MADE NOT ONLY IN WORDS: COMPOSITION IN A NEW KEY
I believe Yancey addresses one of the most important questions raised by this piece on page 299: “How is it that what we teach and what we test can be so different from what our students know as writing?” Writing and writing technology has changed so much, and still continues to change. While I believe there is a very important distinction between casual writing and academic writing, it’s becoming our responsibility as instructors to help students learn to compose in a multitude of genres, from online to on paper, because they’ll be composing both inside and outside of the classroom consistently for the rest of their lives. As Yancey goes on to point out, the public is writing outside of what is now universal education. She states on page 301: “Whatever the exchange value may be for these writers—and there are millions of them, here and around the world—it’s certainly not grades. Rather, the writing seems to operate in an economy driven by use value.” This is an important difference from the way writing was viewed even just 20-30 years ago. The advent of technology and globalization has lead to an increase in composition opportunities across a variety of media and genres, and a creation of writing communities. Its essentially like sticking our head in the sand if composition doesn’t catch up the widely self-created world of new writing genres existent today. And while those communities were created largely without the assistance or need of the university composition classroom, as composition teachers, we can aid those coming into those communities and those communities themselves by helping guide students to clear, effective communication and research, in order to become better global citizens.
I believe Yancey addresses one of the most important questions raised by this piece on page 299: “How is it that what we teach and what we test can be so different from what our students know as writing?” Writing and writing technology has changed so much, and still continues to change. While I believe there is a very important distinction between casual writing and academic writing, it’s becoming our responsibility as instructors to help students learn to compose in a multitude of genres, from online to on paper, because they’ll be composing both inside and outside of the classroom consistently for the rest of their lives. As Yancey goes on to point out, the public is writing outside of what is now universal education. She states on page 301: “Whatever the exchange value may be for these writers—and there are millions of them, here and around the world—it’s certainly not grades. Rather, the writing seems to operate in an economy driven by use value.” This is an important difference from the way writing was viewed even just 20-30 years ago. The advent of technology and globalization has lead to an increase in composition opportunities across a variety of media and genres, and a creation of writing communities. Its essentially like sticking our head in the sand if composition doesn’t catch up the widely self-created world of new writing genres existent today. And while those communities were created largely without the assistance or need of the university composition classroom, as composition teachers, we can aid those coming into those communities and those communities themselves by helping guide students to clear, effective communication and research, in order to become better global citizens.