The Future of Composition Studies: Reconstructing the Past

Introduction

Since the institution of Composition Studies within the university, the evolution of Composition Studies has developed into a field that Thomas Kuhn (Nickles, 2003) calls a ‘paradigm,’ which is a system that embodies a shared value, a shared belief, and a shared methodology in the teaching of composition. Hence, because of the nature of such collective ideologies, this intrinsic ‘paradigm’ has determined how the discipline is situated in the field. Retrospectively, this disallows any other paradigms to cultivate the field. What this means is that the separation of writing, reading, listening, and speaking are categorized into different educational disciplines.

Ironically, what used to be grouped as one discipline is now a separate paradigm. Thus, the teaching of composition studies has unintentionally been disadvantaged by the exclusion of literary works, formerly known as reading and the teaching of orality, the art of speaking. The abandonment of teaching reading, writing, listening, and speaking have caused composition practitioners to fall into what Murphy (1982) calls “rhetorical sins.” Murphy (1982) attests that rhetorical sins are defined as separating writing from the writer and the second is the post McLuhan “inferiority complex” that teachers believe that nothing can be done in the teaching of composition. What is seen here is the domino effect, in which elementary teachers argue about which writing approach prepares students for high school education, and then this complaint is further reiterated by university professors that complain about students’ lack of writing abilities stemming from their high school curriculum (Murphy, 1982). Rhetorical sins in retrospect, are an offense against “rhetorical morality.” The composition morality may have digressed because the focus is no longer a cumulative incubation of what traditional composition represented. Downing, Hurlbert, and Mathieu (2002) describe the social forces guiding the education system of that current time by stating, “as Laurence Veysey explains, prior to the academic transformation of knowledge in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, academic “discipline” referred to moral rules of piety and conduct as in the “mental discipline” necessary to build character. . . the old time college sought to provide a four-year regime conducive to piety and strength of character. Belief in such mental discipline was part of an interlocking set of psychological, theological, and moral convictions” (as cited in Downing, Hurlbert, & Mathieu, 2002, p. 25).

At this time, what composition practitioners ought to be asking is, “How can the field transform from the static state it is in and transcend into an eclectic discipline?” What more can practitioners do to change this static state? What other implementations can be integrated into the field of Composition Studies? With this in mind, how much autonomy is the field given to practitioners to make the necessary changes needed to transform the field? These are the questions that should not be ignored nor streamlined to the side for further investigation. A constructive social awareness should be the resounding voice that permeates the composition field. Freire (1993) states that “dialogue further requires an intense faith in humankind, faith in the power to make and remake, to create and recreate, faith in their vocation to be more fully human which is the privileged of an elite, but the birthright of all” (p. 88). A dialogue must be initiated in the field of Composition Studies to regain the powers that have limited the teaching of composition in the classroom.