I’d been giving this some thought as I teach a summer online class. I’m using Locke’s Second Treatise and his A Letter Concerning Toleration in my fyc classes as the reading from which students springboard to their essays. It’s a tough text, for me and them, but they don’t have to “master” it, just understand it enough to build an essay from an idea they find within it. It helps students get a sense of the political and economic world in which they live, where some, if not many, of the foundational notions come from. But I’m no expert on Locke, even having read his text about six times in the last 12 months. But would I be any more of an expert reading a variety of writing studies texts? Would that be more appropriate content to work with because it’s at least nominally in my area of (questionable) expertise?

I think it would bore the hell out of students, even more than someone such as Locke, who they can at least connect to their world and life (because of my great assignments and teaching no doubt ;-)) I think it would bore the hell out of me too. If we were using fyc to introduce people to writing studies, to create rhet/com[/writing studies majors, perhaps then it would be more appropriate. Maybe we just have to admit that fyc and second year writing type courses are service courses, but being a service course doesn’t mean we aren’t content experts in our own ways, it’s just that our content is more about process perhaps.

I’m really just giving you a personal shout-out to say hello. And a question … is there some way I can feed your blog into my livejournal account so I don’t get all forgetful and check in with you at ridiculous 6-month intervals?

I forget if I’ve given you the addy before, but it’s http://mirrormargaret.livejournal.com … post a comment and I can add you, if you have an LJ account. Kitties figure heavily in the (non-) narrative.

i could not agree more that UMass has it going on w/r/t process, and i have written and spoken many, many times on the ways in which the vilification of expressivism was a clunky power move (however also well-intentioned in its excitement about the social nature of writing, a thing expressivism did not reject or deny but maybe nuanced for the sake of honoring the actual writer writing).

I suspect that having just finished my first year as a new professor may have blinkered my perspective a bit: I’m at a military academy where current-traditionalism is still the dominant regime and I’m doing everything I can just to advocate for a bit of process pedagogy, so Downs and Wardle’s forward-looking perspective feels very refreshing and engaging to me.

Andrew’s suggestion of defining differences between disciplines seems important, but part of me balks at the idea of continuing to define what we do in terms of its difference from what other people do — that feels too close to the same bad old subaltern position that Downs and Wardle kick against — but then, that’s a minor quibble, and I think I’m largely in agreement. Alex’s point about our object of study — the “what” versus the “how,” as Bonnie puts it — is one I don’t know that I have any easy answer to. I was trained at UMass, which still had a deep and substantial process orientation (and I confess I get frustrated when I see the too-easy and reductive conflation of expressivism with process), and so I’m inclined to agree with the assertion that for teaching writing, the direct method of instruction — one learns to write by writing — is best, and the burden of proof lies upon those who would advocate other methods, such as reading lots of composition scholarship. Still — there’s something that does strike me as deeply exciting about the Downs and Wardle piece, and perhaps it’s the stance toward students as reflective writers engaging complex and difficult texts, very much in the mode of scholars and teachers like Mariolina Salvatori.

i’m re-reading Sirc’s book, and i keep thinking, along with him, where’s the expansive and complicated notion of writing we had historically infused into our courses? it seems that there is so much work *validating* our FTE that we have boxed ourselves into a dry, expository corner.

and yet i’m seeing cool blogs, short films, visual essays . . . one student handed in his portfolio to me recently as text printed on 3 XXL Fruit of the Loom t-shirts (i’m still pondering it, but i sort of love that he felt inspired to do it . . . we “wear ourselves” . . . ).

also, and i saw this at D’s C’s presentation . . . assumptions about how “we” teach FYC that no longer hold as broad generalizations. i see a bit of that in the article, and it doesn’t seem, well, fair. assumptions, assumptions . . . they guided the building of the course and are now getting everyone so excited and hopeful . . . but hopeful about what? funding?

i work with D, so he knows my position, so i don’t feel . . . that is, i hope i’m not wrong to share my thoughts here. thanks for opening this up.