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Professional Communication and the Politics of English Studies WPA: Writing Program Administration, Volume 17, Number 3, Spring 1994 © Council of Writing Program Administrators • Professional Communication and the Linda Myers) editor Politics of English Studies Approaches to Michael Mendelson Computer Writing This essay is based on the proposition that professional writing belongs on equal footing with other courses in the English curriculum. I Distilled into its most compact form, the proposition rests on the logic of the following Classrooms syllogism: Learning from Practical Experience Rhetoric embraces writing in the workplace; English Studies includes rhetoric as well as literature; Therefore, English Studies extends (or ought to) "My first thought went like this: 'Oh no, not another to writing in the workplace. book about computer labs.' But after I read the book, J real­ ized the great diversity possible in classroom design. I started Itis, ofcourse, the parenthesi", the "ought to," thatis theproblemati (" fea ture to get really interested. And this surprised me because I have of thissylIogism. For the parenthesis acknowledges that while profcssi anal written on the topic, and I thought I had it allfigured out. I writing courses have been a staple in many English departments for more learned a lot from reading this book." - Thomas T. Barker than a decade, their actual status is still very much in question.: If such is Texas Tech University the case, and I believe it is, any proposal for the integration of professional writing into the English curriculum will need more than the strict logic of a syllogism to be persuasive. In the end, the reform proposed here will This text provides a variety of practical and theoretical require persistent dialogue on the part of department administrators and approaches to computer classroom design. Pedagogical. faculty; careful attention to curricular innovations of schools in the fore­ ethical, and political issues are discussed as well as nuts-and­ front of professional communication (hereafter RPC, for rhetoric and bolts construction. adapting teaching styles to a CAl environ­ professional communication, the standard name for this emerging disci­ pline); and proof supplied by teachers of RPC that their professional ment, use of specific hardware and software, and speculation interestsarein fact consistent with the activi ties of the department Miltonist, regarding future electronic learning environments. linguist, and composition specialists. But a general willingness to discuss reform is in itself no guarantee 225 pages that reform will be the end product of even the most well-intentioned $16.95 paperback efforts. What weneed is a setofpractical guidelines that plota path for RPC ISBN 0·79'4·'568·6 from the margins to the mainstream of English Studies. Without such guidelines, all courses in professional communication (including business State University of New York Press writing, technical writing, visual communication, editing, argumentative c/o CUP Services • PO Box 6525 writing,and writing internships) Ldn too easily beadded to thedepartmen­ Ithaca, NY 14851 • 1·800·666-2211 (orders) tal course list but ignored as importantcontributors to the actuilIspectrum American Express, Discover. MasterCard. VISA ofdiscourscstudies. In thisessay, I will focus on those particularissues that Please include $3 shipping we must confront and those practical steps we might take if we hope to achieve substantive reform. NY stale residents. add 8% sales tax • WPA: Writing Program Administration Vol. 17, No.3, Spring, 1994 7 WPA: Writing Program Administration, Volume 17, Number 3, Spring 1994 © Council of Writing Program Administrators I put forward this proposal knowing full well that curricular debate research profile. What follows is my attempt to more fully define what overprofessional writing is far from resolved at manyschools. 1 I know that "integration" and "research" ought to meanin the context ofthis discussion. some dedicated teachers of English believe strongly that RPC courses are By integration, I mean nothing less than the incorporation of all too vocational, too mundane, too likely-in some curricular manifestation branches of English Studies (linguistics and creative writing, as well as ofGresham's Law-to drive out what they feel to be the more appropriate literature and rhetoric) into a seamless curriculum that does not play study of British and American literature. Recently, a director of the ADE favorites. The goal ofsuch integration is to engage our students in the full wrote to me claiming that "students can learn about the practical genres in spectrum of language study, and while the force of precedent may mean many places in our society (including the school of business), but the that there are more literahtre courses than anything else, an integrated English department is the only place they can learn about the literary curriculum will be one in which students are effectively encouraged to genres." Implicit in such comments is an attitude of contempt and sample from a full menu of options. This basic definition generates a dismissal, a perception that the business of English Studies in some way number of specific issues we must confront if integration is to go forward. becomes sullied by an association with professional communication. Such First: In an integrated program, disciplinary links between RPC an attitude is, I am sorry to say, still widespread. But my goal in this essay courses and the rest of the English and institutional curricula will be is not to engagein whatIconsidera lingeringskirmishin thelongcampaign established through course prerequisites and careful sequencing. All too to make composition studies legitimate; rather, I wish to advance a often a course in business communication, perhaps in tandem with the pragmatic agendafor those whoalready understandthatEnglishis a multi­ technical writing course, floats about in some ignored eddy of the writing disciplinary area made more robust by extending its fundamental concern program, totally without mooring in the curriculum and without cause­ with linguistic competence into promising new territories. ways to and from other courses. We can begin to contemplate the My proposal for integrating RPC into the English curriculum must relationship ofsuchcourses to the rest of the curriculum by addressing the notonly contend,however, with the vestigial contemptof many tradition­ following questions: alists; it must also recognize the strong local flavor of most academic • What are the appropriate prerequisites for professional writing? politics. Simply put, the politics of my department are not the same as the • Do rhetorical theory, literary study, and additional training in politics of yours, even though we may both be involved in discussing the advanced compositionenhance the study of professionaI writing? role of professional writing in the English curriculum. Let me acknowl­ Or alternatively, edge, then, that my experience with issues ofcurricular reformcomes from • Does professional writing prepare a student for additional, more a large public university in the Midwest, Iowa State, where-after four advanced work in rhetoric and/or composition? years ofdiscussion-theDepartmentofEnglishnow hasan undergraduate • How does professional writing fit in with a Writing-Across-thc­ area-of-concentration in Rhetoric and Professional Communication, as Curriculum program, or more broadly--how do WAC programs well as a doctoral program in the same subject. Inherent in Iowa State's address the subject of rhetoric in the workplace? redesigned curriculum is a vision of English Studies as an inclusive rather Once these questions (and the more specific ones that follow from them) than exclusive experience, a vision that extends not only to diverse have been addressed and responded to, RPC will have a morc appropriate literatures and academic essays but also to the kinds of texts our students anchor in the English curriculum and, justas important, students and their will be producing and interpreting as professionals. The claims of this advisors will be better able to address the relation of professional writing vision seem to me to operate for any English department. to a particular program of study (see Brereton, 284-94). So on to the mattcr of integration, or how can RPC be effectively Second, a related point: We must bcgin to think about the relation of incorporated into the English Studies curriculum, not only at schools like RPC to the English major. The rhetoric of the workplace is very different mine, but anywhere. My approach here will be twofold, and notespecially from that of the academy; and, as repeated surveys indicate, college startling: 1) integration of RPC courses will involve a comprehensive graduates can plan on spendingbetweena quarterand a third of their time review of the department's program of study rather than piecemeal writing (Anderson 30ff). Our own informal surveys at Iowa State indicate additions to the existing curriculum; and 2) barriers to integration can be that if teachers are taken out of the pool of English graduates, business is effectively scaled by efforts on the part of RPC faculty to increase their dearly the dominantcareer for English majors, and communication, inone 8 9 WPA: Writing Program Administration, Volume 17, Number 3, Spring 1994 © Council of Writing Program Administrators form or another, is their principal activity on the job. If, however, the In other words, our courses in RPC must be no less theoretically pro~ram of study for the
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