"Write Me a Letter..."
I wasn't so sure I'd be participating in the Trimbur carnival (focused on "Changing the Question: Should Writing Be Studied?" by John Trimbur). I read the article last night after I'd read some other people's responses to it. Quite honestly, I didn't understand a lot of responses. Or, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that other people have been looking at it from perspectives that are stil pretty new to me.

I like a lot of the Trimbur article. It's short and a few years old at this point. Considering his topic, I already can't think of how he would approach this same topic now, four years after its original publication. I know my thinking about writing has changed dramatically in a world of blogs, wikis, and podcasts, especially in a world where it's so easy to bring those instruments into the classroom. I raise this point because I like his distinction between writing as a process that can be studied/taught and a noun that designates the texts that result from that process. Funny how 2003 can now seem dated.

As I read this article and think about the development of "writing studies" as a discipline, my mind goes into a couple of directions that might sound like they conflict, but I don't think they do. First, I am happy to think of such a discipline being created and growing. After all, the new name of our deparment is "Rhetoric and Professional Writing." At the same time, I wonder how the codification of writing studies might enable writing to be integrated more fully across the curriculum.

My perspective is clearly coming into play here. A majority of my graduate career consisted of courses outside traditional English departments, yet it was writing studies, or rhetoric and composition as I understood it, that provided the thread tying all of my interests and experiences together. For me, finding the thread was necessary to my being able to move past the MA (fives years and two degrees) to the PhD. I knew I loved academia, but I had no idea what to do with that love until rhet/comp came along.

I'm thinking of Bill's response now, though I'm not sure why specifically. It resonated with me in several ways. When he talks about his scholarship not following the pedagogical imperative--meaning it does not have an explicit relationship to the classroom--I certainly relate. And though I may not be articulating it well, that's kind of the point I'm making above. Writing studies relates to a lot, and exploring that relationship seems like it has great potential both to inform our work in the classroom whether the relationship is explicit or not.

I'm at the point where I feel my brain is fried, and I know there's more to say. But here are some thoughts I had. Perhaps more later.

Perhaps not.
- posted by Nels @ 10:02 PM | | | Link |