In a post on Thursday, Steven D. Krause talks about new ideas of composition.

I was reading Kathy Yancey’s CCCC 2003 keynote essay the other day (I think it was the 2003 keynote; it was published in the December 2004 issue of the CCCs) and I think she makes a pretty good argument about where we ought to be going with writing. One quote that sort of sums it up for me:

This new composition includes rhetoric and is about literacy. New composition includes the literacy of print: it adds on to it and brings the notions of practice and activity and circulation and media and screen and networking to our conceptions of process. It will require a new expertise of us as it does of our students. And ultimately, new composition may require a new site for learning for all of us.

Right on; now, the question is how do we convince people outside of our own narrow little world that this ought to be what they think of ‘writing’� And how do we get a story about this new concept of writing in the New York Times or on NPR?

Above this excerpted passage when discussing the new version of Strunk and White, Krause says, “we shouldn’t gloss over Strunk’s and White’s view of the world with a revision that ‘corrects’ them.” I think this concept of ‘correcting’ is worth remembering. When raising different ideas that go against people’s cherished beliefs and practices, and one wants to convince them of something, it’s best to not make it sound like you’re correcting them.

At its best, I don’t think “new composition,” is additive. I think if we just pick up a few things here and there, it can be additive, but I think the people who are doing new-media-multimodal-networked-audible-visual-video composing create the potential for fundamental change. Plus, while I’m at it, I think “new expertise” needs unpacking. I think new expertise includes new curriculum, pedagogy, and tool (hardware/software) and network expertise.

Krause asks, “how do we get a story about this new concept of writing in the New York Times or on NPR?” This is a worthwhile question, but I think I need to start with a more local question. I think I need to speak up and network more, and not let really questionable pedagogy (IMHO) that mascarades as The Right Pedagogy be “glossed over”. For example, I had an opportunity to speak up and say that I don’t fear collaborative writing or, eek, plagiarism, and instead, I sat there, as the cliche goes, like a bump on a log. Damn, I’m mad at myself. I haven’t been picking and choosing my battles…I’ve been sitting back and listening. But, it’s really hard to speak up and go against the majority when almost everone else is nodding and agreeing, and they already view you as a tech-rhet-comp-freak. Ahh…well, of one thing I am sure. I will have other opportunities. hee. I’d better practice my elevator speech. I really don’t want to sound correcting or even confrontational, but rather energized by all that is possible.