Table Of ContentWhat We are Becoming
What We are Becoming
Developments in
Undergraduate Writing Majors
Edited by
greg a . g iBerson
thomas a . moriarty
Utah state Univers i ty Press
Logan, Utah
2010
© 2010 Utah State University Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Cover design by Barbara Yale-Read
ISBN: 978-0-87421-763-6 (paper)
ISBN: 978-0-87421-764-3 (e-book)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
What are we becoming? : developments in undergraduate writing majors / edited by Greg A.
Giberson, Thomas A. Moriarty.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-87421-763-6 (pbk.) -- ISBN 978-0-87421-764-3 (e-book)
1. English language--Rhetoric--Study and teaching (Higher)--United States. 2. Report writing--
Study and teaching (Higher)--United States. 3. Creative writing (Higher education)--United States. 4.
Writing centers--United States. 5. English philology--Study and teaching (Higher)--United States. I.
Giberson, Greg. II. Moriarty, Thomas A.
PE1405.U6W46 2010
808’.0420711--dc22
2009047229
contents
Foreword vii
Janice M. Lauer
Introduction: Forging Connections Among Undergraduate
Writing Majors 1
Greg A. Giberson and Thomas A. Moriarty
s ect ion 1 : D i sc iPl inary anD interDisc iPl inary
i s sUes for Writ ing majors
1 A Major in Flexibility 13
Rebecca de Wind Mattingly and Patricia Harkin
2 Redefining the Undergraduate English Writing Major: An Integrated
Approach at a Small Comprehensive University 32
Randy Brooks, Peiling Zhao, and Carmella Braniger
3 Restorying Disciplinary Relationships: The Development of an
Undergraduate Writing Concentration 50
Lisa Langstraat, Mike Palmquist, and Kate Kiefer
4 Outside the English Department: Oakland University’s Writing
Program and the Writing and Rhetoric Major 67
Wallis May Andersen
5 “Between the idea and the reality . . . falls the Shadow”: The
Promise and Peril of a Small College Writing Major 81
Kelly Lowe and William Macauley
6 The Writing Major as Shared Commitment 98
Rodney F. Dick
7 Dancing with Our Siblings: The Unlikely Case for a
Rhetoric Major 130
David Beard
8 Writing Program Development and Disciplinary Integrity: What’s
Rhetoric Got to Do with It? 153
Lori Baker and Teresa Henning
s ect ion 2 : cUrr icUla , locat ion , anD D irect ions
of Wr it ing majors
9 Remembering the Canons’ Middle Sisters: Style, Memory, and
the Return of the Progymnasmata in the Liberal Arts Writing
Major 177
Dominic F. Delli Carpini and Michael J. Zerbe
10 Civic Rhetoric and the Undergraduate Major in Rhetoric and
Writing 204
Thomas A. Moriarty and Greg Giberson
11 Composing Multiliteracies and Image: Multimodal Writing Majors
for a Creative Economy 217
Joddy Murray
12 Not Just Another Pretty Classroom Genre: The Uses of Creative
Nonfiction in the Writing Major 225
Celest Martin
13 The Writing Arts Major: A Work in Process 243
Jennifer Courtney, Deb Martin, and Diane Penrod
14 “What Exactly is This Major?” Creating Disciplinary Identity
through an Introductory Course 260
Sanford Tweedie, Jennifer Courtney, and William I. Wolff
15 Toward a Description of Undergraduate Writing Majors 277
Lee Campbell and Debra Jacobs
Afterword 287
Susan H. McLeod
About the Contributors 290
for eWorD
Janice M. Lauer
This collection of essays addresses one of the key needs in the field of
rhetoric and composition today. As the field developed in the sixties and
seventies, its energy focused largely on the initiation of graduate pro-
grams, especially doctoral programs. One reason was the need to claim
a place for the field as a scholarly discipline in addition to its teaching
mission. As these programs grew and matured, they struggled to varying
degrees with acclimating to their host English departments or starting
separate departments. Rhetoric and composition faculty in each pro-
gram were frequently few in number at the beginning and were heav-
ily burdened with courses, mentoring, and dissertation directing, often
far exceeding the loads of their literary colleagues. This factor left little
time to initiate undergraduate majors in many institutions.
Now more attention and energy have turned to the development
of undergraduate majors in rhetoric and composition. This is not to
say that during the last thirty years there have been no such majors or
even undergraduate courses in the field. But their visibility and charac-
ter have not reached the same level of national attention as the gradu-
ate programs, especially the doctoral programs. For example, since
the 1960s and 1970s, undergraduate courses in composition theory, as
well as undergraduate survey courses in the history of rhetoric, have
been taught in the whole range of higher education. During the last
decade, faculty—often graduates of doctoral rhetoric and composition
programs—have been working to start undergraduate majors in their
departments, both at large and smaller universities and at liberal arts
colleges, including places like the University of Wisconsin at La Crosse,
University of Texas at El Paso, Salisbury University, York University,
Oakland University, Southwest Missouri State University, and the
University of South Florida.
Recently at the Conference on College Composition and Communi-
cation (CCCC) attention has been given to the undergraduate major: its
nature, its difficulties in getting approval in English departments, and
viii WHAT WE ARE BECOMING
its need for dedicated faculty. At a workshop at the 2008 CCCC, aspects
of undergraduate majors were discussed by some of the contributors
to this volume as well as others, speaking of the importance of shaping
programs in response to local conditions, creating relations with policy
makers and funding agencies, linking with professional organizations,
and networking among these programs.
Clearly one impact of such undergraduate majors on graduate pro-
grams is that students will enter them having read historical primary
texts and central rhetoric and composition theory texts and research.
Even now, doctoral programs continue to admit some students with lit-
tle background in rhetoric and composition, requiring these programs
to help these students fill their gaps before specializing. Also, rheto-
ric and composition undergraduate majors will make visible to other
English majors the alternatives within English studies and will provide
those tutoring in writing centers with a disciplinary background for their
efforts. Further, undergraduate majors will offer rhetoric and composi-
tion doctoral graduates a wide variety of upper-level courses to teach
beyond first-year writing.
This rich volume addresses a wide range of matters surrounding
undergraduate programs, including complex issues such as the compe-
tition for majors within departments, the future relationship between
these majors among teachers and students, the job market for under-
graduates, varying focuses and curricula of such majors, and the forma-
tion of them in departments separate from English. Other related mat-
ters discussed here include the importance of flexibility, arguments for
a rhetorical core for this major, the relationship between rhetoric and
composition majors and disciplinary integrity and with civic discourse,
and the role of multiliteracies in the major. Consequently, this collection
makes a vital contribution to the field and is an indispensable resource
for building undergraduate majors.
i n troDUct ion
Forging Connections Among Undergraduate Writing Majors
Greg A. Giberson
Thomas A. Moriarty
When we first discussed this book back in 2005, we had just revamped the
undergraduate track in writing in the English department at Salisbury
University (SU) in Maryland. After the revision of the program was com-
plete, we continued to discuss the particular program we had developed,
the courses we had chosen for the core, and the possible changes that
might be made in the future as the program grew. We talked about how
lucky we were that we had such a supportive (or uninterested) depart-
ment, given that there was very little discussion in full department meet-
ings about the changes we were proposing and the fact that we virtually
eliminated literature as a requirement for the major. (In the past, writ-
ing students were required to take several literature courses.)
We also talked about how our particular location on the eastern shore
of Maryland and the student body that came with that location impacted
the goals for our program and the curriculum, how our own different
specialties in the field of rhetoric and composition shaped what we had
done, and on and on. After a while, it became clear that we should put
our experience and discussion to some good use, and we decided to put
out a call for proposals. This book is the result of that decision.
After reading through several dozen proposals and finally settling on
the ones appearing in this volume, we realized we had stumbled across an
important—and complex—topic for those of us in rhetoric and composi-
tion and English studies in general, and working in writing programs in
particular. We quickly realized that all of the issues we discussed about our
program at SU, as well as others we hadn’t thought of, were not simply
micro, local issues that spoke to our location and position in the English
department at Salisbury University on the eastern shore of Maryland.
Indeed, the issues we faced and the choices we made in dealing with
them are being made all over the country. And just as our location and
unique circumstances impacted the program we developed, so do the
