[Teaching_Composition] A Story of Change, WPA Outcomes on the Ground

[Irvin Peckham]

That was quite a story!  

=========================================
Irvin Peckham
Director of the University Writing Program
Louisiana State University
ipeckh1@lsu.edu
http://www.english.lsu.edu/programs/dept/ugrad/firstyear/
225-772-5963
==========================================

-----Original Message-----
From: teaching_composition-admin@mailman.eppg.com
[mailto:teaching_composition-admin@mailman.eppg.com] On Behalf Of Debra
Dew
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 10:58 AM
To: teaching_composition@mailman.eppg.com
Subject: Re: [Teaching_Composition] A Story of Change, WPA Outcomes on
the Ground

Remembering what Kathy and Doug said (below) , and returning again to a
few 
key terms--ownership (stewardship), disciplinarity and advocacy, I share
one 
of several local WPA Outcomes experiences. The details may better
explain 
the why, where and how so of earlier claims I have launched within my
posts.

Kathy said>>>>

*Now, something like the WPA Outcomes statement is, indeed, much less 
threatening and more
immediately useful, but even there, it can pay to proceed with caution.*

Doug also said>>>

*At the same time [ that the NCTE and WPA workload statement are
'blue-sky 
and fairy-land ideals' ],  at our institution the Outcomes statement,
Plagiarism statement, and a number of NCTE statements on more "content" 
related matters have a lot more traction, especially within the
department and school.  They don't automatically end any given argument,
to 
be sure, but they're recognized as having some expertise and wisdom
borne of scholarship, specialization, and professional experience. These

more "disciplinary" documents seem to carry a bit more credibility.
__________________________

In 2002, I worked with writing faculty to deeply revise our
second-semester 
general education course: We incorporated the WPA Outcomes and revised
the 
course title from* Composition II* with its emphasis on modes of
argument to 
*Rhetoric and Writing II: Academic Argument and Inquiry.*  Our key
revisions 
included the incorporation of stasis theory for inventional work and the

extension of research to extended inquiry on a single topic throughout
the 
semester. .

We submitted the course revision to our LAS Curriculum Committee for 
Approval.  The course template quite deliberately employed the WPA
framework 
to represent content/skills outcomes.  The framework as we know includes

rhetorical work and *Criticial Thinking * as a subset of its outcomes.
Our 
sample syllabus as submitted along with the course description and
outcomes, 
included the following key terms repeatedly *reasoning* and *critical 
thinking* and *argument.*

I showed up at the C & R meeting expecting enthusiastic support for our
deep 
revision of this required course in argument and research--the course
had 
emphasized argument and research since forever.  Here is what happened.


The Associate Dean, Chair of Philosophy and ex-officio member of the 
committee exploded.

He rebuked me for imagining that *composition* had any right to teach 
argument and criticial thinking. Philosophy teaches a gen ed course
entitled 
*Critical Thinking* and THIS course teaches argument--philosophical 
argument, logic, the correct approach to academic reasoning.

He said composition has NO curricular rights to *argument* or *critical 
thinking,* and that I had better get all of this out of the paperwork.


After blasting me in the context of the C & R review, I left, and the 
proposal was tabled until I could satisfy Philosophy's concerns.  I went

directly to this fellow and entertained his offensively Lockean account
of 
my discipline:  Rhetoric is specious reasoning--the Perfect Cheat--not 
academic, certainly nothing like philosophical reasoning as the 
epistemogically superior method for dsciovering truth beyond a doubt, 
therefore *academically legitimate* approach to reasoning.

He had highlighted our every use of *argument* and *critical thinking*
and 
*reasoning* and commanded me to delete all of those terms.   The course 
title could not inclue*Academic* argument as our approach to reasoning
was 
that cheesey stuff of the streets. He stood up from his chair and
blasted me 
with derisive and dismissive claims-- We aimed to appropriate his 
disciplinary work, and he would not permit us to do.  He sent me on my
way 
with work in hand--I had to provide argument textbooks, a revised
syllabus 
and outcomes statements,  change the title, or the course would not be 
approved.

Then, he went back to his departmental colleagues and launched a
campaign 
against my course as well.  I received a letter of intense resistance
from 
his department a week later.

__________________________________

Clear conflicts and misunderstandings include:   epistemological 
differences, insecurities and misperceptions, which fueled the dispute; 
disciplinary *property rights* as in *who owns* argument, reasoning, 
critical thinking, and then advocacy as he had flattened me fully, and
I 
was compelled to define and defend the theoretical integrity of our
course 
on argument and inquiry.   The WPA Outcomes mattered not and it wasmy
job to 
disprove his claims and satisfy his worries!

Philosophy suspected the worst of us because philosophy had NO
conceptual, 
theoretical understanding of  writing's disciplinary nature, our content
and 
skills domain.  I had to define the discipline--materially and 
intellectually mark its space--before the course was approved.




Debra






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