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08075Chap01 X.Pdf Foreword CONTENTS FOREWORD: A REFLECTION ON LITERATURE AND COMPOSITION, TWENTY YEARS LATER Winifred Bryan Horner. ix PREFACE . xiii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . xv 1 Introduction: “What Do You Folks Teach over There, Anyway?” Linda S. Bergmann . 1 I Institutional Contexts 2 Composition, Literary Studies, and the End(s) of Civic Education Dominic DelliCarpini . 17 3 Restructuring in Higher Education and the Relationship between Literature and Composition Timothy J. Doherty . 36 4 Causes and Cures for Our Professional Schizophrenia Edward A. Kearns . 54 5 Rhetoric, Literature, and the Ruined University Eve Wiederhold . 73 II Departmental Cultures 6 In this Corner . Barry M. Maid . 93 7 Along the DMZ between Composition and Literature John Heyda . 109 vii a08075_fm 7 1/18/06, 11:59 PM Foreword 8 Whole English, Whole Teachers: Maintaining the Balance between Rhetorical and Literary Expertise Dennis Ciesielski. 124 III Applications in the Classroom 9 Computer-Mediated Communication and the Confluence of Composition and Literature Katherine Fischer, Donna Reiss, and Art Young . 143 10 Composing English 102: Reframing Students’ Lives through Literature Edith M. Baker . 171 11 The Missing Voice in the Debate: What Students Say about Literature in Composition Mary T. Segall . 191 AFTERWORD: A COMPLEX AFFIRMATION OF READING AND WRITING Patricia Harkin . 205 WORKS FOR FURTHER CONSULTATION Linda S. Bergmann . 221 INDEX . 231 EDITORS . 243 CONTRIBUTORS . 245 viii a08075_fm 8 1/18/06, 11:59 PM Introduction: “What DoC YouHAPTER Folks OTeachNE over There, Anyway?” Introduction: “What Do You Folks Teach over There, Anyway?” LINDA S. BERGMANN Purdue University he title of this introduction reiterates a question I’ve spent T nearly an entire career trying to answer, a question asked (not unkindly) by colleagues across the disciplines as I worked with various Writing Across the Curriculum projects and pro- grams. It has not been an easy question to answer. Most English departments have lists of goals or outcomes that state what is taught in composition, many of the more recent of them derived from the Council of Writing Program Administrators Outcomes Statement developed in the mid-1990s (Harrington et al.). But what WPAs profess to do and what actually happens in compo- sition classrooms often vary widely, depending on who is actu- ally teaching the classes. In part, this difference occurs because so many composition programs are located in English depart- ments dominated by literary studies, and because so many com- position courses are taught by instructors rooted in literature. The theoretical differences and intra-departmental strife between compositionists and literary scholars have resulted in the estab- lishment of separate departments of writing or of rhetoric and composition at a number of institutions, several of which are considered in this collection. This collection is not, however, given solely to arguing for separating writing programs from English departments—although Barry Maid makes a compelling case for that institutional structure in his chapter. Instead, it examines the pressures the relationship between literary studies and composi- tion put on the teaching of writing. Moreover, it undertakes a broader examination of whether and how the study of literature 1 b08075_ch1 1 1/18/06, 11:58 PM BERGMANN can be compatible with and integrated into composition studies. Because rhetoric and composition has by this time clearly differ- entiated itself as a discipline, it seems an appropriate point at which to reconsider the question of how compositionists—as members (most of us) of English departments and as teachers and scholars of rhetoric and composition—interface with instruc- tors who teach writing from the substantially different intellec- tual background of literary studies. The purposes of this collection of essays—over twenty years after Winifred Horner’s Composition and Literature: Bridging the Gap—are to reconsider the teaching of literature in composi- tion classes, to examine the extent to which the division between literature and composition affects teaching practices in colleges and universities of various kinds, and to document cases of suc- cess and failure in attempted collaborations between literature and composition. In some venues, these issues may no longer seem to be questions, since the problems of the relations between literature and composition have been widely discussed for at least two decades. The debate between Erika Lindemann and Gary Tate, begun at the Conference on College Composition and Com- munication annual convention and published in College English in 1993, generated substantial discussions throughout the pro- fession. Also in the 1990s, James Berlin looked back at the his- tory of rhetoric as a profession, to describe how the separation between poetics and rhetoric is tied into at least a century of academic politics. Thomas Miller (Formation) and Sharon Crowley (Composition) have continued to historicize the con- nections, differences, and collisions between the fields. In the context of this history, the present situation of composition and literature can be seen as a precarious balance of claims for utility, critique, and personal growth. Although most English departments consider teaching litera- ture their primary focus, the common sense and practice of most composition programs (particularly at large research universi- ties) is to avoid teaching literature in writing courses, maintain- ing the distinction between the two fields. The practice is very different, however, in smaller institutions, where composition is an undergraduate course or two, not a graduate program, and where all or most of the literature faculty teach composition— 2 b08075_ch1 2 1/18/06, 11:58 PM Introduction: “What Do You Folks Teach over There, Anyway?” often as they think best and as they have always done it. These institutions can be splendid places in which to learn and to teach, but they offer a different configuration of relationships between composition and literature, and thus complicate the issue of how to separate the two fields—or to keep them productively inter- twining and interacting. So, in spite of the established and grow- ing body of disciplinary knowledge in the field of composition, the issue of its relation with literature is still faced department by department and course by course. Because institutional practices and situations vary so greatly in the many kinds of institutions that teach (and usually require) first-year composition, questions about the place of literature in composition courses continue to be raised. One implication of this collection is that if composition pro- grams are situated in English departments (as compared to inde- pendent writing programs), those departments need to initiate and sustain ongoing, productive discussions and collaborations between the fields of literature and composition, rather than merely serving as sites for exerting disciplinary power. The edi- tors and authors of this book have intended to provide models for such ongoing conversations about the institutional and theo- retical relations between composition and literary studies. More- over, these chapters not only show mutual accommodation between composition and literature but also demonstrate how departmental and institutional politics can undermine rational discussions about the purposes and practices of composition courses and thereby render accommodation impossible. Chap- ters such as those by Timothy Doherty, Barry Maid, and John Heyda document what happens when—for any number of rea- sons—such conversations break down. And Dominic DelliCarpini makes a clear case for a mission of writing as public discourse that cannot be fulfilled by the teaching of literature as usually defined, that is, as imaginative writing valued primarily by aes- thetic criteria. Composition and/or Literature: The End(s) of Education tries to offer teachers from both sides of the literature/composition divide an opportunity to reflect upon pedagogical theory, class- room practices, and the institutional situation of composition instruction, as well as to consider whether and how they can 3 b08075_ch1 3 1/18/06, 11:58 PM BERGMANN work together. Thus, we offer a series of accounts of, responses to, and compromises with the tensions between literature and composition, between reading and writing, that have beleaguered English departments for decades. While this description might sound like we are proposing a clear move toward reconciliation between literature and composition—as fields and as faculties— both the editors and authors have seen this collection less as of- fering a prescription for relaxing these tensions, and more as suggesting ways to approach and even use them. The collection is divided into three sections, emphasizing different (although interconnected) aspects of how literature and composition do, do not, and might work with each other: Institutional Contexts, Departmental Cultures, and Applications in the Classroom. The first section reviews some of the theoretical underpinnings of the rift between composition and literature; the next section consid- ers how these differences are set in institutional contexts and departmental cultures; and the final section recounts classroom applications that argue for or exemplify an informed integration of materials and practices drawn from both literature and com- position. In selecting the essays for this collection, the editors paid particular attention to pieces
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