e.g,
Bourdieu, Rogers), and specific research on social class (Lareau, Lindquist) indicates that class seems to
exert an especially powerfirl influence on educational experiences.

47

 

groundbreaking because it is one of the first published pieces that attempt to explain the
kind of writing these new college students brought with them. According to
Shaughnessy, “There are styles to being wrong” and teachers should learn to decipher the
students own style, rather than simply pointing out errors (49). Written in 1978, her work
has since been criticized for focusing only on sentence level errors, for failing to
acknowledge context, and for failing to consider the writers intended meaning, all aspects
of more current research. According to Min-zhan Lu, “...the pedagogical advice
Shaughnessy offers...seldom considers the possibility that the meaning ‘one has in rrrind’
might undergo substantial change as one tries to ‘coax’ and ‘communicate' it in different
discourses” (29). At the time though, the idea that students’ errors were deliberate, even
logical, presented a new perspective.

Initially, many researchers followed Shaughnessy’s approach, trying to classify
errors and find better ways to teach academic conventions. As early as the 1980’s,
though, questions about “academic literacy” began to surface. David Bartholomae’s
“Inventing the University” is another landmark work because it places “good” academic
writing specifically within the context of the academy. His premise made room for the
idea that basic writers wouldn’t necessarily know all the correct conventions the moment
they stepped into the classroom. Bartholomae suggested that students needed to learn a
new language, university discourse, to be successful. It wasn’t that the students lacked
literacy skills, or even writing skills, in particular, they simply needed to learn to blend
their current practices with those required in the university.

An important shift took place in the early 1980’s when questions about

terminology and the impact of non-academic contexts came under scrutiny. Terms such

48

as remedial and developmental, often interchangeable with basic, begin being critiqued.
Mike Rose, another well known basic writing teacher and researcher challenged
definitions of basic writers, saying, “Exactly what the adjective “remedial” means...has
never been quite clear.” Further, Rose added, “What remedial means in terms of
curriculum and pedagogy is not clear either...what is considered standard during one era
might well be tagged remedial in the next” (349). Rose was critiquing institutions both
for labeling students and for failing to produce consistent definitions of those labels.
Rose and others also began to consider both academic and personal contexts as a
factor in students’ writing. Perhaps most notably, Shirley Brice Heath’s Ways With
Words demonstrated just how much community experiences shape literacy practices at
home, and subsequently, in school. Compositionists often refer to her work because, in
academic culture, “good” writing is seen as evidence of participation in notions of
“appropriate” literacy. The notion that literacy practices in the home or community
might affect writing practices in school opened up even more research possibilities. The
works of Heath, Rose and Bartholmae suggested that basic writers were not necessarily
defined by cognitive process, but cultural differences or arbitrary language. Yet, despite
new research and some new teaching methods, attention to students’ previous experience
with writing, especially practices found outside the academy, continued to be minimal.
Researchers examining the foundation of basic writing, its role in the academy,
and its potentially harmful consequences for students called into question its very
existence. For example, using data from a study of writing placements at Essex
Community College, where he worked, Peter Dow Adams argued that students were

more successful in writing (and in college, overall) when not placed in lower level

49

writing classes. CUNY professor Ira Shor argued that basic writing should be abolished
because of its socially unjust, “gate-keeping” nature. According to Shor, basic writing
was another form of discrimination, which led to segregation, because poor and/or
minority students were most likely to be placed in lower level classes. Shor also claimed
that basic writing programs were “cash cows”, charging full tuition prices, but employing
the lowest paid staff, often adjuncts and graduate students (95). Sharon Crowley not only
argued against basic writing, but any required writing courses.

Despite critiques, other composition teachers and researchers not only defended
the institution of basic writing, but thought it essential. Terrence Collins, then Director of
Academic Affairs at University of Minnesota-General College, argued in a response to
Shor that GC’s basic writing faculty were among the best paid at the college, indicating
that Shor may be making unfair generalizations about they way colleges manage basic
writing programs. Also responding to Shor, CUNY basic writing professor Karen
Greenburg, argued that basic writing differs from school to school and that, “...unlike
most other college courses [basic writing courses] are places where students ideas are
taken seriously, regardless of the dialect or register in which they are expressed...” (92).
Both Greenburg and long time basic writing teacher Keith Gilyard (formerly at CUNY)
also advocated basic writing as one of the few places where underrepresented students
had a chance to succeed. Both expressed concern that, without these classes, many
students would not be successful in college because they would never get a chance to
acquire the academic writing skills they need (see Gilyard, Greenburg). Regardless of
institutional structure or the presence of specific basic writing courses, regardless of

personal beliefs about the structures, and regardless of the names we give, there are sure

50

 

to be students whose writing does meet certain academic expectations. Therefore, the

research on basic writing is relevant to any discussion of Composition more broadly.

Composition at the Institutional Level

By now it should be clear that Composition encompasses a broad range of
important issues. From notions of literacy to labor practices to student and even teacher
demographics, Composition is a gold mine for research and scholarship. Studying just
one of those areas of inquiry in-depth would give any Composition professional a lot of
information to sort through and probably a life-long research agenda. As I argued early
on however, to best understand a writing program (the ultimate objective in this study), it
is best to think of things as connected, like an organism that relies on all parts working
together for its survival. As such, there is one more area that must be addressed,
administration and program development because all writing programs are housed
somewhere within a specific institution.

Given the challenges in Composition alone, it should come as no surprise that
program administration can be very difficult, especially when developing or changing a
program. In “lntemal Friction in a New Independent Department of Writing, and What
the External Conflict Resolution Consultants Recommended,” authors Eleanor Agnew
and Phyllis Surrency Dallas discuss the emergence of an independent writing program at
Georgia Southern University. The new program was formed in 1997, when the English
and Philosophy departments were reorganized into two separate units. According to the
authors, the reorganization was met with plenty of enthusiasm, but within a short period

of time (by 1999) “the honeymoon ended abruptly, as buried feelings exploded” (38).

51

The department was in such a poor state that outside consultants were hired. Agnew and
Dallas summarize some of the consulting report, which said the department was in crisis,
marked by tensions, suspicion, divisiveness, problematic communication and more (39).
How does a seemingly happy program implode so quickly?

Two factors identified include a top-down administrative decision (vs. being
faculty driven) and mixed feelings among faculty trained in literary studies, who were
new teaching in a writing department. The mission of the program wasn’t clear, the
number of composition/rhetoric faculty was increasing, and “The department had broken
into factions” (39). There were differences in opinion about how the program should
develop, about the merit of different degrees, and about how best to teach writing. Part of
the reason I became so interested in studying Tier One reform is because I have
experienced first hand the kind of tensions described here. In fact, the parallels are
striking. The outcome at MSU is still uncertain, but the end of this chapter indicated that
Georgia Southern survived and is maturing nicely.

In addition to dealing with change and learning to get along, a good writing
program should evaluate itself. Unfortunately, evaluation can be as problematic as
developing the program. In “The Assessment Trick: Trial and Error in Assessing Temple
University’s First-Year Writing Program.” Christine Palumbo-DeSimone details the risks
and rewards of programmatic assessment. As the abstract warns, “. . .the grand
expectations of writing assessment committees can be quickly deflated by the real logistic
and pedagogical challenges of large-scale writing assessment.” The assessment process
really began in 1995, with the review and revision of the first-year writing sequence at

Temple. Initially, the focus was on the basic writing course, worth no credit at that time.

52

The no credit course was abolished and replaced with a regular credit course called
“Introduction to Academic Discourse.” According to the author, the elevated nature of
the basic writing course led to a need to reconsider the regular general education
requirement, English 50.

The rest of the story is at times funny, at other times scary, and in every way
interesting. The first attempt to assess English 50 failed pretty miserably. Despite a large
sample of student portfolios, experienced writing teachers as readers, and an agreed upon
set of criteria, “they could not agree on just about everything” (Palumbo-DeSimone). The
lack of context was problematic—too many variables to account for, no sense of the
assignments they were actually reading, and no way to know where the assignment was
in the overall course sequence. One lesson, among many, was that the committee found
that they weren’t sure what they were really trying to assess. The second go around was
much better, with a smaller sample, course syllabi, and the language from Temple’s fy-
comp handbook. The results showed more consistency and also seemed to show that
students were coming away with important writing skills (though reflection and revision
were somewhat lacking). Unfortunately, the first-year writing director then asked if
anyone could be sure students actually learned those thing in English 50 and not prior.
The third time (the charm, it seems) got closer to identifying actual progress.

Like other areas of research identified to this point, there is an existing (and
substantial) body of work related to program administration, roughly 30 years of the

Writing Program Administrator’s journal alone. The program I studied faced many of the

53

 

administrative issues I’ve identified here.22 The initiative to make change within the
department sometimes came fi'om within, but as the next chapter will elaborate, internal
pressure was largely unsuccessful. Change was more likely to happen, or at least be
openly discussed, when the initiative came from another source (such as a Dean or

Provost).

How do We Change a Curriculum and Will it Really Matter if We Do?

In sum, the curriculum reform effort represents much more than a new policy. In a
sense, it represents an instance of convergence. There are numerous administrative
concerns, concerns about the growth and stability of Composition (and Rhetoric) within
the department, concerns about basic writing and basic writers, and concerns about what
type(s) of literate persons the university is claiming to “produce.” Specific to basic
writing and basic writers, it also encompasses debates about access, social justice, and
legitimizing the work of many teaching professionals. It is about uncovering class
differences across many levels. I am entering this debate, in part, because of my own
difficult experiences as a first-generation, working-class college student. I have been the
basic writer and the academic outsider. Now, as a doctoral student with experience
teaching first-year writing, I have implicated myself in a strange, potentially hostile
system. I have a responsibility to conduct research that might work to make this system
better. Or, at the very least, help educators, administrators, and other students better

understand where and why the system often goes wrong. Armed with such knowledge,

 

22 Here, it would be more accurate to say that the program I studied is still working through the process of
change. Even as I write this footnote, members of the department are working toward a new pilot course for
first-year writing and the department is in the process of large scale assessment.

54

 

 

maybe it is possible to make change. However, as Richard Miller explains (or perhaps
warns):
By juxtaposing plans for reform with evidence of what a given reform
looked like when implemented, my aim is to throw into high relief the
dynamic interplay that exists between intellectual desires and bureaucratic
realities, as all utopian aspirations encounter inescapable, historically

produced material constraints. (21)

Reality is truly inescapable. For one thing, I had hoped to study a pilot course, but
the process was delayed and then delayed again. I was, however, able to learn about the
history of first-year writing at this university and trace the results various attempts at
changing the curriculum. The attempts at change proved interesting, to say the least, and
explained a lot about why the pilot course continued to. sit in limbo. Bureaucracy and
inner-departmental strife emerged again and again. In the closing chapter, there will be
some comparison of the attempts at change against actual changes. However, it will be
nearly impossible to do more than speculate as the program is still in a state of flux.
There have been noteworthy changes, but the long term effects may not be realized for
many, many, years. Thus, it will be difficult to provide a set of fixed results, which would

surely be a welcome addition.

55

Chapter Three

Defining Writing in an Inter-disciplinary Department

The Research Site: An Institutional Snapshot

The writing program I investigated is housed in an interdisciplinary department at
a large land grant university. Employing approximately 4500 academic faculty and staff,
the university offers more than 200 programs of study across 14 degree-granting colleges
and an affiliated law college. It is the largest-single-campus residence hall system in the
country with 23 undergraduate halls, one graduate hall, and three apartment villages. The
figures for fall 2006 list 45,520 total students, 35,821 undergraduate and 9,699 graduate
and professional. 55 percent are women. The students come from all 83 counties in the
state, all 50 states in the United States, and about 125 other countries
(http://newsroommsuedu/flv/l 84/page.htm). The Fall 2006 Registrar’s report on race
and ethnic make up indicates that the student body is 74.8 Caucasian, 7.9 percent Afiican
American, 5.3 percent Asian/Pacific Islander, .9 percent Chicano, 2 percent Other
Hispanic, and 0.8 percent American Indian/Alaskan Native
(http://www.reg.msu.edu/repoflsewer?/RORgpoflsME-
ComparisonEthnicOrigin&term_seq_id=l 064).

The Freshman class profile shows a high school GPA of 3.4-3.8; SAT combined
score of 1040-1270; and an ACT composite score of 22-27.
(http://newsroom.msu.edu/s_nav/l 84/p2_1ge.htm) According to the office of admissions and
scholarships, the numbers are slightly above the state average and well above the national

average. The Freshman class dominates the first-year writing courses. Some students do

56

 

wait to take the course, especially International students who complete additional
required language courses prior to Tier One; but, most students will take their first
required writing course in the first year. In the fall 2006 semester, there were more than
7,000 “first time” undergraduate students admitted.
(http://www.re&msu.edu/reportserver?/ROReports/UE-
TrendCompStuEnr&term_seq_id=1064). Briefly then, this college enrolls a significant
number of above average undergraduate students, all of whom must take, at minimum,
two writing courses to complete a degree program. As such, Tier One writing plays a
critical role within the university structure. However, as this chapter will explain, exactly
what that role should be, and how it should be realized, has been the subject of vigorous

debate for many years.

Chapter Methodology

This chapter (like the whole project) is firmly rooted in qualitative research. In
Strategies of Qualitative Inquiry, author/editors Denzin and Lincoln provide both a
definition and an historical overview of qualitative research in the human disciplines,
noting key differences between quantitative and qualitative research: “Qualitative
researchers stress the socially constructed nature of reality, the intimate relationship
between the researcher and what is studied, and the situational constraints that shape
inquiry” (Denzin and Lincoln 13). Qualitative research is a departure from positivist
notions of reality; it relies instead on point of view and multiple levels of interpretation. It
is highly contextual and often includes the voices of the participants, instead of the just

researcher. Qualitative research is one way scholars have worked to make a space for the

57

 

 

value of differing human experiences and differing (“other”) voices.23 Qualitative
research methods have become quite common when working with groups that are either
under-represented or misrepresented in existing scholarship.

This chapter does not directly engage with any groups that could called “othered”
or even underrepresented, but there are underrepresented students in the university, many
of whom end up taking the preparatory writing class. Thus, the Tier One curriculum does
impact students that may be labeled “at risk.” Additionally, as mentioned in chapter two,
some strands of research in Composition consider the notion that writing teachers are
often marginalized, especially because of the reliance on adjuncts to teach lower-level
writing courses. As such, class differences are still very much a concern in this study.

This particular chapter also relies heavily on description, point of view, and
multiple interpretations. Additionally, the primary goal of this chapter is not in-depth
analysis. An in-depth analysis of key departmental documents follows in the next chapter.
Primarily through interviews and a collection of institutional documents (meeting
minutes, memos, proposals, and reports from various committees) I have been able to
trace the evolution of this department and its approach to Tier One writing over the span
of nearly 30 years. The purpose of these data is to paint a picture of the department, to
provide some historical context, and to introduce key issues in the attempts to change the
writing curriculum.

The history of the department shows that establishing a curriculum with a clear

writing focus (as compared to classes that require writing but emphasize other goals) has

 

2’ The idea that any research project, however well intentioned, is not without bias and in some way still
shaped by the researcher is unrealistic. My understanding of qualitative studies, in the ideal, is that they
strive to be fair and equitable, especially if the study involves groups that have been underrepresented,
misrepresented, or harmed outright by academic work.

58

been a real struggle. The years prior to the 19905 were the hardest to learn about,
primarily because there were fewer faculty members left to speak with. However, I was
able to interview three faculty members who have been with the department for many
years; one with more than 30, one with close to 20, and one with better than 15.24 I then
interviewed 2 comparatively new faculty members, one with approximately 7 years in the
department and one with only 5. All of the participants were selected based on time in the
department, involvement with one or more writing task forces, and the simple willingness
to speak with me.

The three faculty members with the longest history here have very different
educational backgrounds; each has a different type of degree (only one with any
concentrated study in writing or writing pedagogy) and each came to the department
under different circumstances. Thus, their responses reflect a lot of diversity, both about
the department and about writing. The newer faculty members both have writing degrees
from the same university and both joined the department within a few years of each other.
As such, their responses show more commonalities, again with respect to the department
and writing. However, they came to the department under different circumstances, have
played different roles in their time here, and currently hold different positions.

Though this is an extremely small group of participants, the differences among
them do provide a cross-section of the department. Still, because of the small number of
interviews and the personal nature of experience, their stories and memories cannot
provide an exact or even unbiased picture of the department then or now. For instance,

the two participants with the longest history here have a specific kind of investment in the

 

2’ Additionally, I located two print sources that refer to the history of this department, one book chapter and
one unpublished manuscript.

59

writing program and the department, one shaped by such long history. Additionally, at
the time of the interviews, I was a Teaching Assistant in the department. My position as a
student, worker, and researcher is extremely important, though no doubt complicated. In
The Cultural Production of the Educated Person, Levinson, Foley, and Holland discuss
the complications of field work generally, but also make pointed observations about the
difficulty in studying schools. They suggest that schools have been understudied, with
one possible reason being the challenges involved in gaining and maintaining access,
especially for an outsider. In addition, “. . .sustained observations and interviews are
needed to construct a compelling interpretation of the effects of schooling. . . [and] . . .the
finished product of this research may very likely involve a critique of the very people
who made the research possible” (Levinson, Foley and Holland 19). Thus, a quality study
is very involved, requiring a significant amount of time and effort. F urtherrnore, the end
result may or may not be favorable for the institution that allowed the study to take place.

Levinson, Foley, and Holland speak from an Anthropological position, which is
very different from my background. However, the points are useful. I did have to
anticipate many of the same issues and concerns. Access and sustained contact were not
significant barriers, but there were challenges. As a third year doctoral student and
Teaching Assistant, I was definitely an insider. My insider position could be viewed as an
advantage, allowing me access not available just anyone. However, insider status has its
own set of problems. I have my own experiences to contend with, my own beliefs about
writing and teaching writing, and my own relationship with the university as a student
and worker. Further, I have a very short history here (comparatively) and have only

experienced the department through my particular disciplinary lens—Rhetoric and

60

 

Writing. Finally, I have not been involved in shaping the Tier One curriculum, though I
did teach in Tier One. Thus, I am an outsider in terms of policies, procedures, and
departmental events, even the ones that took place during my teaching and coursework.
My position has shifted over time and may continue to shift. Currently, for example, I am
no longer teaching, no longer taking graduate courses, and have significantly less
involvement with all aspects of the department I studied.

Another concern comes from the data I have collected. It is possible that the
participants, or even my department, would not want certain information available to a
wider audience. It is also possible that my participants did not feel comfortable sharing
their thoughts and experiences with me, even though they remain anonymous. As will
become clearer later, curricular change has been a sensitive subject for some time. Even
though I assured confidentiality, the responses I received could have been filtered for any
number of reasons. Thus, I can only share here what my participants were willing to
share with me, but I have done my best to accurately represent what I learned while
maintaining participant confidentiality. To do that, though, I have had to limit (or
eliminate completely) some lengthy quotations and instead, provide my own
summaries.” Despite the potential limits, the interview data can still provide first-hand
information about the nature of the writing curriculum, the department, attempts at
change, and of the importance of institutional history—all information that supplements

the written documents with first-hand accounts. In this chapter, the primary goal of the

 

2’ In the interview segments with direct quotes, this “...” indicates a pause, while this “[...]” indicates the
omission of words and/or phrases.

61

 

 

data is to be descriptive, used to paint a picture of the department and to introduce key

themes and tensions that will be further discussed in the following chapter.26

First-Year Writing Here: What Counts and Who Says So?

Composition has struggled to legitimate itself at the institutional and especially
the disciplinary level. And though Composition has become an established discipline, it
has been a challenge getting there. The history at this institution shows no exception. The
institutional configuration of first-year writing in this place creates an especially difficult
climate for the growth and development of, ironically, a writing curriculum that
specifically emphasizes writing and incorporates elements of the now well-developed
field of Composition.27 In fact, the department responsible for teaching the majority of
the first-year writing courses has resisted creating a new writing curriculum in many
ways.

At this university, first-year writing is known as Tier One. A Tier One writing
course is worth 4-credits and meets the university’s general education writing
requirement. Currently, the majority of students will take their Tier One writing
requirement through the Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures (W RAC) department,

which is part of the College of Arts and Letters.28 Within Tier One, students can choose

 

2" Documents (especially proposals and reports) emerge as extremely important vehicles in the quest for
change (or the resistance to it, as the case may be). Documents will be a key point of discussion in the next
chapter.

27 Composition and Rhetoric is perhaps a more accurate way to describe the areas of research that have
come to influence the department and the curriculum. It is worth making the distinction because sometimes
Composition and Rhetoric are wedded in one program and sometimes they are not. Here, for example, there
is no composition program at all. There is a Professional Writing Undergraduate major and a graduate
program in Rhetoric and Writing. However, the growth of composition as a discipline provides important
foundational work.

28 Residential colleges within the university offer 3 tier one writing course; however WRAC serves the
largest number of students.

62

fiom a range of themed courses (numbered 110-150), such as Women in America, Men

in America, and the Evolution of American Thought.29 Currently, there are 8 themed

courses and one honors course. According to the WRAC mission statement:
The overall goal of the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American
Cultures is to prepare students for the kinds of writing they will be called
upon to produce in the university and in their personal, professional, and
civic lives. In all its courses, the Department views writing as key to
students’ intellectual development and as inherently linked to other
aspects of communication.

(http://www.msu.edu/unit/wrac/wrac_mission.html)

Mission statements are an important part of identity formation for institutions of
all kinds. They provide information to the public, to employees, and in this case, to
students and even faculty. Mission statements also provide a kind of “persona,” a glimpse
into the culture of a place. While somewhat generic, the WRAC mission highlights
specific goals and implies a set of beliefs about what writing is and what it should do.
The current Tier One main page provides this additional information about the nature of
the courses:

In our courses, students receive instruction and practice in drafting,
revising and completing papers of various lengths, based upon sources that
challenge them to seek new information and to reflect upon its relevance

to their own observations and experiences. Necessarily, our courses are

 

2" There is also Tier II requirement. Tier II is not part of this study, although the addition of the Tier II
requirement did impact Tier I. I address this later in the chapter.

63

 

 

reading courses as much as they are writing courses, and these two
activities tend to permeate each other. Ultimately, they are courses in
critical thinking as students learn to question and connect, to analyze and

synthesize. (http://www.msu.edu/unit/wrac/tl/tl_index.html)

Similar to the WRAC mission statement, the information provided about Tier One
courses provides a window into beliefs about the purpose of writing and implies
something about how writing will taught—with instruction and practice in drafting and
revising, for example. Here though, the importance of reading and critical thinking are
more clearly emphasized. Based on the two descriptions, Tier One courses are very
comprehensive, covering a range of directed writing activities while also fostering critical
thinking skills, reading skills, and improved communication overall. In some ways, this
description reads like a “catch all” course, one that addresses all kinds of important skills.
It could easily be called a service course given its description.

The university also offers a course called “Preparation for College Writing”
(PCW). There is significantly less information available for this course; the WRAC web
site states only that students can be placed into the course and must complete it before
taking a regular Tier One course. Students are placed based on a combination of
standardized test scores and/or other admissions criteria.3o From my own teaching
experience and my interactions with other Teaching Assistants, the students in PCW are
fairly consistent with the research on Basic Writing. PCW students are more likely to be

students of color, first-generation students, and/or students from lower socioeconomic

 

30 For example, students admitted into programs run through the Office of Supportive Services are likely to
be placed into both the preparatory writing and math courses.

64

 

brackets. They are more likely to be admitted into the university through a variety of
supportive services programs. However, this university also has a large international
student population, which can be seen in PCW, too. Students enrolled in PCW must pass
with a minimum grade of 2.0 on a 4.0 scale to move into the regular Tier One courses.3 ‘
PCW is a 3 credit course, which counts toward a student’s GPA and total university
course work, but does not meet general education requirements.32

In the Fall 2006 semester, WRAC offered a total of 121 sections of the 110-150
course and 15 sections of PCW. If the courses maintained their capacity—27 for the
general education course and 24 for PCW—then 3,627 students took a writing course in
the fall semester alone.33 Additional sections of both courses are also offered in the
Spring semester, though not as many. Even if the courses ran at less than fill], a
significant number of students are impacted by the Tier One curriculum. Based on
enrollment figures alone, Tier One is an important component in the university structure.

With its two semester sequence, the institutional structure here is not uncommon,
though colleges and universities certainly differ in approaches to first-year writing. And,
for a Composition professional at least, the language found in both the mission statement
and Tier One main page should not seem unusual. The Council of Writing Program

Administrators (WPA), The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and

 

3 1 Students who receive better than a 1.0, but less than 2.0 must enroll in a “writing tutorial” the following
semester. The writing tutorial is not offered through the WRAC department.

32 Students are able to count the course toward their overall number of credits completed. However, the
course does not meet the writing requirement for graduation. It is also an oddly configured class. Students
must enroll in an additional “lab” section, which meets for 1 hour and 50 minutes on top of the regular
three credit lecture hours. Students do not receive course credit for the lab even though it is required. With
the regular class meetings and the additional lab, PCW actually requires more contact hours than the
regular Tier One courses, but is worth one credit less. Thus, the PCW class exhibits some of the same
issues that have long plagued Basic Writing.

33 These figures are estimates based on the number of sections listed in the Fall schedule of courses,
available online.

65

 

 

 

Conference of College Composition and Communication, all well recognized and
(generally) respected within Composition, provide outcomes and position statements on
writing that support the WRAC department’s language. WRAC seems to represent the
latest thinking in Composition.

However, the current language is extremely significant, in part because of the
unique make up of the department. Unlike many universities, there is no Composition
program, no writing program administrator (WPA) and no regular first-year writing
committee to help monitor and evaluate Tier One.34 There have been numerous
committees and task forces over the years, but nothing permanent or even ongoing. There
is no consistent attention to Tier One, and so, no sustained opportunity for evolution.
WRAC is also unique in its faculty make up. The WRAC department is comprised of
faculty members with varying degrees, including American Studies, American History,
Literature, English, and more recently, a growing number of faculty with writing and/or
rhetoric based degrees. Within WRAC, there is a Professional Writing undergraduate
major and an American Studies major, both of which were approved within the last 5
years. In the College of Arts and Letters, there is a graduate program in Rhetoric and
Writing, which was (not coincidentally) approved at approximately the same time as the
new undergraduate writing program.

Thus, within the department, some faculty members have specific training. in
writing and teaching writing and some do not. However, all faculty members in WRAC,
regardless of background and degrees, have taught Tier One writing. For many, teaching

Tier One is part of their regular teaching duties. For others, Tier One may be their

 

3’ As of this writing, there was no WPA in place. However, the department has since hired a faculty
member who serves as a writing program adrrrinistrator, along with other duties.

66

 

 

primary or only teaching assignment. Teaching assistants (TAs), who also teach Tier One
courses in WRAC, have varying degrees of experience and training in writing and
teaching writing, as well. Some TAs are affiliated with the English Department, some
with American Studies, and some with the Rhetoric and Writing graduate program,
among other possibilities. There are also different TA coordinators, one for the Rhetoric
and Writing TAs, and another for TAs getting other degrees. Even the TA coordinators
have varying degrees of training and experience with writing instruction. As such, the
responsibility for Tier One writing, including all matters of assessment, and the training
and mentoring of teachers old and new, is spread among the TA coordinators and the
department chair, with the department chair being the primary authority.

The institutional configuration and departmental make up creates a unique
environment, but also creates numerous points of contention, especially where the writing
curriculum is concerned. Because so many different people with different backgrounds
(and experiences) teach writing, it is difficult to argue for specific best practices,
especially when many faculty members in WRAC have been teaching writing for years.
Furthermore, because the responsibility for Tier One is dispersed in the way it is, there is
virtually no way to know what is really happening in these courses and no way to
determine if there is any consistency in what students are learning. And despite the ever-
growing body of scholarship in Composition (and Rhetoric) along with the presence of
more faculty with specific training in writing, the department has retained a remarkably

unchanged focus and structure since the 19703.35

 

35 One major change in structure did happen in the early 1990s, a switch fi'om a quarter system to a
semester system. The switch from quarters to semesters will be discussed in this chapter. It is worth noting
here that the change in sequencing did not appear to have a significant impact on course goals and
objectives.

67

 

Growing Pains and a Curious Graduate Student

When I started the Rhetoric and Writing doctoral program in 2004 (in just the
second cohort), the WRAC department was obviously in flux. Primarily through my
experience as a teaching assistant, I recognized very different pedagogical and curricular
approaches among both the TAs and the TA coordinators.36 From my perspective (and
memory), the meetings were often tense and marked by disagreement. Disagreement can
spark generative conversations, but that was seldom the case. Initially, I attributed the
tension I felt, and often witnessed in TA meetings, to departmental growing pains. I knew
the department had recently changed names and revised its mission statement, going from
American Thought and Language to WRAC, and adding numerous elaborations about
Tier One writing. I also knew that the department had recently hired several new faculty
members with writing and rhetoric degrees (how else could I be in the newly formed
graduate program?) I imagined that the new faces in the department, the name change,
and new mission statement were creating an exciting but complex moment in the life of
the department. I learned that I was right and wrong.

Over the years, there have been numerous changes (and attempted changes) in the
department, some very specific to the curriculum and some only loosely related.
However, all attempts at change have met with some type of resistance, ranging from
mild to downright nasty. WhatI experienced was nothing new and is best seen as the

result of events set in motion many, many years prior. The next section will elaborate on

 

36 In my first year as a TA, all TAs met together for various types of professional development and
mentoring. Currently, TA training is split into groups. TAs in the Rhetoric and Writing program work with
one coordinator and TAs in other programs work with a different coordinator. At the time of this writing,
the two groups did not meet together regularly.

68

 

the history of the department, identify key points of contention, and provide added

contextual information about the stakes involved in changing the curriculum.

Living with Ghosts: A Brief History of American Thought and Language.

Prior to 2003, the WRAC department was called American Thought and
Language (ATL). Investigating the history of ATL helps to illuminate some of the
tensions that still exist in WRAC. As mentioned previously, one of the unique aspects of
the Tier One writing curriculum was the presence of “themed” courses. The courses
required intensive writing, but, as described above, the majority of the content was based
on (or in) American Culture. The book Courses for Change in Writing: A Selection fi‘om
the NEH/Iowa Institute includes a chapter by Henry Silverman, a past chair of the ATL
department. Though the book was published in 1984, the content actually dates back to
1979, the first year of the NEH institute, making it one of the older pieces of data in this
study. Silverman’s chapter focuses on a year-long sequence for developmental writers
called “The American Dream,” an obvious nod toward the expected content. But a
footnote provides an even better description of the overall culture of ATL at that time.37

According to Silverman’s footnote, the ATL department has quite a long history
with the college, dating back to just after World War 11. At one time, the department
functioned as “Written and Spoken English,” then as “Communication Skills,” and then
sometime near 1960, as “American Thought and Language.”38 Silverman notes that the

historical context is important because it highlights the role of content in the writing

 

37 It is worth mentioning that one of the things Silverman advocated was more balance between writing and
reading. The dynamic between writing and other content has been an ongoing issue.

38 It is not clear from the footnote if “Written and Spoken English” and “Communication Skills” are
departmental names or descriptions of departmental emphasis. Based on the capitalization and mention of
ATL, however, it seems reasonable to assume that these were past names.

69

 

 

program (something which continues to be debated). I quote him at length here because

he identifies some of the ideals that continue to surface in the department, some of which

also create tensions:
The Department took on, in 1960, not only the responsibility of teaching
[university] freshman how to write but also the task of teaching them
about their American heritage. . .Reading literary, social and historical
documents, mainly primary sources out of the American past, would help
students improve their understanding of what it is to be an American and
at the same time would help students improve their ability to write and

understand American language. (67, footnote.)

As the next section will show, the ATL department has remained extremely attached
to this mission and carries with it, even now, many similar goals and ideals—not
without a struggle, however. The remainder of this chapter will explore the “life” of
this department, as best as could be determined, and attempt to reveal some of the
reasons for the continued attachment to the mission statement and elaborate on some

of the areas that continue to create tension.

Behind the ATL Mission: Negotiating Writing in an Interdisciplinary Department
Mission statements and other types of documentation are important because they

provide physical records that can be studied. However, there is always an underlying

story and what isn ’t in the physical records can be even more important. Until 1980,

MSU had University College (UC). UC had 4 departments; all 4 taught required general

70

 

education courses and nothing else. All departments taught 3 courses each quarter over 3
quarters. According to one interview, the faculty in all 4 departments had a lot of
camaraderie based on a shared mission of providing the first 2 years of undergraduate
education. However, because they had such a large teaching load, they did not have the
same expectations for publishing as their colleagues in the other colleges, and they did
not teach upper-level courses or graduate students, except for an occasional special
arrangement. Then, when the UC was disbanded, ATL faculty had to hold on to the idea
that first-year students were taught writing by PHD-bearing professors because that was
the primary reason for being at the university. They also held tightly to the content of
ATL courses because it gave their scholarship (which many of them were active in
though it was not necessarily a demand) visibility and merit.

ATL survived the end of the UC and into to the early 19908, the university was
still using a 3 quarter system instead of two semesters. The teaching load for ATL faculty
was still three courses (9 credits) per quarter across three quarters and it was still a
heavier teaching load than required by other departments. All students still took three
quarters of writing and still, all faculty members in ATL only taught writing courses.39
The past teaching conditions are important to remember in the big picture because they
also underlie some of the resistance to later attempts at changing curriculum. Given the
history of ATL—a department devoted (or relegated depending upon the point of View)
to teaching first-year writing with a core commitment to particular content—it is not

surprising that some faculty members fought to retain certain elements. The other points

 

39 I did not investigate the developmental writing approach during this time period as the focus of the
chapter is on the overall culture of ATL.

71

 

of contention (which will be examined in more detail later) can be grouped into concerns
about course content, faculty choice, and the overall mission of the department.

For instance, when I asked faculty members to describe the department prior to
becoming WRAC, I learned that it was seen as innovative (and one participant said it
continues to be innovative) for several reasons. Having a particular kind of course content
was mentioned more than once. As one interviewee pointed out, “. . .you know probably
in the early days it was more... they made a distinction between content and writing
instruction in a way that people don't now, in the latest thinking. So their idea was. . .they
felt that they were revolutionary in adding content to writing instruction...” (LA). Not
only was the notion of adding content important, but the goal of using that kind of
content was also important, as can be seen here: “the writing program was formed with
the idea that you would have regular faculty members teaching the writing courses and
that it would be a combination of teaching writing with a kind of civics lesson in
American history and culture” (LA). Thus, the department really had a dual mission,
teaching writing and teaching American history and Culture.40

Choice was also mentioned as an important part of the department’s history. Even
though the core content revolved around American history and culture, the variety of
courses gave students and faculty the chance to pursue things of interest to them. One
faculty member said that the courses were a response to “student discontent with that
kind of single math course and too much of the same thing going on in a large number of

writing courses...” and that “. . . [the] variety of courses satisfied the students much better;

 

40 Culture, as a concept that to be taught in schools, must be questioned. Given the history and timing
surrounding ATL (when the department became ATL especially) this is perhaps not surprising. Over time,
though, such an approach should beg for critique. Surprisingly, though, this did not emerge as an issue until
after the year 2000.

72

they could gravitate toward their interests. It kept the faculty involved in the deve10pment
of new courses.” (ND). With its themed courses and focus on American history and
culture, the department either sought out or attracted faculty members with varying
backgrounds, such as American History, American Studies, American Cultural Studies,
and American Literature.“

Currently, the department retains many of the above ideals. As of this writing, the
themed courses remain basically unchanged (at least in title) and the faculty members in
the department continue to be extremely diverse in background, bringing with them
various degrees—Literature, English, American Studies, and more.42 What is different,
however, is the presence of more faculty members with degrees in writing, especially
with training in multiple areas Composition and/or Rhetoric. Thus, the department has
even more diversity among the Tier One courses. In looking at just a few recent syllabi
for “The Evolution of American Thought,” (WRA 150) students could read and write
about feminist thought, popular culture, body modification, rhetorical approaches to
literature and more. Students could end up with a course resembling a literature course,
but also end up in a course that more closely resembles a professional writing course, a
web authoring course, or a creative writing course.

The PCW class is unlike the Tier One courses in that there is no prescribed theme
and the students are placed there; they have no choice. Still, as with the themed courses,
what happens in PCW is either determined by the individual instructor or in many cases
the TA coordinator because PCW is taught almost exclusively by TAs. F irst-year TAs

may teach from a common reader in their first semester, so the TA coordinator obviously

 

4' It is also likely that the faculty make-up is related to the time frame. In the later 19708 and early I980S,
writing degrees were available, but still less common.
42 There have been some curricular changes, which will be discussed in a later section.

73

shapes some of what happens in the course.43 With two TA coordinators, though, PCW
also reflects a range of topics and approaches, some very rhetorical in nature, some
focused more on reading, and some appearing quite balanced between the two.

With the amount of difference among the all the Tier One courses, and the
graduate students and faculty teaching them, it is no wonder that curriculum becomes a
sensitive issue. Different degrees necessarily come with different beliefs about all kinds
of things—teaching, writing, making knowledge, students, grading, and more. Thus,
within the department, there is bound to be a wide range of beliefs about what can and
should happen in a writing class. However, as the next section will show, the department
has seemed especially resistant to change when change calls for emphasizing

Composition and Rhetoric as an important foundation for Tier One courses.
Rethinking Writing and the Process of Change

“[. . .] I think one thing about our department that has always been really nice is that
there's never been an imposition of one way to teach [. . .] I just think that's way too

restrictive for the kind of intellect that we have in our department” (LA).

“: . . . [T]he tension between writing and content has existed in various ways all along, but

with so many people not in writing it was sort of like voices crying in the wind” (JL).

“In order to do curricular changes, you have to prepare the ground for those curricular

changes” (GJ)

 

’3 At one time, faculty members taught PCW, with only a small number of TAs.

74

Despite the persistence of the early ATL curriculum and the beliefs that came
with it, Tier One has been reviewed and even revised at different times (but the ground
has been tough, indeed). The departmental makeup has also shifted at different times. A
flurry of activity began taking place in the late 19908, and the year 2000 marks the
beginning of an extended hiring period where several new faculty members, most with
writing and/or rhetoric degrees, joined the department. The years from 2000 until the
present also show a greater measure of success at creating conditions that support
changes in the department and Tier One curriculum.44 Still, as the opening quotes
suggest, what it has meant to try and revise the writing curriculum has not been easy,
especially during the years when there were very few faculty members with training in
writing. Consider that in 1990, the department received four tenure track positions. Three
were filled by existing temporary faculty with some background in writing, but not in
Composition or Rhetoric. The fourth was an outside hire (the first in 10 years) and the
first person to have something closer to what might be called a Composition background
(an English degree with specific coursework in writing/writing pedagogy). According to
one interview, of the 80 faculty members in the department at that time, only a handful
had any background in writing at all. As such, the likelihood of changing the existing
curriculum was small.

However, a major change did take place when the university switched from
quarters to semesters. The change was initiated by the then Provost as a way to align the
MSU calendar with other research universities in the state and remain competitive in

recruiting new students. The proposal passed by just one vote. There was a writing task

 

’4 For instance, as of this writing, a pilot course for developmental writing is much closer to becoming a
reality. The pilot course is the result of a significant amount of Task Force work

75

force and subsequent task force report, which was approved in January of 1991. The two
semester sequence began in 1992. The task force report, simply titled “Report of the Joint
Committee on Writing Requirements” is an important historical moment because it
establishes a structure that still exists today, one developmental writing course based on
placement and one general education course.“ Moreover, some of the language in this
report can still be seen in the most recent mission statement. Critical thinking, reading,
listening, and speaking are all mentioned as interrelated to writing, even in 1991. Also
worth noting is that the report specifies that, while the content shall remain rooted in
American culture, “In emphasis, these are writing courses, rather than content courses”
(1991 Joint Committee report).

The effects on the department were substantial, though perhaps in unexpected
ways. For instance, the switch to semesters was a major departrnental-wide project,
something that would affect everyone. As one faculty member told me, “When we
switched over from quarters to semesters, the whole department, everybody, absolutely
everybody from the department was working on curricular revisions because there was no
way out of it” (LA). Given what I learned about the department’s history and resistance
to reform, it is indeed significant to imagine everyone involved in a discussion about the

writing curriculum.

 

’5 The report calls for each writing course to be worth 4 credits. Currently, the regular Tier One course is
worth 4 credits, but the preparatory course is only worth 3, even though it actually requires more contact
hours.

76

The task force also recommended adding the Tier II requirement and a writing
center.46 As described below, the addition of the writing center had a tremendous impact
on the department, or some parts of it, anyway:

[T]he writing center was supposed to eventually evolve into a center for
the study of writing [. . .] for people who talked about writing and knew
about writing to have a conversation and an identity. To me, it was a life
saver. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for that because it was a place for me
to have colleagues talking about writing, which didn't exist before...”

(J L).

Here too, simply having a conversation about writing was something worth
pointing out. Later, in the same interview, the participant mentioned other changes that
came with the writing center; saying it “. . .made an enormous change in how people
thought and there was a lot of tension between the department and the writing center
because people didn't know... it was like, you people who do writing over there...” (I L).
Between the switch to semesters and the addition of the writing center, the writing
curriculum had to take center stage, at least for a time. Apparently, it was great for some,
but not all, a dynamic that has continued within the department.

Though the Writing Center and the extensive discussion about writing seem to
overshadow it, there were some changes in the curriculum, too. Courses had to be
condensed from three quarters to one semester, making things more compact. When all

the courses had to be re-submitted to a curriculum committee, several were not

 

’6 In a later chapter, I will look more closely at several different reports on writing. The emphasis here is
actually on the impact of the initiative, not the initiative itself.

77

recertified, which meant fewer themed courses. Still, the curriculum that emerged after
the switch to semesters has remained almost unchanged. Additionally, the new system
changed the requirements for basic writing students. Prior to the implementation of this
report, the 3 quarter developmental writing sequence met the general education
requirement. Everyone had to take a full year and as mentioned earlier, the
developmental sequence attempted to balance the reading and writing load differently. In
the new system, students identified as basic writers still take a full year. From an access
and equality stance, this can be seen as a real loss because of the way the course is
configured.

In sum, the 1991 report represents an important historical moment for the
department for many reasons. The biggest impact of switching to semesters seems to be
the level of departmental involvement required coupled with the fact that changes
actually took place. In other instances throughout the department’s history (as much of it
as could gather), many changes have been proposed and haggled over, sometimes
vehemently and at length, but were never approved. For instance, sometime in the 19908,
a departmental name change was being discussed. Trying to change the name at that time
was described this way: “[. . .] it was such a disaster that nothing got changed” (I L). I will
return to other attempted changes in a later section, including the name change, but I use
the above example new as a way to Show that the climate for change in this department
has a history of difficulty, and the tension around what should happen in writing courses
has been ongoing. The late 19908 showed greater possibilities for curricular change;

however, like the major shift in 1991, it was not internally motivated. That is, the

78

department did not initiate change. Rather, the departmental activity in the later 19908

also began with another university initiative.

Rethinking Writing. Again.

In a series of documents I reviewed from 2002-2003 academic year (department
memorandums, advisory council minutes, emails, and reports) I located a May 2002
memo to the ATL department, which included a draft of a new catalog description that
would cover “the department’s expanded mission, commitments, and curricular
emphases” (memo). Though the proposed description still recognizes the importance of
reading historical and literary texts, it also reflects a much stronger stance on writing and
especially on rhetoric, a term not used in previous descriptions. For instance, the new
language indicates that, “. . .the Department focuses especially on the rhetorical and
cultural contexts within which writtendiscourse is produced and distributed, with special
emphasis on digitally mediated writing...” (memo). The importance of rhetoric is then
mentioned several more times in a series of elaborations and extensions. The presence of
rhetoric and the mention of digitally mediated writing are important because these terms
reflect disciplinary changes, the changing nature of the department, and especially the
influence of more faculty members with training in those areas.

In the fall of 2002, a departmental email ”(summarizing an earlier Advisory
council meeting) indicates that, after some editing and revision, the Advisory council was
able to reach a consensus on the new mission statement. The same email mentions a
move from a faculty member to change the department name to Writing, Rhetoric, and

American Culture, to better represent the revised description and mission. According to

79

the email, there was “. . . general assent to the proposition...” A new catalogue description,
3 new mission statement, and a new name (Writing, Rhetoric and American Cultures, vs.
Culture) were all approved later that fall. In light of the information I received about the
earlier failed attempt to change the name, I found the whole series of events fairly
significant. When I asked specifically about the 2002 name change, I learned that the
Provost had initiated a major project during the 1998-99 academic year. The charge from
the Provost is not directly related to the name change, but it marks the beginning of an
intense period in the department, which seems to have created the conditions that made
change at least possible.

In the 1998-99 academic year, the dean of the College of Arts and Letters was
charged by the then Provost with reviewing and revising writing in the university. There
was another task force, which spent the entire academic year working on a new proposal
to revise the writing requirement. One faculty member and member of the task force told
me this about the task force report:47

[T]his was... quite a wonderful document, actually... [W]hat we set
out was a way of rethinking the writing requirement for the
university, turning it into a one year requirement [. . .] a two course
sequence, uh, kind of preserving the pieces, the traditional piece of
ATL that was the content. . .It was actually a really nice compromise
because the first semester was more like understanding university

writing. (I L)

 

47 It may not be surprising that this participant has a background in writing.

80

Like the 1991 report on writing, this proposal is significant. First, it is very
comprehensive; it offers three possible sequences for students to complete the writing
requirement, lists possible themed courses, explains placement and assessment, and even
explains the role of writing within the larger university curriculum. Interestingly, this
proposal is remarkably similar to the 2004 Writing Task Force Report, which will be
discussed in another section.48

The path of the 1999 proposal also deserves special attention because it so clearly
emphasizes another major barrier to facilitating changes—bureaucracy. The task force
worked for the 1998-99 academic year creating a proposal. Because the proposal was
created by a task force, it went back to the dean (in June of 1999), but the dean sent it
back to the department for further review. The department chair then sent it on to a
curriculum committee and the curriculum committee decided that more proposals should
be generated. So, for the next year (1999-2000), the department generated a slew of new
proposals, none of which were actually approved.

Thus, the process that began in the 1998-99 year was still unresolved at the end of
the second semester, in the year 2000. In August of 2000, the dean generated yet another
proposal—this one without the department, and during the course one interview, I was
told that the dean’s proposal angered many people. The dean’s proposal makes several
suggestions, but one that stands out is the suggestion to create a Rhetoric and
Composition emphasis in the English department and, subsequently, to move the
responsibility for Tier One out of ATL and into the English Department (Dean’s position

paper). The position paper also Specifies that the Rhetoric and Composition strand would

 

‘8 The final 2004 task force report also includes recommendations for revising Tier II, but my focus
remains on Tier One.

81

eventually develop upper-level courses, which could include professional writing and
rhetorical theory (as examples) and even a graduate program. From piecing together
emails and memos, it is clear that the proposal did come as a surprise.49

A memo from the ATL department chair to all ATL faculty explains that, on
August 7th, 2000, the dean called a meeting and presented the position paper. (8/23/2000
memo). It was not well received. In a memo to the department, dated the very next day
(August 8), the chair indicates that he “had no prior knowledge of [the proposal] or [the
dean’s] intentions of making it available to Chairpersons or directors.” The memo to the
department also includes a copy of an email from the chair back to the dean, expressing
several concerns about the position paper, two of which are especially significant for this
project.

The first issue of particular importance is the possible curricular effects of moving
Tier One writing out of ATL. For instance, according to the chair, there were concerns
about the use of adjuncts and teaching assistants, with some faculty (possibly) viewing it
“. . .as a retreat from or lessening of a commitment to teaching composition, reading
skills, and discussion skills...” Further, the move to English could be seen as “. . .the
diminution of a flexible diverse approach (with an emphasis on cultural documents and
texts) into a single approach of composition and rhetoric...” (8/23 memo from ND). As

with other proposed changes, the ATL department strongly resists a departure from

certain core values, such as the importance of content. In discussing this moment with

 

’9 I need to point out that a separate interview provided a different point of view about the significance of
the Dean’s proposal. 1 was told the idea was never really taken seriously and it did not surface again.
However, fi'om my perspective and hem what I learned in a later interview, it is worth mentioning. During
another initiative, it was again possible that Tier One could be housed in another department, possibly
English. I was told, though, that the English Department was not interested in taking on Tier One. So,
whether by choice or not, Tier One remained in ATL.

82

one of my participants, it was also noted that the resistance was likely rooted in more
than a changing curriculum. A move to another department would have raised serious
questions about faculty lines and teaching assignments, among other things.

The other major issue here is entirely administrative. According to the same
memo, because the dean’s plan was so unexpected, the ATL department could read the
new proposal as a “. . .breach of faith and as a unilateral move. . ..” (memo from ND). The
ATL department had been working on other proposals believing they would be seriously
considered. The faculty expected to have until the end of the Fall 2000 semester to
present a proposal. In response, the Dean agreed to more officially present her proposal
and open up more discussion. The next position paper from the Dean was sent to the ATL
department in November 2000, set to be discussed in December. The revised proposal
from the dean states that she is “. . .recommending and preparing to move ahead on the
following modified reorganization plan.” Primarily, the plan involves redefining and.
expanding the mission of the Department of American Thought and Language (memo
from Dean). The dean also provides a new title for the department, “The Department of
Rhetoric and American Discourse,” though she also indicates that the department will
have ultimate say in choosing a new name.

Unlike the first position paper from the Dean, Tier One would not be housed
completely within the English Department. Instead, the new “R&AD” department would
not only keep its commitment to Tier One, but would also “take the lead” in developing a
vertical writing program, which could include a writing certificate, a specialization, and a
PhD program in Composition and Rhetoric. The Dean also recommended an

interdepartmental Writing Board, made up of existing faculty members with specific

83

training in writing, and recommended an external search for a director of composition.
Over time, the Writing Board would be responsible for overseeing Tier One course
development. At this stage of Composition’s disciplinary and institutional life, such an
administrative structure would not be unusual——a writing program administrator and
some type of permanent committee or group to help manage first-year writing. It is worth
noting that the 1999 task force recommended some similar things, such as a writing
specialization and more writing across students’ academic experience (like a vertical
curriculum). Recall also that the 1999 task force report was never approved or even able
to move forward. But consistent with past attempts to initiate change, the Dean’s revised
position paper still received resistance, especially the idea of a lead department. The dean
provided an alternative model in a follow-up memo dated Feb 2001 , which did not
include a lead department.

In sum, the 2000-2001 academic year was very busy and very tense for the ATL
department. It is clear that there were many challenging issues surrounding Tier One
writing, some of them primarily administrative and some of them curricular. But even
though nothing had been resolved, the ATL department was at a major crossroads; events
were set in motion. All of the difficulties with designing a new curriculum (past and
present), finding a new department name, and the role of Tier One, would be heightened
in the years to follow, as several new hires and another major university initiative began
to once again put pressure on the department. The next section looks specifically at the

years following 2001-2002, when another flurry of activity began to take place.

84

What’s Really in a Name? We are WRAC

“It's unbelievable how much hinges on a name” (LA).

“[. . .] there were those of us for, you know, 11 years previous to that, had been trying to
figure out how to make some changes... So it was the hiring of someone with a big name
who had negotiated with the provost position and money that enabled us to do the thing

we had been trying to do for awhile” (I L).

As mentioned above, the ATL department was in a state of flux going into the
2001-2002 academic year. With the Dean’s position paper still lingering, and nothing yet
resolved, two additional events finally pushed the department into new territory. In
August 2001, just prior to the beginning of the academic year, a new faculty member was
hired as an advisor to the dean. When I asked about the position in an interview, the new
advisor to the dean told me, “The provost's office wanted some major revisions of Tier

One [. . .] The plan at that point was to repurpose ATL into a comprehensive writing
program with a strong American Studies and Cultural Rhetoric angle” (PJ). In the same
interview, though, the new advisor to the dean also said, “the three big agenda items the
first year were creating the graduate and undergraduate program, so the third big issue
was hiring faculty.”50 So, revising Tier One was only one part of a much larger plan,
making the amount of change (and the stakes) much greater. In the Fall of 2001 then,
there were two committees for writing, one undergraduate and one graduate. The writing

committees were not the only ones that fall, however. Per the department chair, everyone

 

50 There were 3 new hires that year.

85

in the department served on a committee, but the writing committees were first to present
their proposals. By December, the undergraduate cormnittee had finished a proposal for
the writing major, with the first courses being approved in December 2001.

According to interviews, the apparent fast approval of an undergraduate writing
major caused stress within the department, especially among faculty on other committees.
It forced many long-time issues to the surface: questions about the home of Tier One, the
role of writing in the department and the university, and the future lives of the faculty had
to be negotiated.5 ' The undergraduate writing program actually preceded the graduate
program in Rhetoric and Writing, but both were approved in the same academic year,
2001-2002. And once both programs were approved, there was no turning back, no way
to remain ATL.

Then, (finally) in the year 2003, the ATL department managed a name change, in
just one academic year. As mentioned previously, the department has not always been
receptive to change, and the earlier attempt at a name change was a complete failure. So,
I was surprised at how quickly a new name was approved. When I asked about the time
fiame, I was told that the faculty were very responsive to the need for a change, but that
choosing a name was difficult. Though the name change is not directly (causally) related
to the attempts at curricular or other departmental changes (past or present), they can be
seen as connected. Recall that the name change was approved, by a large margin, at the

same time as a new department mission statement, which more clearly emphasized

 

5' Recall that the idea of moving Tier One writing had surfaced previously. In interviewing the newer
faculty members, the possibility was mentioned again. One participant told me that there was no reason
why Tier One couldn’t be taught through another department. It just happened to have a history with this
particular department.

86

writing and also rhetoric. Whatever the other outcomes, the ability to change the name
meant that there was finally enough writing faculty in the department to warrant it.
According to one interview, the new name was needed because “of the kind of
faculty members we were hiring in tenure system positions [. . .] This certainly pushed the
department or extended the department into areas rhetoric and writing, professional
writing, electronic writing, uh that uh, we had never had anybody working before” (ND).
The name needed to reflect the departmental make up. Another participant put it this way,
“I think what sold it to the whole department was the fact that there were two majors”
(PJ). Even with the large margin of agreement, though, the name change was still referred
to as “a big political issue.” in part because of the department’s history in the college:
[. . .] we had managed to survive and continue as a department out the old
university college, the four ”departments in the old university college, and
all of those departments were disbanded and faculty ended up diffused
into other, distributed-redistributed into other departments. We were the
only department in the University College that managed to stay intact. So,
therefore, I think that the name had a particular significance to them. And,
I think also they were critical of this diffusion of the department, taking on
new dimensions, taking on areas of professional writing, electronic
writing, rhetoric and writing. I think there was some concern that the

department had lost its center, so to speak. ND

Questions of curriculum, identity, and ownership (which are all intimately

connected) continued to be a source of concern. The addition of new faculty and a new

87

major challenged (even necessitated) the department to evolve. In fact, the significance of
the new hires was mentioned in each of the interviews I conducted. For example, the
presence of the new writing program resulted in more (and different) teaching
opportunities. As one participant put it, “[. . .] our sole duty was to teach writing for many
years, and then, we've developed these more advanced courses and programs and so that's
really the big shift to WRAC.” (LA).52 And while the name change is actually more of a
by—product of other developments, it is representative of other major shifts that had been
unfolding for at least a couple of years prior.

Even though the name change was overwhelmingly approved, and the department
seemed to be in agreement for once, the history of the department continued to create
fiiction. And, the brief moment of consensus was not to last. There were simply too many
changes already in motion. The new hires associated with the new programs, along with
other faculty members, were already working toward another comprehensive vision
statement: “[O]nce the graduate and undergraduate programs got approved, we turned
right to this in 2003, the comprehensive vision of the writing program because we had the
two necessary pieces in place” (PJ).53 Then, Provost provided the ultimate opportunity
with a university initiative called, “Realizing the Vision: The Future of Liberal Arts and
Sciences at MSU.” The “Realizing the Vision” web site explains that:

As Michigan State University enters into both the 218t century and its
sesquicentennial, it looks to enhance - and strengthen - its vision of the
liberal arts and sciences at the land—grant university. Toward this goal, the

MSU community has been engaged in a conversation about what

 

52 Writing here refers to Tier One writing.
53 Recall that part of the goal in hiring new faculty was to improve Tier One. The advisor to the dean told
me that the move to get the undergraduate and graduate programs approved first was strategic.

88

initiatives might best help bring such a vision to life.

(http://realizingthevision.msu.edu/)

Through my interviews, I learned that essentially, any person, academic department, or
academic unit, could submit a proposal. As one participant put it, “[. . .] she invited,
basically opened the door to individuals, groups, sub-groups, departments, programs [. . .]
it seemed as if, that anything was possible...” (ND). The resulting proposal from a
handful of faculty members in WRAC (who had been working on something already)
was titled “A Strategic Vision for Strengthening the Writing Curriculum at MSU.” For
numerous reasons, the Strategic Vision statement caused quite uproar in the department.
One major source of grievance was the way in which it was presented to the
Provost. The Strategic Vision was not a departmental-wide statement, but the work of a
handful of faculty members who had already been working toward a new statement. The
department chair signed the document—not as a way of speaking for the whole
department, but as a way of showing support as a faculty member—yet the signature was
read as the former, as speaking for the department. Additionally, even though the Provost
asked for proposals, some faculty members in WRAC were critical, believing the
document should have gone through regular governance before being sent on. However,
according to one co-author of the Strategic Vision, it was never meant to be official,
merely a pre-proposal to generate conversation and put new ideas forward. Shortly after
the proposal went to the Provost, though, a group of American Studies faculty (within
WRAC) submitted their own proposal, requesting to become a stand alone department.

The request was denied.

89

At this point, the WRAC department was in another moment of crisis. I was told
that the Strategic Vision statement “really destabilized the department...” and that, “[the
department] has been trying to recover from it ever since.” (ND). In asking about the
impact of the Strategic Vision, and why it was met with such resistance, I learned that it
was more than the administrative process. For example, I was told that some points of
contention had do with propriety control over first-year writing, even though most of the
faculty no longer teach first-year writing on a regular basis: “[. . .] there's a stake, people
feel that they are the major stake holders, uh, in the first year writing program. They are
the ones who in fact taught first year writing, three sections, four sections, uh every
semester.” (ND). Much like the attachment to the name American Thought and
Language, the history of the department created a barrier to creating change.

One of the more recent hires and co-authors of the Strategic Vision told me that
the negative reaction was more than that; it was a response to proposing “significant
change in a short period of time” along with “structural changes in where writing was
located.” (GJ). Furthermore, I learned that the Provost expressed interest in the Strategic
Vision and asked for a more detailed plan, which was also submitted. Thus, the Strategic
Vision could be said to be gaining momentum, something that seemed to cause additional
anxiety.

As can be seen, things were not well in the department, especially early in the
2003-2004 academic year. Part of the departmental recovery process began in early 2004,
when the Provost presented the oflicial charge explaining the next steps of the Realizing
the Vision project. Ultimately, the broad project included several different initiatives:

college reorganization, graduate and research initiatives, and undergraduate initiatives.

90

Part of the undergraduate initiative was yet another writing task force, charged (once
again!) with reviewing the current tier one model and suggesting areas of improvement.54
Unlike the Strategic Vision proposal, the 2004 Writing Task Force was comprised of a
more diverse group of faculty members, and was described as “a repair job on the
division that had been created by the Strategic Vision document. . .” in part because the
writing task force documents were distributed to everyone in the department and there
were meetings and open discussions. According to one interview, there was even support
for many of the recommendations (ND).

Not all agree about the reparative role of the 2004 report, though. Two co-authors
of the Strategic Vision said openly that the Strategic Vision was really more like the first
draft of what became the 2004 Task Force Report. Though the members of the task force
were more diverse, the report did not necessarily represent compromise. In fact, one
participant told me it was like a line in the sand, with people choosing sides.
Interestingly, the content of the 2004 report is remarkably like the 1998-99 task force
report, recommending a two-sequence approach with one course focused more
specifically on rhetorical approaches to writing and the other course focusing more on
reading and content apart from writing.

Another important similarity is this: as of this writing, now almost three years
later, it is difficult to gauge the effects of the various initiatives and reports. After the
2004 Task Force report, there was another follow-up report and the possibility of piloting
a two-semester linked course in the near future. The hope of the pilot course is actually a
huge step forward, but considering that a very similar model for Tier One has been I

circulating since 1999, it is a bit troubling. However, with the new hires and new writing

 

5’ The final task force report also includes recommendation for Tier II.

91

programs, there have been some significant changes. One of the newer faculty members
told me this, “[I] think where there have been changes is how we professionalize graduate
student teachers. Um, and I think there's been some significant cultural shifts in how the
department understands um, what it takes to professionalize the teaching of writing.” In
the same interview, professionalization and training opportunities related to the role of
technology were also mentioned. So, though potentially hard to capture (and certainly

hard to measure) the department has definitely evolved.55

Summary: What is a Curriculum Anyway?

The path to becoming WRAC can be seen as an ongoing struggle to establish a
Tier One writing cuniculurn that actually emphasizes writing and incorporates
disciplinary developments in Composition and Rhetoric. The name change from ATL is
representative of a major shift, and major gains, at least from a writing perspective. As
should be obvious, it has been quite a challenge to reach this point. What becomes most
noteworthy, though, is the nature of the challenges and the ways in which the department
has tried to manage them. When discussing the evolution of the department, history,
identity, and control are mentioned repeatedly. At times, it seems that the resistance is
less focused on writing or writing pedagogy and more focused on who gets to make the
rules.

And regardless of any curricular “best intentions,” the role of administrators and
the function of various institutional documents are both crucial in all attempts at change.

Without pressure from a Dean or Provost, without key university initiatives, would this

 

55 The effects, or lack thereof, of various task force reports and other departmental activity will be
addressed again in a closing chapter. For the purposes of this chapter, it is enough to recognize that the
department has been struggling with Tier One for many, many years.

92

department have been able to move forward? To affect change here seems to require that
the right kind of proposal happens at the right time and falls into the right hands. Without
such kairotic help, it is possible to imagine that nothing would ever happen. This raises
serious questions about how institutions really function and highlights the unfortunate
reality that educational decisions might not have anything to do with the people they most

go on to affect—students.

93

Chapter 4

Persistence and Resistance: the Discourse of a Changing Writing Program

By juxtaposing plans for reform with evidence of what a given reform looked like when
implemented, my aim is to throw into high relief the dynamic interplay that exists
between intellectual desires and bureaucratic realities, as all utopian aspirations encounter

inescapable, historically produced material constraints. (Miller 21)

The previous chapter described the development of one particular writing
program and introduced key issues and concerns surrounding the process of change. By
now, it should be clear that a university writing program can be seen as an enormously
complex institutional creation with many stakeholders. The program I studied may be
even more complex because of its institutional history, unique faculty makeup,
administrative structures, and the process of large scale change being initiated outside of
the department. In fact, the most substantial changes have come when pressure from
university administration has demanded it, not because the department, as a whole, has
wanted it.56 It is no wonder that change has been difficult here. This chapter continues
analyzing the evolution of the American Thought and Language Department. Whereas
chapter three provided context for key documents, and a kind of narrative history, this
chapter will focus more specifically (and more critically) on documents associated with

moments of pending change.

 

5" This is not meant to be a blanket statement about the views of all faculty members in the department. As
mentioned in earlier chapters, there have been various attempts at change fi'om within the department;
however, most failed.

94

Given the politics of literacy instruction broadly, the specifics of writing within
the university, and the ways in which different groups are affected, it may seem strange
(or even pointless) to look at something 80 abstract as a mission statement, report, or a set
of goals and objectives. However, the documents I will analyze do much more than
provide basic descriptions. The descriptions and recommendations in them, and the
actions they make possible, try to make possible, and try to resist, are extremely
important. By studying the language used in various documents, it is possible to see how
different groups argued for particular (and often competing) visions of the writing
program. It is possible to see the influence of external factors, such as existing and
emerging scholarship on writing and writing programs and the influence university
administration. It is also possible to see the influence of institutional history, personal

beliefs, and long standing investments in the writing program.

Theoretical Orientation

This chapter will rely on a combination institutional critique, discourse theory,
and critical theory. My use of the term institutional critique follows from the article,
“Institutional Critique: A Rhetorical Methodology for Change” (Porter, et.al). The
authors were not satisfied with existing theories or methods for studying institutions; the
empirical work lacked theoretical substance while the theoretically rich work was not .
practical. Institutional critique attempts to address both and importantly, it works fi'om a
point of trying to affect change, especially for those who may be overlooked and
disadvantaged. Porter’s co-authored piece argues that institutions are rhetorical entities

and as such, rhetoric can be used to change them. They explain, for example, how the

\.

95

addition of the word “usability” into a product development manual for a software
company can be seen as representing an important shift in making users (not just
designers) an important part of the development process. The authors describe their
methodology as an “unabashedly rhetorical practice mediating macro-level structures and
micro-level actions rooted in a particular space and time” (612). My data analysis relies
primarily on an adaptation of discourse theory (not rhetorical theory) but the goals of
institutional critique very closely match my own.

The importance of space, for instance (literally and figuratively) adds an
important layer: “[. . .] control of space is power; inclusion and placement on the
institution’s web page, newsletters, and so on reflects institutional identity...” (620).
Specific to my study, students identified as “basic writers” and often, those who meet
with them as teachers, can be overlooked in larger institutional structures. And, the
potential to create literal and metaphorical space for changing approaches to writing is an
important part of the work of the institutional documents I collected. The need to work
between macro-level structures and rrricro-level actions, along with the same attention to
how things are written, fits perfectly within the goals of this project, too. Over the years,
a variety of forces have been at work in creating (or attempting to create) change in the
ATL (turned WRAC) department. Macro-level pressures, such as the larger university
system and the continued growth of Composition and Rhetoric, have bumped up against
the every day practices and beliefs (micro-level actions) that had been ingrained into the
ATL mission for many, many, years. One of the places where these points of contention
can be studied is in the series of reports and proposals that have circulated through the

department. Though it would be possible to call this a rhetorical analysis, my approach

96

relies heavily on a particular view of discourse taken fi'om the work of Norman
Fairclough.

Fairclough’s book, Discourse and Social Change lays out his then new method of
language analysis, calling it an approach which will be “particularly useful for
investigating changes in language, and will be. usable in studies of social and cultural
change” (1). Though he ultimately provides several methods of analysis, his theoretical
foundation is most important to this study. The changes in the department I studied can
certainly be viewed as cultural shifts, attempts to create a new culture of writing and
potentially, a new culture within the department. In fact, some of the resistance to change
can best be explained as resisting a cultural shift. Fairclough brings together a variety of
existing work—in linguistic studies, language studies, and even social and political
thought. His blending of social theory is very useful for my purposes; He refers to the
work of Antonio Grarnsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucalt, Jurgen Habermas and
Anthony Giddens, among others. Necessarily, the notion of reproduction surfaces, which
Fairclough defrnes as the “mechanisms through which societies sustain their social
structures and social relations over time” (5).

The concept of reproduction is important to this study in several ways. On the
largest scale, the educational system has been described by some researchers as a primary
mechanism for social reproduction,iboth good and bad.57 On a smaller scale, the ATL
department went nearly 40 years with only one major change, the switch from quarters to
semesters. And while the switch did impact the ATL curriculum in some ways, the
biggest changes were actually structural. In every day practice, there are arguments as to

whether or not first year writing (especially basic writing) does anything more than

 

57 See Levinson, Foley, and Holland, for example. See also Bourdieu

97

reproduce an unequal structure for the students and faculty associated with it.58 Though
my analysis in this chapter will not directly address social reproduction arguments, it
remains an important concept for the study as a whole (refer back to chapter one for
additional explanation). And, as will be seen, several of the documents I analyze do
attempt to retain (reproduce) certain aspects of the writing program I studied.

When attempting to discuss social systems and institutional structures, Michel
Foucalt deserves an additional mention for his work on the ways in which language can
be used to structure knowledge and social practice. Language does more than simply
describe. It is both a product of social practice and a producer. One of Foucault’s many
arguments is that through discourse, certain kinds of knowledge can become legitimated
and then circulate as truth. When certain kinds of knowledge become legitimate, other
kinds become discredited (“T ruth and Power”). When considering the stakes of
curricular reform, it will be necessary to consider the same relationship because the
specialized knowledge available about writing and writing programs played a role in
major reports and recommendations.

Fairclough acknowledges F oucalt’s strong influence on his work, but
differentiates his approach in several ways. For instance, Fairclough examines a much
larger pool of discourse—political discourse, classroom discourse, educational discourse,
media discourse, among others, and includes spoken language in many of his examples.
Fairclough then adds discourse production and interpretation, with a particular interest in
“real time” examples.59 F airclough provides a way to see the “. . .relationship between

texts, social practices, and social identities” (CDA in Education, 240). It is an

 

58 See Sharon Crowley especially.
59 In Fairclough’s terms, texts can be spoken or written examples of discourse.

98

investigation into the relationship between discourse and social structure. Some
researchers have since argued that a more thorough application of Fairclough’s orders of
discourse should include local, institutional, and societal contexts.60 For example, in this
study, a Writing Task Force report represents a departmental conversation about writing
(local), a conversation about existing institutional arrangements and institutional
pressures (institutional), and potentially reflects changing societal views of writing and
literacy and even education broadly—all at the same time. The descriptions found in
reports and other documents are an attempt to create, maintain, or change, a particular
kind of structure, or structures.

F airclough’s thinking was not entirely new. He acknowledges earlier attempts to
blend language studies with social theory (citing Halliday’s critical linguistics and the
work of Michel Pecheux, for example), but argues that they had only limited success.
Similar to Porter et.al.’8 argument, there lacked balance. Halliday was short on social
theory while Pecheux lacked depth in actual language analysis. Further, he argues that,
“Little attention has been paid to struggle and transformation in power relations and the
role of language therein” (2). In this way, he says his approach adopts a “critical” stance,
which “implies showing connections and causes which are hidden; it also implies
intervention...” (9). The attention to struggle as it can be found in language, uncovering
hidden causes, and the desire for intervention are all relevant to my analysis, as is the use

of critical theory.

 

60 See Rogers and Haley Woodside-Jeron in An Introduction to Critical Discourse Analysis in Education.

99

Broadly, critical theory is concerned with studying power relationships, with an
important emphasis on how relationships are created and negotiated.61 Education and
literacy researchers have adapted critical theory in various ways. Rebecca Rogers writes
that, “Critical research rejects the overdeterministic view of social theory espoused by
Marxists and instead argues for a dialectic between individual agency and structural
determinism” (CDA in Education 3). What this view of critical research allows for is the
study of tensions and moments of resistance within larger social and institutional
frameworks. The ATL department had become, in a sense, a kind of institution within an
institution. It was firmly established with a history and vision that remained unchanged
for decades. Yet, the institution of ATL was challenged. Repeatedly, the institutional
history and particular institutional structures of the writing program were most visible
when they were challenged because the changed curriculum would change not just what
counts as writing, but would also change long-standing institutional structures.

Another elaboration of critical theory can be found In Red Pedagogy: Native
American Social and Political Thought. Author Sandy Grande provides a more
elaborated view of critical work:

Critical theorists extend critiques of the social, economic, and political
barriers to social justice as well as advocate for the transformation of

schools along the imperatives of democracy. In doing so, they position

699 999

schools as sites of struggle where the broader relations of power,

domination, and authority are played out. (6)

 

6' This particular notion of critical is usually attributed to the Frankfurt school of critical theory and the
works of Theodor Adomo, Max Horkeirner, and Jurgen Habermas, and several others.

100

Grande’s quote can serve as an important reminder that the stakes in the reform effort go
beyond faculty members, administrators, and the particulars of one department. The
reform effort is embedded in the larger educational system, which does not always meet
its democratic ideals. Students will also be affected by departmental changes and students
often have the least amount of input in the entire process.

Grande’s hope for critical theory provides perhaps the most important reasons
for doing this work—people, especially people who may be disadvantaged within or by a
system. In this study, the notion of cultural production best applies to the experience and
position of basic writers, perhaps the most vulnerable and overlooked group that stands to
be effected by any changes in the writing program. Therefore, in my analysis of key
documents, I will pay particular attention to any mention of basic writing or basic writers.
However, there are many other stakeholders in this story. For instance, faculty members
with backgrounds in writing were well outnumbered at one time and had little success in
arguing for changes in the writing program. They had very little voice. At the same time,
members of the department who had been there much longer, carrying a substantial
teaching load, also felt a tremendous sense of ownership and personal investment in the
writing program. As such, critical theory’s goals of investigating power relationships,

along with the hope for intervention, can be applied in multiple ways.

Applying Discourse Theory to a Changing Writing Program
Though education researchers have done much with CDA as it can be applied to
spoken discourse, especially in classroom interactions, there are also examples of policy

analysis. “Making Sense of Public Policy,” Chapter 8 in Critical Discourse Analysis in

101

Education, for instance, provides additional examples for application purposes. Author
Woodside-J iron focuses on changes in reading policies that took place in California
between 1995-1997, blending the work of Norman Fairclough and Basil Bernstein to
explore “the use of CDA as a tool in the critical analysis of public policy. . . [to seek] a
deeper understanding of how power operates in policy” (174). Through CDA, it is
possible to draw attention to “texts, discourse practices, and social practice issues that are
particularly relevant to drinking about the engineering of social change through language
and practice” (176). In this case, mandated policies significantly influenced teaching and
literacy learning (and necessarily for the better).

Blending the above theories and examples, it is possible to analyze various
documents as windows into much larger struggles. And while Fairclough’s methods are
well suited to doing a very detailed analysis of fewer examples, I will be adopting a
thematic approach because it best suits this project."2 Key themes include definitions of
writing, curricular statements (including content and pedagogy) and any mention of basic
writing/writers, and working conditions.

Each of the coming examples is decidedly local, but each one represents the
shifting landscape of a discipline, a department, a university, and changing beliefs about
writing and literacy. And while concrete changes are obviously important (the addition of
new classes, the loss of other classes, the emergence of a. writing center), perceived
changes are also important. In some ways, the perceived changes have been even more
contentious. A change in language does not have to point to specific changes in practice
to be meaningfirl. Recall the tensions surrounding the new departmental mission
statement and subsequent name change from American Thought and Language to

k

62 See Fairclough’s chapter 8, “Doing Discourse Analysis” in Discourse and Social Change.

102

Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures (see chapter three). As mentioned in more than
one interview, the name was significant because so much of the department’s history and
identity was linked to the name “American Thought and Language.” Clearly, the way the
department presented itself through its discourse was worth arguing over because a
change in discourse could be seen a change in identity, in power relationships (and
especially associated resources), and a change in values.

The documents I selected appear in chronological order. Each shows how the
department has worked, over time, to try and create a first-year writing program that
meets the needs of students, faculty, and the college. A critical reading using an
adaptation of Fairclough’s view of discourse will further illuminate how these documents
are interwoven with different voices and sometimes very different hopes for the future of
the department. They can be seen as the attempt to create a new (perhaps even dominant)
discourse of writing in the department (as ATL and WRAC), or at least as attempting to
integrate the ever emerging discourse of Composition and Rhetoric. They can also be
seen as a site of struggle, where the dominance of ATL is challenged in various ways.
Though there were many possible kinds of documents to choose from, I am focusing on
three Task Force Reports and three proposals that came in response to one of the Task
Force Reports. Below is a timeline and brief context for each section:

1. 1991 Report of the Joint Committee on Writing Requirements. This is the report
that established a two semester sequence, which replaced three quarter. It also
established a two tier approach to writing and recommended a writing center.
Recall that at this time, there were very few people in the department with

specific training in writing/teaching writing.

103

2. 1999 Writing Task Force Report. This was written when the dean of the College
of Arts and Letters was charged by the then Provost with reviewing and revising
writing in the university. It includes the recommendation for a return to a full year
of writing in the first year of college. This report shows a much greater
disciplinary voice.

3. Responses to 1999 Report. These three informal proposals that present very
different alternatives to the 1999 report.

4. 2004 Task Force Report. This stems fi'om a large university initiative and is one
of several reports on undergraduate education. However, this report can also be
linked to the Strategic Vision document, something that caused major upheaval in

the department (see chapter three).

I have chosen the Task Force Reports because they can be seen as official, even if
not acted upon, because they are the result of some specific request to generate findings
and make recommendations. The proposals I selected were also solicited; they came in
response to the 1999 Task Force Report. Though the proposals are not official in the
same way as the Task Force Report, they are very illuminating, speaking to key recurring
issues of work, related status issues, departmental identity, and the growing influence of

specialized knowledge in writing studies.
The 1991 “Report of the Joint Committee on Writing Requirements.”

Though American Thought and Language had a substantial history prior to 1991,

the 1991 writing report is a crucial document. As explained in the previous chapter, the

104

1991 report provided a new structure for Tier One writing that would be applied when the
university switched from a quarter system to a semester system. It required major
rethinking and restructuring for everyone in the department and impacted other
departments as well. The decision to switch to semesters was a university decision,
heavily influenced by other colleges, both in the choice to adopt a semester system and in
some of the additional report recommendations. The changes were seen as an important
way to stay competitive and to continue attracting new students. So, institutional factors
and even larger societal trends actually created the exigency for the first major change in
ATL for nearly 30 years.

Whatever the exigency, though, the switch created an opportunity for change. For
instance, faculty with specific training in writing had a greater voice in the future of the
department. It also provided the opportunity for all faculty members to argue for different
working conditions. As such, the 1991 Report of the Joint Committee on Writing
Requirements is one of several examples of how discourse has been used to create new
structures within the ATL department. A review of this report will provide a backdrop
and a measure of comparison for later reports; it will also identify points of contention
that continued to surface years later and will provide specific examples of how the
changing discourse in these documents can be read as representative of changes in the
culture of writing in American Thought and Language. Because the structure established
by this report remains so similar even today, I will devote more space to analyzing it.

The report begins with an overview of the committee make up, which included
representatives from the University Curriculum Committee, the University Committee on

Academic Policy, a smaller writing task force, two Provost appointed writing experts,

105

and two students. Along with the varied knowledge and experience of the committee, the
report notes that they referred to the growing body of scholarship on writing program
design. And, the report attempts to “. . . [keep] students needs foremost in mind...” while
still being conscious of demands on faculty and university resources (1). The result is
writing defined like this:
“Writing is a highly personalized and intricate art developed through
student-instructor contact. It is an important component of a student’s
intellectual endeavor and, consequently, inextricably linked to critical
thinking and other language processes such as reading, listening and
speaking. Good writing is the product of instruction in writing at various
stages in a student’s academic experience and has value which goes

beyond academic life to extend into professional and civic affairs” (1 ).

The outcomes indicate that students will “conceive, draft, revise” and complete
papers of varying lengths (3). Students are expected to search for information fi'om
outside sources, use it correctly in their writing, and apply the rules of American English.
The objectives, as listed, “are to increase students’ abilities to organize information into
coherent forms, state a clear and authentic point of view, direct argument to specific
audiences and control the patterns and mechanics of written expression” (3). The report
specifically states that, “Students will engage these tasks in the context of a coherently
presented set of interdisciplinary materials on American Culture...” (3). The outcomes
also continue to say though, “In emphasis, these are writing, rather than content

courses...” (3). At first read, the above description does not differ significantly from the

106

original ATL course. The link to reading, listening, and speaking is consistent, as is the
statement on a specific content.

However, there is some noteworthy language in the report and a more critical read
finds evidence of a subtle, but important, shift. One especially significant statement is
that good writing is the product of instruction in writing at various stages in a student’s
academic career. Recall that the department had (and still has) faculty members fiom a
range of disciplines. Their training in teaching writing varied considerably. How to best
teach writing is not easily agreed upon even among Composition professionals, so the
idea that a particular kind of instruction would be necessary can be seen as evidence of
disciplinary scholarship. The report includes references and citations in another section,
too. Additionally, and this will come up again and again, the courses are described as
writing courses, not content courses that include writing.

Though the specific language and use of referenced can and should be seen as
significant, the curriculum remained largely unchanged. The move to semesters did
create the need to condense the same basic approach into one semester, which presented
challenges, but the goals, objectives, and content were not significantly different.
According to one interview, the structural outcomes of the 1991 report were actually
more significant than any curricular changes. For example, the report recommends
replacing the full year sequence with a two tier approach, adding writing across the
curriculum (called writing in the disciplines in the report). So, instead of 3 quarters of
required first-year writing, most students would take one 4-credit course in the first year

and then an upper level writing course in the student’s major.

107

One of the noted concerns with moving to a semester system with only one
required first-year course was that students would not receive enough instruction in
writing. The return argument is that the addition of the Tier 11 class would really only
reduce the total credits by 1, going fi'om 9 to 8. Additionally (and well worth pointing
out) the reduction in the number of courses needed in the first year would enable ATL
faculty to teach just 2 sections. The ability to teach 2 courses would make more
individualized instruction possible, which would benefit students. However, is not just
significant to students. In the quarter system, ATL faculty taught 3 courses each quarter,
a heavier load than faculty in other departments. The report also states, “Most important,
the first year writing course [. . .] will no longer complete a student’s writing requirement”
(2).63 Thus, the two-tier approach would benefit faculty in two ways, by reducing their
teaching load and by spreading the responsibility for teaching writing.

The reasoning for the upper level course as presented in the report actually comes
from scholarship and a statement about writing expectations for MSU graduates:

“. . .MSU graduates can expect to spend significant amounts of time producing and
analyzing written documents. Thus, a complete education should include practice in the
writing tasks, forms, and styles appropriate to the student’s discipline or professional
field” (4). This argument is significant in many ways. Other departments certainly
incorporated writing into their courses, but prior to this report, no other department was
officially charged with or held accountable for teaching writing. The addition of a
required upper level course (and the recommendations for additional writing in other

courses) significantly broadened the responsibility of teaching writing and created new

 

63 Additionally, it was recommended that courses in Integrative Studies add writing assignments as a
supplement to course content.

108

 

opportunities for faculty in ATL, such as being involved with a writing center and writing
laboratory, another key outcome. According to the report, the writing center would be
established to assist faculty with incorporating writing into their courses and to aid
students. It is noted that several other Big Ten schools had successfully established
writing centers. The center would have a director and be staffed by faculty “writing

” 64(6). The switch to semesters opened the door to make this argument possible,

experts
creating a metaphorical space that led to a physical space.

While there is some evidence of new disciplinary influences, and the important
addition of a place to more firlly support writing pedagogy, the only mention of basic or
preparatory writing is that it should exist in the form of a 4-credit class taken prior to
taking the regular Tier One course. Students should be placed into it based on a variety of
test scores. The report indicates that the university already had a placement model, based
on a combination of ACT and SAT scores, a Reading Comprehension Test, and an
Academic Orientation essay. At the time of the report, about 8% of new students were
placed into a developmental writing program, “. . .where they receive the intensive
instruction they need” (2). The information I was able to locate on the developmental
writing program (not much) dates back to 1984, a chapter in the book Courses for
Change in Writing. 65

According to the chapter, by Henry Silverman, the developmental courses had a
reduced reading load and offered more time to focus on writing. The courses are

described as process oriented and students attended a supplemental writing lab each

week. The recommendation in the 1991 Report is that the uniVersity keeps a similar

 

6" At this stage, the Writing Center and Lab are described separately, with the Lab being staffed by
undergraduate and graduate students, who would work as tutors.
65 This book is also referenced in chapter three.

109

system in place. At no point in the report is the Developmental Writing Program
explained firrther; the curriculum is not mentioned, there are no outcomes given, and
there is no explanation as to how it relates to the general education writing requirement.
Further, no one thought to mention the fact that the new system could be seen as making
greater class-like distinctions between incoming students. The omissions speaks volumes
about the “importance” of developmental writing at this stage of the writing program’s
evolution, especially since the semester model would affect the way students met the
writing requirement.66 Prior to developing the two tier model, all students took equal
credits in writing with a small percentage doing so in the developmental writing program.
Either “track” met the general education requirement.

In sum, this report represents a major moment in the life of the ATL department.
First, it was approved and implemented. It created a structure for Tier One that hasn’t
changed significantly from when it was introduced in 1992. It also called for more
writing within the university, including the addition of Tier II requirement. The benefits
of a comprehensive approach to writing were supported by references and it is reasonable
to assume, reflective of input from the writing specialists. And while the curriculum
remained incredibly similar (though condensed) working conditions were improved and

writing faculty got a writing center.

The Year of the Proposal: ATLAS and Other Options for ATL
The next major moment that involved significant documentation came between

the years of 1998-2000. Recall from Chapter three that in the 1998-99 academic year, the

 

66 Because Silverman’s chapter is nearly 10 years older than the 1991 report, it is difficult to know what
remained the same and what may have changed at the time of this writing. However my point remains—not
much attention is given to basic writing.

110

dean of the College of Arts and Letters was charged by the then Provost with reviewing
and revising writing in the university. There was another task force, which spent the
entire academic year working on a new proposal to revise the writing requirement and
develop a full-year, first-year writing program. The final report was printed in June of
1999. The dean’s original talking points, which are included at the beginning of the
report, are significant and include, “multiple placement options [. . .] that would take into
account the needs and levels of students, including non-native speakers of English” and
“the possible content and approach of the two first-year writing courses,” along with
staffing concerns (2). The Task Force recommendations are foregrounded by a set of nine
“working assumptions” (2). I am including language from four of the nine because they
clearly represent significant shifts in thinking about writing (in general) and especially
writing in American Thought and Language. The second working assumption is
particularly rich, so I quote it in full:
A writing curriculum for the 21St century should prepare students for the
challenges of living and working in an age of accelerating and
proliferating information, through digital literacy and computer skills,
while at the same time providing them with a critical awareness of their
own culture in a global context, the abilities needed to express themselves
in varied writing tasks and situations, and critical reading and thinking

skills.” (2)

The inclusion of global contexts, digital literacy, and computer skills provides

clear evidence of shifting definitions of writing and more than likely, reflects the make up

111

of this particular task force. At the time of the 1991 Report, there were very few members
of ATL with backgrounds in writing and no writing center. On this task force, though,
one member (still a faculty member in WRAC) has a degree emphasizing rhetorical
theory and according to biographical information, has a strong interest and background in
technology, particularly online technologies. The possible influence of the task force
make up can be seen in other working assumptions, too. Two of the seven members of
the task force were affiliated with the writing center and point four states that
“Conversations about writing practices, goals, and outcomes must be encouraged and
stimulated at all levels...” and that “Sites and venues have to be created, nurtured, and
maintained...” (4). Though no particular statement stands out as representative, it is still
worth noting that a fourth member of the task force lists language and literacy instruction
as two core research interests. Unlike the report in 1991, this report much more clearly
represents a strong writing focus and does so in many ways.

Working assumption six, for instance, also speaks to particular faculty
members, saying that, “Faculty who are devoted to the core writing instruction and who
develop and enhance the writing curriculum have to be recognized and rewarded for their
work and commitment. . .” (3). Recommendations include merit pay and advancement in
rank, along with recognizing research into teaching as significant scholarly work. Here,
we can see the ever present debate about the position of writing faculty in universities.
Point seven, on the other hand, strives to maintain balance and states that any new
curriculum must “take fully into account the current ATL course curriculum as well as
the varied pedagogy and writing instruction practices of the department’s composition

faculty...” and that “The ATL faculty should have full opportunity to propose

112

alternatives. . .”(3). Clearly, the ongoing struggle to maintain the core mission and values
of ATL, while trying to move toward a stronger writing foundation, remains.

To some degree, the actual proposal is less noteworthy than the talking points
and working assumptions that support it, however there are some key statements that
point to the ever growing presence and voice of writing faculty. For example, the courses
are meant to be “. . .process oriented and revision based...” and should encourage “active
learning and problem solving strategies...” (4). Terms such as “process oriented” and
“revision” are common in writing scholarship and can be read here as an example of a
very specific discourse on writing. Additionally, the report states that “. . .students not
only need time to practice their writing strategies but need the support of a community of
readers and writers.” (4). And in a closing paragraph, the report claims that the writing
courses outlined “give students opportunities to develop a wide range of invention,
editing, and proofreading strategies...” (4). Though the importance of acknowledging the
ATL curriculum is mentioned early on in the working assumptions, it is not specifically
mentioned in this part of the report. Instead, in the overview and beyond, there is strong
evidence of specific scholarship on writing and teaching writing; more specialized
discourse.

To be fair, many of the suggestions are also in response to MSU’s Guiding
Principles (mentioned at different times in the report), but the descriptions of how the
courses should meet those guidelines are noteworthy.67 For instance, in the proposed
course description for Writing 101, “Understanding College Writing,” instructors will be

encouraged to use draft workshops, free-writing, written reflections, and inkshedding,

 

67 The guiding principles are important in that they provide some exigency for reviewing and revising the
writing program.

113

among other activities. This is clear evidence of specific disciplinary influences, along
with the make up of the task force. It is the talk of professionals who study writing and
the teaching of writing. The course goals and outcomes also show evidence of specific
voices (in the department and in a discipline) by using the terms rhetorical situation and
rhetorical conventions, plus reiterating the importance of things like drafting, writer’s
workshops, and revision. In this course, students would be expected to write in different
forms and to different audiences using a variety of evidence (including cited sources).

Also worth mentioning is the absence of specific kinds of content. The
description outlines what the course should do, and how, but says simply that instructors
should “select course materials that help students to see topics and issues from a variety
of perspectives” (6). It is very clearly a writing course with very clear information about
can be expected for teachers and students. The description of Writing 102, “Writing as
Inquiry” is more concise, which may be because the courses share the same basic goals
and objectives: “Those goals introduced in Writing 101 will be revisited and extended in
Writing 102” (7). The course description indicates that writing will be used as a means of
inquiry into a particular subject or field, though not to show mastery of a body of
knowledge. It is very much like the single ATL class that came out of the 1991 report, a
writing class built around a theme.

Thus, to this point, the most significant changes fiom the 1991 report can be
seen in the description of Writing 101. A critical examination shows how adding Writing
101 to the first-year sequence would give writing faculty a greater voice and greater

influence within the department and even across the college."8 The class is clearly defined

 

68 The report also addresses writing in IAH (Integrative Arts and Humanities) courses and Tier 11. Since
neither are new creations at the time of this point, I am not devoting much space to reviewing

114

by research and scholarship in writing. Since most students would be expected to take
this course first, it could strongly influence how they approach writing in other courses.
Additionally, since Writing 101 and 102 are linked, it would make it much easier to argue
for certain curricular and pedagogical choices in Writing 102. Even with the presence of
themes, Writing 102 would be expected to take on certain characteristics in an effort to
meet the guidelines in the proposal.

The task force takes continues to take full advantage of the dean’s charge to
consider connections between students’ writing experiences across the whole university
by proposing several possible “additional opportunities” for undergraduates beyond Tier
1 and Tier II (1 3). The options listed include participation in writing groups (organized
by the writing center), helping students prepare writing portfolios, increased availability
of advanced writing courses, and most significantly, a certification program in writing.
The first three suggestions can be read as student and university focused. The university
seeks a more comprehensive and sustainable writing experience so that students will
continue to reinforce and advance their writing skills throughout their academic careers.
Students are given more opportunities and support to meet that goal. The addition of the
writing certificate, though, works much more like Writing 101. According to the report,
“This proposed Writing Specialization will provide opportunities for interested faculty,
including ATL faculty, to participate in the instruction of writing at levels beyond the
first-year writing program. Such a plan would help create a community of writers and
teachers” (1 3). At the time of this report, there were few opportunities to teach writing

above the 100 level and none through the ATL department. It was possible to teach a

 

recommendations. It is worth mentioning, though, that the report recommends that IAH courses provide
some specific instruction in writing and the opportunity to give and receive feedback during drafting stages.
This is similar to suggestions in the 1991 report, just more developed.

115

special topics writing course through another department, but even those were not upper-
level writing courses (300 level or above). The writing certificate proposal includes
several 300 and 400 level courses with multiple areas of emphasis, such as writing and
technology and professional writing. The certificate proposal also includes an emphasis
in Writing, Rhetoric, and Disciplinary Discourse. The nature of this emphasis would
seem to point toward graduate study in Writing and Rhetoric, more evidence of the trend
toward writing as a developed discipline.‘59

Finally, the report calls for continuing support (with the possibility of increased
support) for the writing center, and in a “Recommendations and Extensions” section,
calls for even more structural changes. For example, writing courses should be limited to
15-20 students per section and computer labs should be established “specifically for the
needs of first-year writing courses and subsequent writing courses, with those labs
exclusively reserved...” (1 6). As with gaining a writing center, the possibility of more
physical space to support writing would be extremely significant. At first read, the
approval of this report would seem to benefit all concerned. The themed courses, a
hallmark of ATL, would continue. All students and faculty would benefit fi'om reduced
class sizes. Faculty with training and interest in writing would have increased
Opportunities to work in their subject areas, including teaching upper level courses. The
. writing center would continue and possibly expand its services. According to the report,
the basic writing program would also enhanced by being modeled after successful
“stretch” programs in other colleges. Because the proposed model would complete

Writing 101 and 102 (just over an extended period of time) basic writing students would

 

69Later, the proposal mentions specific support for graduate teaching assistants for composition and rhetoric
training. This too supports the notion that a graduate program was on the horizon.

116

receive the same instruction. Thus, while there is not a specific section on basic writing,
there is a continuity and level of awareness not visible in the 1991 report.

Things are never as simple as they first appear. This report shows a clear
direction and makes it obvious that there is a strong interest in creating a first-year
writing program reflective of knowledge in writing studies. While that would seem to
makes sense, it could be seen as infiinging on the lives of other faculty members,
especially faculty with a history in ATL. Prior to this report, there was not much
“official” documentation about how to teach a writing class, and though this proposal
does not say writing courses can only be taught in certain ways, there are more visible
expectations. Additionally, the report shows that there is a real desire to teach advanced
courses in writing, up to and including a writing certificate program. To support a new
certificate would take additional resources and administrative support.

Unlike the 1991 report, though, the 1999 Task Force Report was never
approved and nothing close was implemented for several years. Recall from chapter 3
that the 1999 Task Force Report first went back to the dean, who then sent it back to the
department for further review. From there, it went to the curriculum committee and it
was determined that more proposals should be generated. So, during the 1999-2000
academic year many more proposals were written.70 Though none of the additional
proposals were approved either, a review of their content will more clearly show points

of contention surrounding the firture of Tier One. The opportunity for so many faculty

 

7° Recall from chapter three that in the year 2001 a new faculty member was hired to help build a graduate
program in writing, an undergraduate writing program, and to address Tier One writing. In an interview, I
was told that the conversations about the need to revise Tier One had been taking place for about 8 months
prior to the hire date. Knowing this, it is difficult to imagine that either the Task Force Report or
subsequent proposals were going to have much impact unless they aligned with what the university was
hoping for. At the same time, it is clear that some type of change was going to take place.

117

members (some not in ATL) to present their hOpes for a writing program demonstrates
the wide range of beliefs and concerns that existed. In fact, analyzing these competing
versions for Tier One makes the stakes in the reform process even more obvious.

The Task Force Report works to create particular spaces, opportunities, and
structures, many of which respond to the growth of Composition and Rhetoric—at this
university and elsewhere. It does so in many ways, but one way is through the use of
certain kinds of discourse about writing, supporting writing, and teaching writing. Yet,
the Task Force was a diverse group and multiple voices are threaded throughout. The
proposals are a different story. I will not analyze the proposals with the same depth as the
Task Force Reports because they serve a different function, both for the department and
this project. I will focus only the parts of the propoSals that speak to key issues already
introduced, such as course content, pedagogical expectations, and faculty work life.
Additionally, because there were seven proposals, I have chosen to mention only a few
that show significant contrast from the Task Force Report.71 Their primary function is to
highlight just how much contention really existed during this time period and to further
demonstrate the significance of the Task Force Report. Though the Task Force Report
cannot be considered neutral, it is subtle in its attempts to affect change. As will be seen,

the proposals have no need of subtlety or balance.

Now Tell Me What You Really Think
Recall from the previous chapter that agreeing on the “best” direction for Tier
One, and the department, was not a simple matter. The Task Force Report presented an

“official” statement. The following proposals were generated in response to the initial

 

7' Two of the proposals are very similar and make only minor suggested changes.

118

1999 Task Force Report. The responses are illuminating! One proposal, for example,
recommended integrating ATL with Integrative Arts and Humanities. Recall that IAH
courses are content-based (looking at history, societies, and cultures, for example) but
include substantial writing. The rationale for this move is that it would “Use faculty and
graduate students to their fullest level of ability” because “Currently, graduate students in
IAH either have no experience as teachers, or no experience with US course materials, or
no experience in teaching writing or all or some of the above” (2)72. On the other hand,
“The ATL faculty is both expert in the content area of IAH 201 and in teaching writing.
Clearly they should teach the more advanced courses...” (2).73 In the proposed model,
graduate students would teach ATL courses consistent with those outlined in the Task
Force Report and take a supporting course in general pedagogy.

Two things are particularly striking in this proposal, the negative connotations
about first-year writing and the statement that ATL faculty are experts in teaching
writing. Though it may have been true that most ATL faculty were better prepared to
teach in IAH (probably true) because of their areas of specific training, the claim of
expertise in teaching writing was likely based on experience. There is a distinction.
Though ATL was home to first year writing in the College of Arts and Letters, many of
the faculty members did not have a strong background in teaching writing, even at the
time of this proposal. Certainly, many of them had years of experience to draw from, but
such a statement does not take into account specific disciplinary knowledge found in
Composition and Rhetoric. Moreover, it assumes that all ATL faculty would want to

teach in IAH, when not *all* ATL faculty share the same background. And finally, while

 

72 Then and now, some graduate assistantships are available in IAH.
73 In this proposal, IAH 201 would be third writing course, following ATL 101 and 102.

119

it is probably true that senior faculty deserve the opportunity to teach advanced courses
and advanced students, this proposal strongly implies that teaching first-year writing is
below them. Yet, it does not follow that graduate students are prepared to teach writing in
ATL. In fact, graduate students with little or no experience in teaching writing risk doing
more harm than good when teaching a first semester writing course.

This particular proposal exemplifies some of the arguments found in
Composition literature, especially the argument that teaching writing is often viewed as a
“lesser” job—by those who teach it, by departments and institutions that don’t fully
support it, or some combination of the two (refer to Chapter 2 for a brief overview of
issues in Composition). In this case, the same issues appear even more directly in another
one of the proposals. This one indicates that two things must be addressed in rethinking
first year writing, “. . .the perception that ATL faculty are “‘underemployed’”, and “. . .a
number of students who don’t appear adequately prepared after they pass their ATL
class” (N and H 1). Before this, there is no direct mention of student performance as part
of the exigency for a full year sequence. The 1999 Task Force Report reiterates the
Dean’s statement that writing should be extended to enhance students’ learning and to
better prepare them for professional life. Perhaps one can make a connection, but it is not
the same as saying outright that students are not writing at an acceptable level when they
complete their writing requirement.

Before this, there is no direct mention of faculty perceptions about their status,
either. However, faculty life seems paramount here. The proposal goes on to say that,

“. . .balancing against these perceptions is that fact that our faculty does not want to teach

an added section per semester, in order to staff a full-year. . .” (N over and H1). The

120

proposal offers a model that can address those concerns while “simultaneously helping to
prevent our faculty from being relegated to a three section per semester teaching loa ” (n
and h 1). The recommendation is to keep the current 4 credit courses (with themes) but
with a new set of goals and objectives that would be in line with the Task Force Report.
According to the proposal, doing so would answer the charge that they (in ATL) “don’t
teach writing” (N and H 2). The report also leaves room for the possibility of 200 and 300
level courses. Though this proposal does not differ substantially from the Task Force
Report in terms of preferred curriculum (it merely identifies a way to meet the goals of
the Task Force in a more compact way) I include it here because there is little attempt to
conceal or soften the concerns over working conditions, a constant undercurrent in nearly
all the documentation.74

A final example of the wide range of ideas about the possible future of Tier One
is a proposal for a department called ATLAS, which would merge ATL with American
Studies.75 Like several others, the proposal is very short, just a page and 1/2. This
proposal deviates even more than the others by saying almost nothing about the
recommendations in Task Force Report. It doesn’t support, refirte, extend or even address
a fill] year option or provide any alternatives to a full year sequence. Nor does the
proposal include specific curricular suggestions, though a reasonable inference can be
made based on the merging of the two departments. In this model, the course content

would not need to change and could probably be broadened.

 

7" It is also worth noting that the authors of this particular proposal have a very long history in the
department. It is not surprising that certain issues would surface.

75 As mentioned previously, there were seven proposals in all. Those I have included demonstrate the
tension (and contention) surrounding the possibility of adopting the recommendations in the Task Force
Report. They also demonstrate a wide range of beliefs and values, both in and out of the ATL department.

121

The proposal does state, though, that “. . .we must look to our long-range future
by attaining “‘verticality’” (rising up out of the prone position?) and viability” (ATLAS
1). The addition of the parenthetical has to be noted. Without asking the writers directly,
it is not possible to know the true intended meaning, but based on the numerous times
working conditions and status have surfaced, it seems likely that this is another reference
to the perceived position of ATL. According to this proposal, the merge with American
Studies would provide two needed things, existing upper level courses (the verticality)
and students, including graduate students. Additionally the merge, “. . .offers benefits to
both: we maintain our department status (with control of its faculty lines, budget, quality
of work environment, collegiality, etc.), they gain a large and competent AS faculty to
staff their expanded programs” (ATLAS 1).76 With the combined department, faculty
“. . .would be encouraged and allowed to teach were our skills, experience and
inclinations lead us...” (ATLAS 1). Thus, similar to other proposals, faculty concerns
over the perceived consequences of approving the Task Force recommendations take
center stage.

Whether by design or default (with the other alternative being two semesters for
all students) several proposals do present alternatives for under-prepared students. For
instance, one proposal suggests that students receiving a 1.0 or 1.5 in the 4 credit course
take an additional 2 credit course the following semester. The same proposal also
suggests the Option of an online course that would be taken before the identified students

begin the fall semester.77 Another proposal suggests that students should not be placed

 

76 This refers to the possibility of an expanded and revitalized undergraduate program in American Studies.
It is mentioned briefly in this proposal, though not in others.

77 The benchmark here is below 16 on the ACT. Interestingly, the possibility of such a course has continued
to circulate.

122

into a separate course, but should take a two-hour lab as a supplement to the regular first
semester course. Yet another option presented is similar to a stretch model, where
identified students would have the same basic curriculum, but complete it over two
semesters.78

Despite some attention to students, though, students would not seem to be a
primary concern in most of the proposals. Ultimately, the proposals best illustrate what
people really think about the recommendations in the Task Force Report, what they really
want to see, and maybe more importantly, what they definitely don’t want. Recognition
of new knowledge in writing studies, the growth and importance of technology, and
concerns over pedagogical approaches are curiously absent from most of the proposals.
Thus, while the Task Force Report incorporates much discourse on and about the
changing nature of writing and writing programs, most of the proposals reflect the
discourse of work, especially a kind of struggle over work and related status.

In the end, nothing about Tier One was visibly changed, despite a lot of time
and effort. The 1999 Task Force Report and the response proposals that followed are still
significant, though. The Task Force Report shows an evolving department and an
evolving view of writing. There is greater attention to technology and also evidence of at
least some hope for revising of the current placement model for basic writers. The
responses show a combination of support and also resistance, especially where working
conditions are concerned. Thus, even though the Report did not have an immediate

impact on the department or Tier One writing, it is representative of past issues and a

signal of things to come.

 

78 This possibility continues to circulate, as well.

123

Though the department was still in flux, it wasn’t until 2004 that another
official report on writing emerged.79 As with other Task Force Reports, this one is the
result of another charge fiom administration and linked to a broader university initiative.
As of this writing, now 2008, the 2004 Task Force Report remains the last official,
comprehensive report specific to writing. Recall from Chapter three, though, that as part
of a mass call for proposals, a handful of faculty members had written The Strategic
Vision, a comprehensive vision statement for Tier One writing. It is no coincidence that
one of the authors of the Strategic Vision was hired to help build a new writing program.
The Provost was interested enough in the proposal that another (longer) version was
resubmitted. In interviews, I was told that the Strategic Vision was very influential in the
later Task Force Report.

Perhaps it is not surprising then that the 2004 Writing Task Force Report is the
most comprehensive of the reports, more explicitly addressing student needs, faculty
concerns, course content, pedagogical approaches, ongoing program assessment and
writing within the university. It is remarkably similar to the 1999 report. For example, the
2004 report recommends courses that provide direct instruction in writing vs. writing
intensive courses; it calls for more integration of technology, and it supports a similar two
semester sequence for the first year while retaining the Tier II requirement. However,
even where it echoes the 1999 report, it provides much more extensive recommendations

and goes well beyond the earlier report in its scope.

 

79 Recall fi'om chapter three that the department was hardly stable during the time period between official
reports. There was a lot of activity, new hires, a new name, and a writing major, among other things. In
2005, there was also a “working group,” charged with evaluating the 3 major reports that came from
Realizing the Vision, another university-wide initiative.

124

In general, the importance of writing is far more developed. The following
paragraph comes near the end of the “Principles, Findings, Recommendations” section of
the report and provides a kind of summary of the impact writing can have:

Writing is an important means of acquiring and exploring knowledge,
even of creating it. Through the process of reflection, engagement, and
inquiry that the act of writing requires, students develop knowledge. The
writing process itself requires that the writer engage with communities,
cultures, disciplines, audiences—and this interaction between subject,
audience and writer itself shapes the nature of knowledge and brings
knowledge into action. The process of writing itself helps test, refine, and

apply ideas in the world.” (2004 Report 10-1 1)

This statement on writing integrates disciplinary knowledge (e. g. writing process,
reflection, inquiry) while situating writing in disciplines, cultures and communities, not
unlike the 1999 Report. It then extends far beyond earlier versions, though, by clearly
stating the link between writing and knowledge and the power of writing to lead to
action. Interestingly, it is not unlike the argument I use as the basis for analyzing the
various documents in this chapter. With this View of writing, students have tremendous
expectations, to “. . .be critical and ethical users and producers of writing, aware of the
ways that information in its various forms can heal or hurt, educate or mislead, unify or
divide” (2004 Report 9). Here too, the power of writing is more explicitly stated and the
stakes in literacy instruction are more evident, both for what students might be asked

write and what might be written about and for them.

125

Another greatly expanded area is the role of changing technologies. In this
report “. . .it is important that the curriculum promote an expanded notion of writing as
including web-based authoring, electronic publishing (in a variety of forms and genres),
graphics, audio, video, and the digital media arts in general” (2004 Report 3). The 1999
Report also argued for the inclusion of more technology (and one of the response
proposals even more so) but this report is much more specific. The inclusion of more
technology has implications for students and faculty because “. . .students need to be
competent, skilled, smart, and effective in producing (and interpreting) this new kind of
writing in an array of cultural and public contexts” (2004 Report 9). The Report
recommends writing classes that also include visual communication because technology
has significantly changed what writing looks like (literally). Further, “Literacy educators
must prepare teachers capable of teaching writing and other communication
competencies within and for these new technologies” (2004 Report 9). This report echoes
the 1999 Report by calling for encouragement and technological support for faculty to
integrate technology. It also includes a recommendation for the development and support
of wireless classrooms. Recognizing the link between technology and writing could begin
conversations about the need for more computer classrooms, the need for more
technology training for students and faculty and many other possibilities. Nothing is
guaranteed, but official documentation creates a space for negotiation.

Finally, this report is also far more attentive to changing student populations
and potentially at-risk students. It the initial, brief overview, the report recommends
“. . .more specialized courses and additional support services for students who need

additional help with writing and language development—in particular, students whose

126

primary language is not English and students fi'om disadvantaged economic or academic
backgrounds” (2004 4). This is the first direct mention of the importance of personal
background. Later, in its guiding principles, the report elaborates by including “two
interrelated imperatives: (a) to offer the best possible literacy instruction to students from
a range of linguistic and cultural backgrounds; and (b) to fully incorporate excluded
discourses of race, ethnicity, class, gender, and disability that enables diverse voices to
find legitimate courses of public action” (2004 Report 17). It also recommends a new
placement model for students enrolling in Tier One courses. The new process would
allow for self-placement, giving students more individual agency, especially students

who might be automatically placed in the universities preparatory writing course.

Conclusions

This chapter has analyzed a series of Task Force Reports and response
proposals that document one department’s attempts to revise its first-year writing
requirement and make additional recommendations about writing in the larger university.
Using discourse theory (primarily from the work of Norman Fairclough) and institutional
critique (Porter, etl al.), the reports, in particular, can be seen as a reflection of already
changing realities about writing. Using specialized knowledge of writing (not available in
the early life of the department) the documents show an attempt to create a new,
somewhat standardized discourse about writing. The emergence and growth of writing in
and for digital environments is especially prominent in later reports.

The influence of disciplinary growth does more than provide new language,

though. It also provides a reason to develop new structures, such as specific writing

127

classrooms with access to computers and the Internet, more support for teacher training
so that new technologies can be used effectively, various kinds of recognition for
specializing in writing as a faculty member, the need for upper-level courses, including a
specialization, and the need to better support a variety of students80 The documents also
capture an attempt to protect certain existing structures, such as the content of writing and
pedagogical freedom. Much of this struggle is found in the discourse of work and
working conditions. For many years, ATL faculty had great freedom, the ability to teach
themed courses that appealed to them or fit within their research and the ability to teach
using a variety of pedagogical approaches.

Despite concern about content, there is a high level of persistence where certain
issues are concerned. For example, there is a very similar view of writing and teaching
writing in each of the three large Task Force Reports. Each report shows expansions and
elaborations, but at the core, there is a noticeable commitment to developing a writing
curriculum that is grounded in writing studies. Starting with the 1991 Report, there is a
persistent call to make writing of greater concern (and shared responsibility) within the
university. Each report makes some type of recommendation to encourage and support
more writing in various disciplines and departments.

Unfortunately, attention to basic writing is limited and sometimes non—existent.
At a time when the entire writing curriculum was under review, why not try to put the
best possible structures in place? This is perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the
various attempts to revise Tier One. The 1999 and 2004 reports are much improved from

the 1991 report and maybe this is to be expected. In 1991, there were far fewer faculty

 

80 None of the documents I analyzed referred to the graduate program in Rhetoric and Writing, though that
is obviously a significant addition to the overall writing program because faculty in Rhetoric and Writing
teach in Tier One, as do graduate students in that program.

128

 

with writing backgrounds. However, compared with other strides—the attention to
technology, the obvious inclusion of specialized discourse about writing, and the eventual
addition of an undergraduate and graduate major—basic writing barely makes the
conversation. It does surface, but remains very underdeveloped. Only the 2004 Report
gets at some of the deeper issues involved with basic writing and makes
recommendations that attempt to find a more equitable solution.

In sum, the documents in this chapter capture a struggle. A careful analysis
demonstrates how discourse has been a key part of that struggle. Whether literally
creating something new, such as a writing center, or working more indirectly, the
language found in the reports and proposals highlight the many issues and challenges
related to change, real, perceived, or pending. Only time and additional study can reveal

the impact these documents have had.

129

 

Chapter Five

The Implications of Writing Program Reform in one University

Study Summary

This ends, for now, the study of one institution’s challenges, over many years, in
(re)creating and sustaining a first-year writing program. The guiding question was this:
What is at stake and for whom in the process of revising the writing program? The
combination of normal institutional bureaucracy, the particular departmental history, and
the broader social and political implications for writing programs made for complicated
answers, so each chapter has addressed a slightly different aspect. Given the scope of this
project, I will briefly review the chapters and some of the key issues and concerns that
drove my research interests and formed the foundation for the study. Then, I will provide
a summary of key findings and discuss implications for further research.

Chapter one began quite broadly by looking at notions of literacy and the role of
schooling as powerfirl social system. To be considered literate, one must demonstrate
certain characteristics. Writing (and reading) are often at the top of the list. “Good”
writing, in particular, is deeply connected to notions of literacy. As such, the concept of
literacy provided a good starting point. The concept of literacy raises many difficult
questions. What does it really mean to be literate? Who decides? Can there be a blanket
definition of literacy? Should there be? Literacy is a very complex idea, almost
meaningless without a specific context. Literacy expectations are not universal and often,
the expectations are established by institutions, such as schools. In schools (and

elsewhere) the same groups of people, often those from lower socioeconomic

130

backgrounds and/or racial and cultural minority groups are identified as lacking some
type of expected literacy skill. As such, it can be argued that literacy is a concept that has
been used to consistently place certain groups at a disadvantage, or prevent those groups
from having equal access to any number of resources.

From there, each chapter narrowed in focus. Chapter two examined writing within
the context of higher education, briefly introducing specific disciplinary concerns, such
as how writing developed as a distinct field, its relationship (or not) to English, and its
larger purpose. This early growth of Composition is important background information
because the department I studied has been responsible for teaching writing since long
before Composition emerged as something distinctive. Some of the challenges presented
in this chapter can be seen in the history of the department I studied. Chapter two also
introduced key institutional concerns that seem to plague Composition, such as the status
of the discipline, the status of writing teachers, the often related working conditions, and
issues in program development.

Somewhat dispersed between chapters one and two is a deep concern for
something called basic writing. Basic writing encompasses not just issues related to
literacy and writing studies; it reaches into social and political issues, too. With its
connection to the class status of students and teachers, its particular connection to at-risk
and minority students, and its questionable role in higher education, the very existence of
basic writing raises troubling questions for individual educators and larger institutions.
Why do the same groups of students turn up in basic writing classes? How should schools
address the needs of these particular students? What makes some writing “basic?” Who

should decide? In colleges especially, there are significant issues to consider because

131

 

basic writing has been championed and challenged. Does it really help students or does it
merely reinforce an already unequal social relationship? 18 its real purpose just to add
credits (and so add revenue) or is it to give students additional time and support to
develop necessary academic writing skills? Like questions about literacy, questions about
basic writing must not be forgotten when considering the implications of a writing
program.

Through interviews and a variety of institutional documents, such as mission
statements and statements about goals and objectives, chapter three then provided a
chronology of one department’s writing program over several decades, emphasizing
points of contention that surfaced each time the writing program (or the entire
department) was faced with the possibility of change. Finally, using a combination of
discourse theory and institutional critique, chapter four analyzed a smaller set of key
documents related to changing the writing program. The various attempts at curricular
and departmental reform I studied (only some of which succeeded) can be read in
multiple ways. One the one hand, they can be seen as entirely local, motivated by specific
university and departmental events. However, those same efforts can also be seen as
representing much larger concerns within the discipline of Composition (and Rhetoric in
this case), broader discussions of literacy and literacy instruction, and even issues about
the educational system. This projectalso makes a case for the use of discourse theory in
institutional research. Documents are an important part of institutional identity and they
can be very revealing when read critically.

The primary limitation in this study is that it does not capture the student

experience and it does not directly address some of the key concerns that initially drove

132

the project, such as the impact of class background and other identity markers have on the
educational experience. Still, the realization that the educational system and especially
writing seemed designed to place certain groups at a disadvantage (and possibly keep
them there) should not be overlooked. Those issues remain very important and I
attempted to address them in other ways, especially in my analysis of key documents, but
I urge readers to keep in mind my original motivations. All too often, those who most

need a voice don’t get one.

It’s Only a Matter of Time: History, Bureaucracy, and Tenacity

“. .. you know the institution is massive, you can't get it moving in any direction” (LA).

The evolution of the American Thought and Language department as I have been
able to trace it is a testament to the power of institutional history and time. For ATL and
eventually WRAC, it took many, many, years and a numerous departmental and
university initiatives to create visible (or even subtle) changes in the writing program and
surrounding structures. Some of the changes were welcome, some were not, some were
hardly recognizable and some were very substantial. None of them came easily. There
had been various attempts to change one or more things in the department, but most of
them failed. As the opening quote suggests, it takes time to change things in institutions,
for many reasons. The normal pace of institutional movement was not the only difficulty
here. The long institutional history of ATL was also a major factor. After conducting this

study, it became clear that there had been tension in the writing department for quite

133

some time. It came to the surface whenever the writing program came under review, or
when other changes were possible in the department. Many areas of resistance emerged,
but there was great unease related to real and perceived changes to certain fundamental
aspects, such as the department’s mission, the ATL curriculum, and any potential change
in pedagogical approaches.81

The roots of this resistance can also be attributed to time. In 1958 (prior to there
being an ATL department) the new department head of Written and Spoken English
declared that there would be a new “communication skills” course (a required course for
all fieshman). The course would emphasize writing, but the subject matter would be
American documents. Interestingly, the new course caused such an uproar that many
faculty members left the department. In 1961, the course name was officially changed to
“American Thought and Language” (ATL). Though the new course was quite different
from the communication skills course it replaced, it was still the required writing,
reading, and speaking course for all first year students. The course changed and adapted
to different student and university needs (as changing times dictated), including adding a
developmental track, broadening the reading list and doing away with an exit exam.
However, the overall mission and distinctive emphasis on American content remained—
and it remained a requirement for all incoming students.82 Then, ATL went on to survive
the disbanding of the University College (its original home) and became housed in the

College of Arts and Letters, where it continued to serve the same basic purpose.

 

8' “Change” can be a muddy concept. The department I studied was in flux much more often than can be
documented and even when there were marked changes, like the move from quarters to semesters, it is
difficult to assess the real impact. This study emphasizes moments that were documented, mostly through
various reports and memos, because the paper trail provides materials that can be studied. Additionally,
many of the materials have an official quality about them since many were in response to official university
business.

82 The university’s registrar has online archives dating back to 1970. ATL course descriptions can be found
there. (http://www.reg.msu.edu/UCC/DechearIndex.asp)

134

Thus, fiom roughly 1958 to 1991, ATL was itself an institution, the primary
department responsible for teaching writing to the majority of incoming students, first in
it its original home in the University College and later in the College of Arts and Letters.
It was also a department with a larger than average teaching load, with ATL faculty
teaching 3 classes per quarter instead of 2, which was typical of other departments. In
1991, when the university declared the whole system needed to be reviewed and
restructured, it was the first major structural change in decades. Every course had to be
re-written and reapproved and the three course sequence, which had been in place for
more than 30 years, had to be adjusted. With the curriculum and nearly everything else
about the writing program under review, there was a lot at stake for everyone.

Based on the 1991 Task Force Report and interviews, the stakes for faculty
members seemed to revolve around work (research interests, degree background, and an
opportunity to teach beyond first-year writing) and working conditions (primarily
teaching load but also related status issues). For faculty with the longest history in the
department, it was an opportunity to possibly get a reduced teaching load and work in
other areas of interest. The report recommended that the standard assignment be no more
than 2 sections a semester, which would “free up resources” and allow some faculty to
work in other areas. The reduction in teaching load would also potentially reduce the
need to use contingent faculty (by reducing overall sections offered) and help ensure that
tenured professors continued to teach first-year writing (1991 Report). Recall that one of
the hallmarks of the writing program was the comrrritrnent to having tenured professors
teach, and for the majority of the department, teaching the first-year sequence had been a

career.

135

For a smaller number of faculty members, the stakes were high in additional
ways. Internally, by 1991, the ATL department had at least some faculty members with
training in writing. Externally, Composition Studies had been growing steadily and there
existed a significant amount of research on writing and writing instruction. The 1991
Task Force Report showed evidence of both internal and external influences, referencing
Composition research, making recommendations for supporting pedagogical practices,
and recommending a writing center, which would support students and faculty but would
also facilitate more research on writing. The 1991 report demonstrates the hope and
desire to implement new practices and new ideas.

What about the stakes for students? Perhaps arguably, the stakes would have been
even higher for students who would be entering the new writing program. One concern
listed in the report was that students would not receive enough writing instruction in just
one semester, but the addition of a second tier course and the recommendation for more
writing in other courses was supposed to offset that concern. Officially, students would
receive 8 credits in writing instruction (4 credits for Tier One and another 4 credit course
in a discipline), which is down only one credit from the quarter sequence. Plus, the
addition of a writing center would offer another avenue for student support. And, for
students receiving a grade of less than a 2.0 in the first semester course, a two credit
supplemental course would be required. Though the 2 credit course could be seen as
marking or penalizing students, it presented a response to larger concerns and could
potentially give students more time and support to continue developing their writing.

To this point, it seems as though students and faculty would experience benefits in

the new model. Yet one impacted group remained significantly under the radar. There is

136

very little attention given to the needs of basic writing students. There is the
recommendation for a developmental course that would be a prerequisite for students
(based on placement tests) but only one paragraph in the entire report explains anything
further. There is no mention of the expected curriculum, no mention of who would teach
the course, and no mention of the fact that this model created a greater distinction
between developmental and non-developmental students. In the quarter system, all
students took the same number of credits and either track—developmental or not—met
the university writing requirement. In the new system, only some students would incur
the cost of an extra course, one that would only count for general elective credit.

From this perspective, faculty members faired better than at least some students.
The addition of a writing center was seen as a major gain. The addition of a Tier 11 course
spread responsibility for teaching writing and created an opportunity to make writing a
university concern, not just an ATL concern. Yet, what did all of this amount to in
practice? On paper, there was evidence of a greater awareness of research on writing, but
the newly written goals and objectives still retained some of the same language found in
much older descriptions and many of the same classes were re-approved (though not all).
In interviews, I was told that the ATL curriculum remained remarkably similar and that
the biggest change was in having to condense the courses. It isn’t clear what if any
impact developments in Composition had in everyday practice. One conclusion then is
that the history of ATL had greater influence than new faculty members and/or new
developments in Composition Studies, at least in this case.

However, from 1991 forward, the same issues continued to circulate at the

department level and at the university level. For instance, at the department level, there

137

was an attempt to change the department name in the mid-1990s, but the attempt failed—
miserably, according to an interview. In some ways, the failed attempt is especially
revealing if seen a marker of the department’s “readiness” to move in a new direction (it
wasn’t). However, a series of university initiatives, which resulted in several Task Force
Reports on writing, did show evidence of the desire for new approaches and ways of
thinking. Each report contains more comprehensive course descriptions and more specific
recommendations for pedagogical approaches, institutional structures, and even content,
in some cases. It is worth noting that the goals and objectives were not a primary source
of disagreement. A bigger concern was with how the goals and objectives would be
met—with what materials and pedagogical approaches, for example.

In sum, this department has been negotiating what it means to sustain a writing
program since 195 8, even longer if I include the class that pre-dates ATL. A persistent
theme emerged from 1991 to the present—a call for writing classes that more clearly
incorporated best practices and emerging knowledge of writing studies, along with a
strong resistance to all things that might threaten foundational elements of ATL, even
after the department changed names and became WRAC. What then can be said for all of
these efforts? The results are somewhat difficult to gauge.

There have been several obvious and tangible changes. The addition of a Writing
Center obvious, of course, but there has been many other significant changes. The use
and availability of technology has grown, for example, with one classroom being devoted
to technology rich courses (such as Web Authoring). Instructors have the option of a
laptop computer cart and can reserve computer classrooms for all or some of the courses

they teach. While the option of using a lab is not new, the process for getting a

138

reservation has been streamlined by being able to make requests through one person, well
in advance. There is a technology workshop offered each summer to support faculty and
graduate student instructors who wish to incorporate more technology into their
professional lives. There are also brownbag seminars offered throughout the year. The
Professional Writing undergraduate major is flourishing and has reached capacity. There
is now a Director of Tier One Writing and a newly approved set of shared goals and
objectives.83 While these changes cannot be directly linked to a single report or proposal,
the paper trail makes it obvious that the department was going in a particular direction
and slowly but surely, it has succeeded in developing new statements and structures to
support new goals and objectives.

What about intangible changes? Many things can be tracked—increased
computer usage by instructors, student enrollment in the Professional Writing program,
faculty attendance at technology workshops—but it is much harder to identify changes in
beliefs and day to day practices. One of the halhnarks of the ATL department was a
belief in the role writing should play in the education of university students. That belief
was supported by a commitment to certain kinds of content, a commitment that remained
visible in official documentation. There was also a belief, whether official or not, that one
should be able to teach writing in a variety of ways. Both elements of ATL were
potentially threatened when the writing program came under review and despite
succeeding in changing the language (and in creating new structures) a content-based
course remains a centerpiece of Tier One. And while the Task Force reports show a

greater attention to writing pedagogy over time, it is nearly impossible to evaluate the day

 

83 Interesting, they are very similar to those found in the 1999 and 2004 reports, meaning it took nearly 10
years to get them approved. Importantly, the goals apply to the developmental course and the regular Tier
One course.

139

to day practices of an entire department. Thus, it is very hard, even impossible, to tell if
there has been a significant shift in thinking within the department. As noted in chapter
three, though, the professionalization of graduate teaching assistants has undergone
significant changes. By extension, it is likely that there have been changes in thinking and
in practices. Still, such intangible qualities can only be measured over time, perhaps the
subject of another major research project or internal assessment.

Another area of consideration is actually outside of the department. Though the
writing department in this university is growing and developing, however slowly, outside
of the department, perceptions of writing may still be very different. If writing was an
isolated activity, it might not matter. Since writing occurs in other courses, including a
second required upper-level writing course, it raises questions about the connection
between what students experience in Tier One and the writing they will do in other
courses. As the writing department continues to evolve, perhaps there will be greater
opportunity to have conversations about writing across departments.

For professionals working in writing programs (regardless of department name or
institutional location) this study should provide both strategies and pitfalls associated
with change. It is important to understand what is at stake in proposing any type of
structural change, especially if the department has a well developed history. This may
well apply to building new programs, too, if another department (or part of another
department) had responsibilities for teaching writing. It is also important to pay special
attention to the language used in all manner of documentation as this is a primary vehicle
for implementing things in most institutions. Finally, it is perhaps most important to hold

on to patience and persistence in all things. It takes time to make change. If enough

140

faculty members had not been willing to persist, it is possible that the department I

studied may have never moved forward.

The Discourse of a Discipline

While this is a localized example, it is also possible to see this study as a way to
investigate broader disciplinary developments. Over time, the department slowly began to
use the language of Composition and later, langue that reflects a greater attention to
Rhetorical Studies. Mission statements, Task Force Reports, and other opportunities to
define the department show a consistent trend toward incorporating specific kinds of
knowledge about writing. If not for the ongoing growth of Composition and Rhetoric,
such language would not be available. The continued presence (and growth) of this
specialized language is important because it can be read as an attempt to create a new,
somewhat standardized discourse about writing—what writing is or should be, how it
should be taught, and how it should be viewed in the larger context of a university
education.

The presence of specialized language is also important because Composition has
such a wide range of concerns, fiom working conditions to new areas of research and
theory. Of the many things that could have been highlighted or argued for, certain things
persisted and continued to evolve. For example, over time, more and more attention was
given to the role of technology, first only in addendums, unofficial proposals, and wish
list sections of reports. Later, an awareness of changing technologies emerged as a key
component of the writing program. While this was likely a reflection of the faculty in the

department, it also reflects the growth of certain areas connected to writing. Technical

14]

Writing, Technical Communication, and Professional Writing are areas that have grown
tremendously. Not only is it possible to find such emphasis areas within Composition and
Rhetoric (or other writing programs), but there are numerous independent programs, as
well. Plus, there are numerous professional journals and organizations that specialize in
writing and technology.

Another area of emphasis worth noting is the attention given to non-native
speakers of English and other students with cultural or personal backgrounds that could
impact their writing. Though this only appears in the 2004 Task Force Report, it is
extremely significant because it shows a tremendous shift in thinking about students and
their writing. The understanding that students’ backgrounds will shape their writing
practices has been a part of Literacy and Basic Writing research for quite some time, but
to see it recognized in official recommendations—for all of Tier One and not only the
developmental course—is most impressive. It is more difficult to determine whether or
not this is reflective of a true disciplinary shift or the influence of particular Task Force
members, but it certainly bodes well.

However, where the grth of technology and greater cultural awareness can be
seen as representing positive trends, the discourse of work found in the various reports
and proposals would seem to indicate a lack of progress. The recommendations for
reduced class sizes, more support and recognition for focusing on writing, and the
number of statements that implied a lower status for Tier One teachers (whether real or
perceived) clearly echoes concerns that have been in Composition Studies for years. The
arguments are not without substance here, with fixed term faculty and graduate students

now teaching the majority of Tier One sections (fixed term faculty teach the most). And

142

though fixed term faculty receive regular university benefits, including health care, fixed
term positions offer less security and pay than tenure track positions and carry a larger
teaching load.84 As with the awareness of student background, it may be more difficult to
apply the local situation to the larger discipline, but it should not be discounted. Even
though employment practices have improved greatly, at least in some colleges and
universities, it is not universal and the state of employment for writing teachers continues

to surface in the literature.

Discourse, Power, and Possibility

In addition to offering a glimpse of the difficulties in managing a writing
program, this study also offers an example of how discourse theory can aid in
institutional research. As mentioned above, many important moments in the history of the
department had related documentation—the switch to semesters, the department’s official
name change, and the new mission statement, among others, had to be written into
existence. Even documents that did not result in specific, noticeable, or immediate
change (such as creating a writing center) still reveal much about department. Further,
because documents often outlast people, documents can be one of the only sources of
information about the past.

F airclough claims that discourse is a site of struggle and this study bears that out.
The language of work, of a discipline, and of a long-standing department can be seen in

various documents. Often, one or more competing visions can be found. And regardless

 

84 It is not my intention to compare graduate teaching assistants and fixed term faculty or to spark any
substantial debate about the use of either one. Both complicate the picture of Tier One writing and raise
questions about employment practices. Some would argue, rightfirlly I think, that fixed term appointments
are much more humane than adjunct work At the same time, concerns about the loss of tenured professors
in Tier One seem to have been realized.

143

of the immediate impact, language is one of the ways in which the ATL department
negotiated its identity and its future. Using a combination of discourse theory and
institutional critique to go beyond my initial descriptions, I was able to recognize how the
documents worked on a much deeper level. Discourse is a reflection of current practices
and beliefs, but it can also shape practices and beliefs. Further, discourse carries with it
history and ideology. Through the study of discourse, it was possible to identify the roots
of the department, including key principles and beliefs, which made it possible to
understand why the prospect of change might cause such concern.

Without a written record, it would have been much more difficult, impossible
even, to capture many of the key tensions involved because it was through a series of
documents that stakeholders made their claims. Over the years, there was a struggle to
gain power. As new faculty members joined the department, the need for supportive
structures grew—as evidenced in various reports and proposals. Clearly, there were
attempts to improve aspects of working conditions and increase status for all writing
faculty, though faculty with the longest history could have had more right to complain.
Recall that ATL carried a heavier teaching load than other departments and had for years.
However, there was also a struggle to maintain certain kinds of power. Faculty members
with a long history were accustomed to having autonomy in teaching style and choice of
course content. Moreover, they had established careers to think of, making stakes in
change even greater. Though the teaching load may have been high, there was some

measure of security in being the primary body responsible for Tier One.

144

Discourse, Policy, and Advocacy

All of the issues, challenges, hopes and fears of one department can be found in a
careful, critical read of institutional documents. Each time the writing program was
reviewed, it created an opportunity to use discourse to make and also resist change—and
both can be seen in the results. So in parting, I am compelled to point out that there were
not many arguments about the developmental writing course, the students placed into that
course or the teachers responsible for that course. It was not entirely absent, but it
certainly wasn’t a priority. If anything, in the switch to semesters, the developmental
course became something with added negative connotations and negative consequences
because it became an additional course, not just an alternate track. It wasn’t until the
2004 Task Force Report that another model was even officially proposed; that’s 12 years
after the switch to semesters.

In fact, students in general are woefully absent in many ways, especially prior to
the 2004 report. Instead, faculty concerns about faculty life often take precedence. For the
basic writing student, it means being pushed even further down the list of concerns. As
professionals, we can, we must take advantage of opportunities to argue for the changes
we know we need. If given the chance to be involved in policy making, we must write
policies that make spaces for those with little voice and little choice in matters that affect
them. Because so few people are actually involved (typically) in the change process, it is
even more important that we make the most of any involvement we have. Moreover,
because it can take so long to affect change, it is that much more important to argue early
and often. To be fair to the department I studied, maybe there were greater concerns, or

concerns that simply had to be addressed before others. However, I have to wonder what

145

could have been possible if arguments about basic writing had been as passionate as some

of the others.

146

Bibliography

Abilock, Debbie. “A Seven Power Lens on 21$t-Century Literacy: Instilling Cross-
Disciplinary Visual, News Media, and Information Literacy Skills.” MultiMedia Schools
10.6 Education Module (Nov/Dec 2003): 30-35.

Adams, Peter Dow. “Basic Writing Reconsidered.” Journal of Basic Writing 21.1 (1993):
22-35.

Agnew, Eleanor and Phillis Surrency Dallas. “Internal Friction in a New Independent
Writing Program and What the External Conflict Resolution Consultants
Recommended.” A Field of Dreams: Independent Writing Programs and the Future of
Composition Studies. Eds. Peggy O’Neil, Angela Crow and Larry W. Burton. Logan:
Utah State University Press, 2002.

Anyon, Jean. “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work.” Writing Lives:
Exploring Literacy and Community. Eds. Games, et. al. New York: Bedford St. Martin’s,
1996.

“ATLAS.” A Response to the 1999 Writing Task Force Report.

Bartholomae, David “The Tidy House: Basic Writing in the American Curriculum.”
Journal of Basic Writing 12:1 (1993): 4-21.

Bartholomae, David. “Inventing the University,” from When a Writer Can’t Write. Ed.
Mike Rose. New York: Guilford Press, 1985. 134-162.

Berlin, James A. Rhetoric and Reality: Writing Instruction in American Colleges, 1 900-
1985. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1987.

Bourdieu, Pierre. Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge, England: Polity Press,
1991.

Eds. Bousquet, Marc, Scott, Tony and Parascondola, Leo. T enured Bosses and
Disposable Teachers: Writing Instruction in the Managed University. Southern Illinois

University Press. 2003.

Brandt, Deborah. Literacy in American Lives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2001.

Bruffe, Kenneth. Collaborative Learning: Higher Education, Interdependence, and the
Authority of Knowledge. Second Edition. Baltimore: John Hopkins UP, 1993, 1999

147

Bustle, Lynn Sanders. “The Role of Visual Representation in the Assessment of
Learning.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. 47.5 (2004): 16-23.

Cadiero-Kaplan, Karen. The Literacy Curriculum and Bilingual Education: A Critical
Examination. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2004.

Collins, Terrence, and Melissa Blum. “Meanness and Failure: Sanctioning Basic
Writers.” Journal of Basic Writing. 19.3 (2000): 13-21.

“The Conference on Basic Writing, 1980-2005.” (preface) The Bedford Bibliography for
Teachers of Basic Writing. 21 March, 2006.
<http:www.bedfordstmartins.com/basicbib/conference.html>

Connors, Robert. "Crisis and Panacea in Composition Studies: A History." Composition
in Context: Essays in Honor of Donald C. Stewart. Ed. W. Ross Winterowd and Vincent
Gillespie. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois UP, 1994. 86-108.

Creswell, John. Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five
Traditions. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1998.

Crowley, Sharon. “Composition’s Ethic of Service, the Universal Requirement, and the
Discourse of Student Need.” JAC 15.2 (1995): 1-14.
<http://j ac. gsu.edu/ j ac/ l 5.2/Articles/2.htm>

Crowley, Sharon. Composition in the University: Historical and Polemical Essays.
Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998.

Cushman, Ellen The Struggle and the Tools: Oral and Literate Strategies in an Inner City
Community. Albany: SUNY Press, 1998

Dean’s position paper with proposed changes to the ATL department. August 2000.

Delpit, Lisa. Other People ’s Children. Cultural Conflict in the Classroom. New York:
New Press, 1996.

Delpit, Lisa. “The Politics of Teaching Literate Discourse.” Literacy: A Critical
Sourcebook. Eds. Cushman, et. al. New York: Bedford St. Martin’s, 2001 . 545-554.

DeMarris, Kathleen and Lappan, Stephen D., Eds. Foundations for Research: Methods of
Inquiry in Education and the Social Sciences. Mahweh: LEA, 2004.

Denzin, Norman K. and Lincoln, Yvonna S., Eds. “The Disci line and Practice of
Qualitative Research.” Strategies of Qualitative Research, 2“l . Edition. Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage, 2003. 1-45.

148

Drobner, Sherry. “Leadership through Language and Literacy: How Irnrrrigrants
Repositioned Themselves into Active Community Participants Through Classroom
Discourse.” Adult Learning. 12/13 (F all/Winter 2001-2002): 10-13.

Email summary of Advisory Council Meeting. Fall 2002.

Emig, Janet. The Composing Processes of Twelfth Graders. Urbana, 111: National Council
of Teachers of English, 1971

Fairclough, Norman.The book, Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity, 1992

F airclough, Norman. Language and Power. 2nd Ed. Pearson, 2001.

Fishman, Stephen M., McCarthy Lucille. Whose Goals? Whose Aspirations? Learning to
Teach Underprepared Writers Across the Curriculum. Logan: Utah State University
Press, 2002.

Foucalt, Michel. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1 972-1 97 7.
Ed. Colin Gordon. Great Britain: Harvester Press, 1980.

Fox, Tom. Defending Access: A Critique of Standards in Higher Education. Portsmouth:
Boyton/Cook, 1999.

Frieire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. (3 0th Anniversary Edition). New York:
Continuum, 2005.

Gee, James P. Social Linguistics and Literacies: Ideologies in Discourses. London:
Palmer Press, 1996.

Gee, J arnes P. “Discourse Analysis: What Makes it Critical. An Introduction to Critical

Discourse Analysis in Education. Ed. Rebecca Rogers. Mahwah: Lawrence Earlbaum,
2004. 1-18.

George, Diana. “From Analysis to Design: Visual Communication in the Teaching of
Writing.” CCC 54.1 (Sept. 2002): 11-39. '

Gilyard, Keith. “Basic Writing, Cost Effectiveness, and Ideology." Journal of Basic
Writing 19 (2000): 36-42.

Eds. Gonzalez, Norma, Moll, Luis, and Amanti, Cathy. Funds of Knowledge: Theorizing
Practices in Households, Communities, and Classrooms. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaurn

Associates, 2005.

Grabill, Jeffery. Community Literacy Programs and the Politics of Change. Albany:
SUNY Press, 2001.

149

Gray, James. Personal Interview. 21 November 2006.

Grande, Sandy. Red Pedagogy: Native American Social and Political Thought. Lanham:
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2004.

Greenburg, Karen L. “A Response to Ira Shor’s Our Apartheid: Writing Instruction and
Inequality.” Journal of Basic Writing 16.2 (1997): 90-94.

Hays, Patricia. “Case Study Research.” deMarris and Lappan 217 234.

Heath, Shirley Brice. Ways with Words: Language, Life and Work in Communities and
Classrooms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

Homer, Bruce. Terms of Work for Composition: A Materialist Critique. Albany: SUNY
Press, 2000.

“Integrating ATL with Integrative Arts and Humanities.” A response to the 1999 Writing
Task Force Report.

Johanek, Cindy. Composing Research. Utah State University Press. 2000.
Johnson-Bailey, Juanita. “Enjoining Positionality and Power in Narrative Work:
Balancing Contentious and Modulating Forces.” deMarris and Lappan 123-138.

Jones Royster, Jacqueline. “When the First Voice You Hear is Not Your Own.” CCC
47.1 (1996): 29-40.

Kennedy, Theodore R. The Department of American Thought and Language and its
Antecedent. Unpublished manuscript. 1970.

Krarnp, Mary Kay. “Exploring Life and Experience Through Narrative Inquiry.”
deMarris and Lappan 103-121.

Lareau, Annette. Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life. Berkley: University
of California Press, 2003.

Larkin, Greg. "The Essential Unity of Language Arts Programs: Its pedagogical
Implications." WPA: Writing Program Administration. 3.1 (Fall 1979): 25-29.

Ed. Larson, Joanne. Literacy as Snake Oil: Beyond the Quick Fix. New York: Peter Lang
Publishing, 2001.

Lauer, Janice and Asher William J. Composition Research: Empirical Designs. New
York: Oxford University Press. 1988

Lawrence, Amy. Personal Interview. 25 October 2006.

150

Levinson, Bradley A., Foley, Douglas E., and Holland, Dorothy C. The Cultural
Production of the Educated Person: Critical Ethnographies of Schooling and Local
Practice. Albany: State University New York, 1996.

Lindquist, Julie. A Place to Stand: Politics and Persuasion in a Working-Class Bar.
Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002.

Luttrell, Wendy. Schoolsmart and Motherwise: Working-Class Women’s Identity and
Schooling. New York: Routledge, 1997.

Marshall, Margaret J. Response to Reform: Composition and the Professionalization of
Teaching. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2003.

McDonald, J arnes and Dominguez, Lynn. “Moving from Content Knowledge to
Engagement.” Journal of College Science Teaching. 35.3 (2005): 18-22.

Mehan, Hugh. “The Construction of an LD Student: A Case Study in the Politics of
Representation.” Natural Histories of Discourse. Eds. Michael Silverstein and Greg
Urban. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. 253-276.

Memo from the ATL department chair regarding Dean’s position paper. August 2000.
Miller, Richard. As if Learning Mattered. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998.
MSU Facts. Homepage. October 2006. http://newsroom.msu.edu/snav/184/pagehtm
MSU Fall 2006 Registrar’s Report.
(http://www.reg.msu.edu/reportserver?/ROReports/UE-
ComparisonEthnicOnggin&term_seqiid=l 064

The MSU Promise. “Focusing the guiding principles: Five goals to achieve by MSU’s
150th Anniversary in 2005.” December 1999. (May 2008).

http://www.msu.edu/msuinfo/msupromisehtm

New London Group. Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social
Futures. London: Routledge, 2000.

North, Stephen M. The Making of Knowledge in Composition: Portrait of an Emerging
Field. Boyton/Cook, 1987.

Nolan, Daniel. Personal Interview. 19 October 2006.
Nolan, Daniel. Email follow up regarding Task Force Reports. 29 October 2006.

Nolan, Daniel. Email follow up regarding change to semesters. 9 January 2007.

151

Palumbo-DeSimone, Christine . “The Assessment Trick: Trial and Error in Assessing
Temple University's First-Year Writing Program.” Issues in Writing. 14.2 (Spring 2004):
p. 135-149.

Pennycook, Alistair. Critical Applied Linguistics: a Critical Introduction. Mahwah, NJ:
Erlbaum, 2001.

Phelps, Louise Wetherbee. Composition As a Human Science: Contributions to the Self-
Understanding of a Discipline. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991

Price, Jonathon. Personal Interview. 7 November 2006.

Porter, James, et. al. “Institutional Critique: A Rhetorical Methodology for Change. CCC
51 :4 (June 2000): 610-642.

Preissle, Judith and Grant, Linda. “Fieldwork Traditions” Ethnography and Participant
Observation.” Eds. Foundations for Research: Methods of Inquiry in Education and the
Social Sciences. Eds. deMarris, Kathleen and Lappan, Stephen D., Mahweh: LEA, 2004.
1 61 -l 80.

Proposed departmental description for the University Academic Programs Catalog.
Departmental Memo. May 2002.

Purcell-Gates, Victoria. Other People ’s Words: The Cycle of Low Literacy. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1995.

Realizing the Vision: The Future of the Liberal Arts and Sciences at MSU. Homepage. 25
April 2006. hitp:Hrealizingthevision.msu.edu/

Realizing the Vision: The Future of the Liberal Arts and Sciences at MSU>
Undergraduate Initiatives> “Writing Charge.” 15 March 2004. 25 April 2006.
http://realizingthevision.msu.edu/ugrad/indexshtml

“Report of the Joint Committee on Writing Requirements” University Document. 1991.
Revised position paper from the Dean. November 2000

Rogers, Rebecca. A Critical Discourse Analysis of Family Literacy Practices: Power In
and Out of Print. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2003.

Rogers, Rebecca. “A Critical Discourse Analysis of Literate Identities Across Contexts:
Alignment and Conflict.” An Introduction to Critical Discourse Analysis in Education.

Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2004. 51-78.

Rogers, Rebecca (ed.). “Critical Discourse Analysis in Education.” An Introduction to
Critical Discourse Analysis in Education. Mahwah: Lawrence Earlbaum, 2004. 1-18.

152

Rose, Mike. “The Language of Exclusion: Writing Instruction at the University.” College
English 47.4 (1985): 341-59.

Selber, Stuart. Multiliteracies for a Digital Age. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University
Press, 2004.

Semali, Ladislaus. “Ways with Visual Languages: Making the Case for Critical Media
Literacy.” The Clearing House 76.6 (Jul/Aug 2003): 271-277.

Shaughnessy, Mina. Errors and Expectations. New York: Oxford UP, 1978.

Shor, Ira. "Our Apartheid: Writing Instruction and Inequality." Journal of Basic Writing
16 (1997): 91-104.

Silverman, Henry. “‘The American Dream: A Developmental Course in Writing and
Learning.’” Courses for Change in Writing: A Selection from the NEH/Iowa Institute.
Eds. Carl H. Kraus and Nancy Jones. Upper Montclair: Boyton/Cook, 1984. 67-74
“A Strategic Vision for Strengthening the Writing Curriculum at MSU.” Small group
proposal fiom WRAC faculty. Fall 2003.

Swartz, David. Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1997

Tate, Gary. Teaching Freshman Composition. (with Edward P.J. Corbett). Oxford UP,
1967.

Eds. Tate, Gary, Rupiper, Amy, and Schick, Kurt. A Guide to Composition Pedagogies.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Tier One Writing. Hompage. Fall 2006. http://www.msu.edu/unit/mr_tc/tl/tl_index.html
Tingle, Nick. “The Vexation of Class.” College English 67.2 (Nov. 2004): 222-229.

Eds. Tokarczk, Michelle and Fay, Elizabeth A. Working-Class Women in the Academy:
Laborers in the Knowledge Factory. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1993.

Untitled Response to the 1999 Task Force Report. Concern for employment, status, and
student performance.

Van Dijk, Jan and Hacker, Kenneth. “The Digital Divide as a Complex and Dynamic
Phenomenon.” The Information Society 19 (2003): 315-326

Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures Mission Statement. Fall 2006.
http://www.msu.edu/unit/wrac/wrac_mission.html

153

Young, Art. “Reimagining the Landscape of Composition.” Composition Studies in the
New Millennium: Rereading the Past, Rewriting the Future. Eds. Lynn Z. Bloom, Donald
A. Daiker and Edward M. White. Carbondale: SUNY Press, 2003. 97-110.

1999 Writing Task Force Report. University Document. 1999.

2004 Writing Task Force Report. University Document. 2004.

154