The Content for Composition, the WPA Outcomes Statement and the Proscription of Information Literacy Outcomes

Research literature in Composition Studies has begun to recognize the mounting need to master information literacy skills; however, this recognition is often crippled by the number and scope of claims regarding the content and pedagogy most appropriate for first-year composition courses.

Take, for example, this question: what is the content for college composition? This short but profoundly complicated question has both plagued and informed the work of Rhetoric and Composition professionals since the (re)emergence of the discipline fifty years ago. Recent discussions on two prominent forums for composition professionals—the Council of Writing Program Administrators listserv (WPA-L) and the “CompPile” wiki maintained by Texas A & M University, Corpus Christi—bears witness to the enduring legacy of this question in Composition Studies. In a WPA-L post dated 14 November 2006, a compositionist and writing program administrator poses the following question on behalf of one of her graduate students: “What is the overarching goal of a First Year Composition program, and what methods are your institution[s] employing to meet that end?” (Rickly, 2006) In a reply fitting the range of responses to this question and speaking to the problems that many composition teachers and writing program administrators have had in framing their own response, another list member responds: “To seek the Holy Grail” (Taylor, 2006).

Just two months prior, members of the Conference on College Composition Executive Committee posed similar questions on WPA-L, and the responses have been collected on the CompPile wiki under the heading, “Content of Composition.” Many of the responses are similar to the following comment from Michael Donnelly, and comments like these have been the typical response of composition professionals for years: “There is no ‘must’ content; the only thing(s) that really matters is what students are ‘doing’—i.e., reading, thinking, responding, writing, receiving (feedback), and re-writing. When these things are primary, and whatever other content remains secondary, we have a writing course” (2006). Typically, responses to the question of composition’s content are like Donnelly’s as they claim the writing process as the content of composition. Others see composition as boundless; therefore widening the scope for the content of composition as far as it can go: “I think the content of composition should be composition, writ broad” (Wardle, 2006). Such responses only continue to cloud the issue, perhaps to justify any content or instructional approach. Unfortunately, such responses provide little help for the thousands of composition instructors who lack training in rhetoric and composition. Dennis Ciesielski concludes, “Our territory is simply so large that it defies definition” (content for composition, 2006).

If the content for college composition seems mysterious, it might simply be due to the number and variety of disciplines that have influenced the work of compositionists over the past half-century. Since the emergence of college composition as its own field of study, many disciplines have served as sources of inspiration for the content of composition and its methods of inquiry. Disciplines outside of English including cognitive psychology, sociology, anthropology, culture studies, art, women’s studies, computer science and mathematics as well as fields within English including technical communication, literature, creative writing and teaching English as a second language have all helped to shape composition theory and pedagogy. These fields have painted a rich landscape for college composition, but this landscape is often seen as boundless. In addition, composition’s connection to rhetoric further extends composition both vertically and horizontally. Much like many definitions of rhetoric that have it encompassing all acts of communication, composition seems to encompass almost any and all available content. Perhaps the question then is not what the content for composition is, but what it isn’t?

Instead of answering the question on the content for college composition, it seems that many in the field of Rhetoric and Composition over the past twenty years have focused on the goals of composition, perhaps thinking this territory to be more suitable for definition; perhaps responding to calls for outcomes assessment, needs for accreditation or other institutional pressures; perhaps situating it against other writing and English courses; or perhaps something else. Michelle Sidler notes in her contribution to the CompPile wiki on the content of composition that “‘the skills’ of composition—and its literate and rhetorical concepts—can be taught with just about any content, if understood as an enterprise in texuality and literacy” (content for composition, 2006). Regardless of one’s position on the content of composition and motivation to focus on goals or outcomes, composition is now defined more by what it proscribes or accomplishes rather than what it is or is not. Typically, the goals for composition acknowledge the value of the writing process, the roles of multiple literacies, the importance of writing in the rhetorical modes and multiple genres, the need for writing skills that reflect the writing conventions in other disciplines and professions and the increasing significance of writing and researching with computers.

In fact, many composition courses and programs rely on the WPA Outcomes for First-Year Composition adopted by the WPA Council in 2000. In this document, the WPA organizes its goals for composition courses into four areas:

  • rhetorical knowledge
  • critical thinking, reading and writing
  • processes
  • knowledge of conventions

In each of these areas, the WPA Council includes several outcome statements for composition focused on its students and what they should be able to do, such as “By the end of first year composition, students should write in several genres” and “By the end of first year composition, students should understand writing as an open process that permits writers to use later invention and re-thinking to revise their work” (Council of Writing Program Administrators, 2000). In fact, this document provides more than thirty outcomes for teachers and students in college composition courses. Now, some composition programs have extended or added to the WPA’s statement; however, many have opted to either accept it as is or condense it. Regardless, the WPA statement has quickly become the standard goals or outcomes document for college composition.

Despite the range and detail in the WPA statement, one area that has become increasingly important to the mission of composition courses receives very limited treatment in the WPA document, and this area is conducting research in the information age. Since the WPA document is not even a decade old, it seems that the authors of the WPA Outcomes would have been able to foresee the impact of technology on the teaching of writing, as evidenced by the following outcome in the WPA statement: “By the end of first year composition, students should use a variety of technologies to address a range of audiences” (Council of Writing Program Administrators, 2000). This statement has a sense of vision to it; however, the use of technology to locate and make sense of information is not mentioned.

Further, the only statement in the entire WPA document that explicitly addresses the role of research in the writing process is the following outcome listed in the area for critical thinking, reading and writing: “By the end of first year composition, students should understand a writing assignment as a series of tasks, including finding, evaluating, analyzing, and synthesizing appropriate primary and secondary sources” (Council of Writing Program Administrators, 2000). This statement certainly encompasses the important outcomes for research writing; however, it fails to do justice to the current complexities of information literacy in the digital age. Therefore, to better understand the complexities of information literacy and provide instructional strategies to help students develop information literacy skills, composition might once again be served by exploring other fields, in this case the field of Library and Information Science. This field not only acknowledges the complexity of researching in the digital age and crafts a whole series of standards for information literacy, but it also give teachers something they often search for—content for composition.

<Previous Section | Home | Next Section>