Are you interested in learning more about the history of writing, rhetoric, and composition studies? Do you want to teach writing and composition? Do you simply want to better understand things like process, genre, audience, and writing technologies?
This spring, Dr. Erin Workman is teaching WRD 541: Composition Theory. It’s the first time this course has been offered since 2018, so you won’t want to miss it. Read on to hear more from Dr. Workman on what the course will be like.
What interests you about this topic?
I remember my first exposure to composition theory as an English Lit MA student who had never heard of rhetoric and composition before, and it interested me so much that I ended up concentrating and, later, completing a PhD in it. Learning about how the discipline developed—history, theory, research methods—helped me better understand and contextualize what I was doing as a graduate teaching assistant in first-year composition classes. Having been drawn to critical theory as a literature student, I enjoyed parsing and making connections between challenging texts, but I also appreciated the practical orientation of much composition theory with its implications for curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, program administration, TA/faculty development, etc. Now, as a researcher who studies how writers develop across their lifespans, I am interested in how theories of composition evolve and emerge in relation to shifting social, political, technological, material, economic, and environmental conditions.
What do you look forward to about teaching it?
I look forward to our collective experimentation with writing processes, practices, materials, and technologies—hopefully the hands-on activities will be fun for everyone!
This course alternates between synchronous Zoom meetings and in-person meetings. Is there anything else students should know about the modality?
The course calendar is designed so that we are using our weekly modality intentionally: our in-person meetings will include work with tangible and analog materials and technologies, while our Zoom meetings will focus on experimenting with digital technologies and creating collaborative materials.
What are some of the major assignments students can look forward to?
Collaborative, quarter-long, in-class activities will help us develop a bird’s eye view of the histories, theories, and concepts that we’re reading and discussing. For example, we will create a timeline to chart the emergence of process, post-process, cognitive, expressivist, social constructivist, etc. theories and mark other significant historical moments.
One major assignment will be a Composition Theory Genealogy Trace, which will focus on the emergence and development of a specific theory, concept, or figure, contextualizing it within larger historical conversations (i.e., what came before and informed the theory/concept/figure, and what came after and was informed by the theory/concept/figure). This assignment will require bibliographic research and should yield a substantial written project and presentation to the class.
Another major assignment, a Theory of Composition, will ask students to articulate a personal theory of composition informed by scholarship and research into/reflection on their own writing processes and practices.
This course will allow students to explore different ways of composing. Can you give us an example of what students can look forward to?
One example is recreating a text using different technologies, materials, and genres (e.g., paper and pen, clay, typewriter, zines, comics, videos, podcasts) and considering how the affordances and constraints of each reshape the text and our individual and collective engagements with it.
Conclusion
Registration for this exciting course is open. If you’re interested, now is the time to sign up!
To read about other courses being offered this spring, visit our Course Spotlights page.