Research on Composition: Multiple Perspectives on Two Decades of Change

Language and Literacy

by Peter Smagorinsky (Editor)

The third volume in a landmark series on composition research! Covering the period between 1984 and 2003, this authoritative sequel picks up where the earlier volumes (Braddock et al., 1963, and Hillocks, 1986), now classics in the field, left off. It features a broader focus that goes beyond the classroom teaching of writing to include teacher research, second-language writing, rhetoric, home and community literacy, workplace literacy, and histories of writing. Each chapter is written by an expert in the area reviewed and covers both conventional written composition and multimodal forms of composition, including drawing, digital forms, and other relevant media. Research on Composition is an invaluable road map for the next decade, and required reading for anyone teaching or writing about composition today. “Researchers, teachers, and other educators looking for a guide to teacher research, literacy beyond the academy, and second-language writing research will find their bearings here. The contributing authors and their chapters are outstanding.”
Martin Nystrand , University of Wisconsin-Madison

Genres: Teaching

320 pages, Hardcover

First published December 15, 2005

Reviews

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

Smagorinsky’s anthology is a detailed examination of trends in composition research from 1984-2003. He opens the collection by “assum[ing] a strong quantitative bias through much of the [preceding] era” covered in previous iterations of such collections (3). He notes shifts in the period his book addresses toward qualitative research and “[i]ssues of equity, gender, cultural practice, social relationships, tacit hierarchies and power relationships, the social nature of textuality ... arising from ... scholars oriented to the various ‘post’ positions” (4). In short, many researchers have moved from the search for universals .... and generated new questions about the situated nature of teaching and learning as they are enacted amid competing political agendas, constructed subjectivities, social goals and structures” (12). The book opens with sections on elementary and secondary composition. The chapter “Writing at the Postsecondary Level” notes contemporary teachers, rather than focusing on “developing writing abilities,” seek to cultivate “a certain sensibility, a ... disposition of mind in which the student writer is taught a commitment to community service, an awareness of inequities, a critical stance toward authority, and a questioning nature regarding established ways of thinking” (88). After sections on teacher research and L2 composition education, a section of research in rhetoric claims that social constructionists guided by Paulo Friere adhere to “the antifoundationalist position that there is no basis for seeking, acquiring, and producing knowledge” (175), as that “[t]heory and pedagogy have yet to define methods of accomplishing the goal of pluralism alongside the goal of empowering students to succeed individually and socially in ... Standard English” (177). A chapter on family and community literacies notes the importance of changing institutions rather than just educating individuals, and is followed by a chapter on “Writing in the Professions” (208). The final chapter focuses on historical studies in composition, which notes Lad Tobin’s reflections on “the heady first move toward a theory-based pedagogy” in the “early years of the process movement” (265).