Taking the Next Step
by Greg Dyer, University of Sioux Falls
In this article, Greg highlights the importance of experienced, knowledgeable teachers sharing their expertise, with a special invitation to current DWP teacher-consultants near the end. —Editor
Last week, I was sitting in a meeting where a well meaning colleague was talking about the writing ability of our students: “They can’t use commas, or semicolons, or document their sources. They just can’t write.”
I suspect many of us have heard these comments, or made them ourselves from time to time. (I know I have.) To be sure, conventions such as punctuation, usage, and documentation of sources are important facets of effective writing, especially for an academic audience. But I cringe every time I hear conventions equated with writing. On such occasions, I know I’m going to have about five seconds to figure out whether to let the comments pass, to affirm them by citing my own similar frustrations, or to broaden the discussion by explaining why writing is so much more than a person’s ability to handle the conventions of Standard Edited American English.
As most of us recognize, writing is thinking. Donald Murray notes, “Writing is the most disciplined form of thinking; writing is the fundamental tool of the intellectual life” (9). And the intellectual life getting more difficult—or, at the very least, it is changing. In his introduction to The Best American Essays: 2007, David Foster Wallace describes the challenges of living thoughtfully and purposefully in a U. S. culture that he labels “Total Noise”: “a culture and volume of info and spin and rhetoric and context that I know I’m not alone in finding too much to even absorb, much less to try to make sense of or organize into any kind of triage of saliency or value” (xiii – xiv).
Wallace, satirizing a line from President Bush, describes our increasing dependence on “Deciders,” those to whom we are “subcontracting and outsourcing and submitting” our intellectual lives (xvi). He goes so far as to note that “It may possibly be that acuity and taste in choosing which Deciders one submits to is now the real measure of informed adulthood” (xvi).
Pursuing “Informed Adulthood”
In order to live well and teach well in such a culture, we must find ways to revise the wide-spread and persistent view of writing as a matter of correctness, of conventions. Within a culture of “Total Noise,” we must pursue a pedagogy that instills in our students (and their parents, and our colleagues, and our administrators, and our public officials) a recognition of the fundamental role writing plays in developing information literacy, in developing the dispositions and skills necessary to choose one’s Deciders well, and perhaps even to serve effectively as a Decider for others.
We must undertake efforts to reach beyond the walls of our classroom and engage in an interdisciplinary fashion with our colleagues. Information has no disciplinary boundaries; it doesn’t fit neatly into any curriculum map. Teachers of writing, influenced by more than three decades of writing across the curriculum and the National Writing Project [1], are uniquely equipped to foster a more sustained interdisciplinarity with our colleagues. We may even find that an interdisciplinary pursuit of information literacy generates opportunities to advocate more effectively for writing across the curriculum. The American Library Association Presidential Committee on Information Literacy describes information literate people as “those who have learned how to learn. They know how to learn because they know how knowledge is organized, how to find information, and how to use information in such a way that others can learn from them” (American Library Association). Such goals simply cannot be reached without inquiry-based writing, or without an understanding of rhetoric and technology that enables one to evaluate information wisely and employ information well.
DWP Teacher-Consultants and the Next Step
As teachers of writing—at whatever level—we possess a vision and a pedagogy vital for cultivating an informed adulthood within our culture’s “Total Noise.” But we have some growing to do, as well. Our traditional boundaries are comfortable, and crossing those boundaries means overcoming social, professional, and institutional challenges. David Foster Wallace describes informed adulthood as “not just the intelligence to discern one’s own error or stupidity, but the humility to address it, absorb it, and move on and out therefrom, bravely, toward the next revealed error” (xxiv). Stated less severely, informed adulthood within the culture of “Total Noise” requires the intelligence, humility, and persistence necessary to continue taking the next step forward.
For those willing to take the next step, please give careful consideration to attending the Dakota Writing Project’s “Weekend Warrior” Professional Development Retreat to be held on the USD campus on April 18-20. This retreat is designed to equip DWP teacher-consultants to share their knowledge with other educators in the pursuit of a more holistic definition of writing and a more effective pedagogy. We recognize that providing professional development for one’s colleagues can be a formidable notion, but we also recognize the potential for “teachers teaching teachers” to transform education in our state. We’ve had the pleasure of witnessing your intelligence, humility, and persistence, and we hope you’ll consider joining us as we take this step in an exciting new direction for the DWP.
1. Interestingly enough, the origins of writing across the curriculum pedagogy are rooted in nearby Pella, Iowa, where Barbara Walvoord initiated the first WAC faculty seminar in the 1969-70 academic year (McLeod 149). The National Writing Project began in 1974, with the Bay Area Writing Project.
Works Cited
American Library Association. “Presidential Committee on Information Literacy: Final Report.” 10 January 1989. Association of College and Research Libraries. 1 February 2008.
McLeod, Susan. “The Pedagogy of Writing Across the Curriculum.” A Guide to Composition Pedagogies. Ed. Gary Tate, Amy Rupiper, and Kurt Schick. New York: Oxford UP, 2001. 149-164.
Murray, Donald M. The Craft of Revision. Fort Worth: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, Inc., 1991.
Wallace, David Foster. “Introduction: Deciderization 2007 — A Special Report.” The Best American Essays: 2007. Ed. David Foster Wallace. Series Ed. Robert Atwan. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2007. xii-xxiv.
