English 706, Spring 2002, Special Topic in Rhetoric

THE VIRTUES OF WRITING:
VALUE AND EVALUATION IN COMPOSITION STUDIES

University of Wisconsin-Madison

INSTRUCTOR: David Fleming, PhD

CLASS MEETINGS: R 2:30 - 5:00, 7105  H. C. White Hall

CLASS EMAIL LIST: english-706@lists.students.wisc.edu

OFFICE: 6187D  H. C. White Hall

OFFICE HOURS: T 10:00 - 11:00; R 1:00 - 2:30; & gladly by appt.

PHONE: 263-3367 (o), 218-9143 (h)

EMAIL: jdfleming@facstaff.wisc.edu

1.  DESCRIPTION

And yet norms intrude on nearly everything we do, not only as readers and writers but also as researchers and teachers.  We discriminate, criticize, praise, model, prefer, assess, and revise; and all of these things involve us in projects of valuation and evaluation.  Writing is not neutral for the simple reason that it is so powerful; and as teachers we have a certain responsibility to that power.  But what do we mean when we value writing, when we praise one text and criticize another, when we celebrate some discourse practices and denigrate others, when we talk about writers in terms that suggest our access to their character?  In this seminar, we will examine some prominent vocabularies of "goodness" used in composition instruction and research to talk about writers, written texts, and writing processes.  Despite the ubiquity and force of such vocabularies, we are often, I believe, unreflective about them, incoherent in our use of them, and sometimes uncomfortable about their very existence.  Terms of value seem to be unavoidable in our work, and yet they raise more questions than they answer.

The course is divided into two parts.  In the first half, we will read books and articles that should provide us with helpful perspectives on the problem of writing evaluation.  I present these readings in five units, organizing them by whether they focus our gaze on the character of writers, the responses of readers, the qualities of texts, the nature of writing processes, or the social practices in which writing occurs.  The second half of the semester will be devoted to individual research projects concerning the seminar topic broadly construed.  I see the course fulfilling three main goals: helping us as scholars better understand the place of value in the study of discourse; helping us as readers develop more reflective practices of text evaluation; and helping us as teachers become more thoughtful evaluators of student writing.

2. TEXTS

• Berkowitz, Peter.  Virtue and the Making of Modern Liberalism.  Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000.
• MacIntyre, Alasdair.  After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 2nd ed.  Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984.
• Robert, Henry M, III, et al. (Editors).  Robert's Rules of Order, 10th ed.  Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books, 2000.
• Smith, Barbara Herrnstein.  Contingencies of Value: Alternative Perspectives for Critical Theory.  Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988.
• White, Edward M.  Assigning, Responding, Evaluating: A Writing Teacher’s Guide, 3rd ed.  New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999.
• Yancey, Kathleen Blake (Editor).  Portfolios in the Writing Classroom: An Introduction.  Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1992.
• Zak, Frances, & Christopher C. Weaver (Editors). The Theory and Practice of Grading Writing: Problems and Possibilities.  Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1998.

3. ASSIGNMENTS & GRADES

1) Reading and participation.  There will be some lecture from me and occasional presentations by students, but much of the first half of the semester will be centered on active discussion of class readings and the issues and problems raised therein.  To that end, I ask that you prepare for class not only by carefully reading the assigned texts and doing your own voluntary background reading but also by sending to the class discussion list (english-706@lists.students.wisc.edu), sometime before the relevant meeting, a question, problem, or comment raised by the reading.  This should be no longer than a few sentences.

2) Problem paper.  Before Spring Recess, you will turn in a brief paper (3-5 pp, typed, DS) laying out some problem you would like to pursue for your final project in the course.  The paper should address in provisional terms the nature of the problem, its significance, what about the problem is "known" in the field, and what you would like to learn during, and as a result of, inquiry.

3) Research project.  At the end of the semester, you will turn in a research paper of about 12-15 pp (typed, DS) concerning some problem relevant to the course topic.  In addition to the paper itself (due May 16), you will also participate in a class-wide (and possibly public?) symposium, sometime during the last week of the semester (or thereabouts), reporting on your project in a 20-minute oral presentation.

4. CALENDAR     (tentative)