by Cheri Lemieux Spiegel

Rhetoric/Composing? Or Writing/Composing?

In April 2000, the Council of Writing Program Administrators adopted their outcomes statement for First-Year Composition.   The goal of establishing this statement was

1. [t]o some extent, [...] to regularize what can be expected to be taught in first-year composition; to this end the document is not merely a compilation or summary of what currently takes place. Rather, [it] articulates what composition teachers nationwide have learned from practice, research, and theory. This document intentionally defines only ‘outcomes,’ or types of results, and not ‘standards,’ or precise levels of achievement. The setting of standards should be left to specific institutions or specific groups of institutions. (“WPA,” 2008)
   

When the statement was adopted, it included an overview of four primary learning outcomes for first-year composition students: rhetorical knowledge; critical thinking, reading, and writing; knowledge of writing processes; and knowledge of conventions.  Since then, the WPA updated the document to include a fifth outcome:  the ability to compose in electronic environments. 

While this list of outcomes does not demonstrate a standard for how composition pedagogy should accomplish its goals, it does provide a foundation from which educators can, and perhaps should, establish their theories of composition pedagogy.  Yancey indicates in her introduction to the document from its republishing in College English, “such a statement can help us think more systematically about what it is that we include in our curriculum—and what we exclude [...] Sometimes it is used as a context for specific programs; to create a new program, to review an extant one” (as cited in Harrington et al, 2001, p. 322). 

Because of this purpose, the outcomes statement is quite useful for responding to Hesse’s question: “Is the curricular space that our field inhabits ‘rhetoric/composing’ or is it ‘writing/composing?’” (2010, p. 603).  It is in precisely this way that this document manifests itself in this web-text.  In the five sections that follow, this piece examines whether a theory of rhetoric/composing or one of writing/composing would best help students to meet these course outcomes and succeed in the course.  This five-part analysis will set the stage for the recommendation that rhetorical media (which is defined in the “Film Project” section) be the focus of first-year composition, rather than writing alone.

Click the links on the right to begin exploring these sections.

Section 1:  Rhetorical Knowledge.

Section 2:  Critical thinking, Reading, and Writing.

Section 3:  Knowledge of Writing Processes.

Section 4:  Knowledge of Conventions. 

Section 5:   Ability to Compose in Electronic Environments.