Thursday, July 27, 2006

Olson, "The Death of Composition as an Intellectual Discipline"

Olson, Gary. "The Death of Composition as an Intellectual Discipline." Olson 23-31.

Olson begins with a glaring critique of the perceived split between high-theory elites who avoid "the problems of the classroom" and those who would see composition as centrally concerned with "self-reflection about the teaching of writing or about one's own (or one's students') writing practices" (23). Olson was invited to address RNF and offer a justification for theory.

"In that speech, I argued that if postmodern discourse has taught us anything, it is that 'rhetoric' is at the center of all knowledge making, even in the sciences. As a field devoted to how discourse works, composition, then, is perfectly situated to participate in the exciting cross-disciplinary investigations of the interrelations between epistemology and discourse. That is, I argued that while we all desire to learn more about the teaching of writing or about our own writing processes, these are not the only intellectual concerns we should have as a discipline" (24). Olson notes anti-intellectual associations with studying the teaching of writing, citing Phelps.

"Since that speech, I had thought that as a discipline, we had come to terms with our intellectual diversity" (24). Olson says he was mistaken, however, given currents against theory (and also against feminism) (25). He offers the example of Wendy Bishop's piece in CCC (51.1, 1999), "what will undoubtedly become known as 'the new theory wars'" (25). Olson gives a reading of Bishop, telling that she makes claims that nobody cares about good writing any longer (^read next to Fulkerson).

"No one seems to care about good writing and teaching, she claims; the teacher-writer is dismissed or used for target practice" (25).
Bishop criticizes Pratt; Olson takes issue with her characterization of Pratt's sentence as having "no clothes, no heart" (27). In this second section, "A Place to Stand?," Olson unravels Bishops stance, raising questions about why, in the name of "good teaching" it is acceptable to protect students from dense theoretical vocabulary when, ultimately, disciplinarity depends on specialization that includes shared terms (prewriting, freewriting, audience invoked) (28).

In the third section, "A Sense of History," Olson refutes the attacks on "rapid professionalism" or "careerism" (28), noting that "most 'scholars' make enormous sacrifices to produce their work, gladly devoting huge spans of time to their projects--not simply to further their careers but because they love the subject and are devoted to the discipline itself" (28). The fissure Bishop introduces, Olson writes, isn't so different from its precedents: the disagreements between cognitivists and expressivists in the 1970s.

"For twenty years, composition scholarship has developed as an interdisciplinary, 'intellectual' enterprise--and we are much the richer because of it" (30). Olson closes with an emphasis on respect for differences.

Related sources:

Bishop, Wendy. "Places to Stand: The Reflective Writer-Teacher-Writer in Composition." CCC 51.1 (1999): 9-31.

Phelps, Louise Wetherbee. Composition as a Human Science: Contributions to the Self-Understanding of a Discipline. New York: Oxford UP, 1988.

Posted by Derek Mueller at July 27, 2006 3:17 PM to Writing Technologies