Moving us toward her new conception of Composition, she asserts that, though we preach and often teach the value of print (over digital) texts, “when reviewed, our own practices suggest that we have already committed to a theory of communication that is both/and: print and digital” (307). We actually write, teach, and communicate “in mixed communicative modes” including oral, print and digital (307). She suggests “three changes: Develop a new curriculum; revisit and revise our writing-across-the-curriculum efforts; and develop a major in composition and rhetoric” (308).
Developing a major would “fill the glaringly empty spot between first-year composition and graduate education” (308). We need to move away from a “model of composing [that]… embodies the narrow and the singular in its emphasis on a primary and single human relationship: the writer in relation to the teacher” (309). “[I]f we believe that writing is social, shouldn’t the system of circulation - the paths that the writing takes - extend beyond the single path from student to teacher?” (210-1). She offers “a model of composition [that] is located in three key expressions: Circulation of composition; Canons of rhetoric; Diecity of technology” (311-2). She points to two kinds of circulation: (1) “the circulation of texts generally,” as “they move across contexts, between media, across time” (312); (2) “the circulation of a student’s own work within an educational culture” (312). “Thinking in terms of circulation…enables students to understand the epistemology, the conventions, and the integrity of different fields and their genres” (313). She suggests a curriculum in which students move a text through many iterations of genres and media, considering the content that is added, removed, and kept given the affordances of the medium. Within this, we can consider the interrelations of the canons of rhetoric and how we use technologies is new and unexpected ways. This is not meant to be covered in a single course or year. These are concepts and activities that would be covered throughout the undergraduate major.
Key Terms
- Composition: “the thoughtful gathering, construction, or reconstructions of a literate act in any given media” (315); “Collecting these different materials and putting them in dialogue with each other was a key part of this composing process. The images, in other words, did not simply punctuate a written text; together works and images were (and are) the materials of composition” (299).
- Diecity: “the ability of someone to take a given technology and find a use for it that may be at odds with its design” (319)