Naming What We Know

Adler-Kassner, Linda, Wardle, Elizabeth

Published by University Press of Colorado

Adler-Kassner, Linda and Elizabeth Wardle.

Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies.
University Press of Colorado, 2015.
Project MUSE. muse.jhu.edu/book/40635.

For additional information about this book

https://muse.jhu.edu/book/40635

[ Access provided at 29 Sep 2020 20:40 GMT from University of Washington @ Seattle ]
 M e ta c o nc e p t
Writing Is an Activity and a Subject of Study

Elizabeth Wardle and Linda Adler-Kassner

Writing is created, produced, distributed, and used for a variety of pur-

poses. In this sense, it is an activity in which individuals and groups
engage. However, the production, consumption, circulation, distribu-
tion, and use of writing are also areas of inquiry. Researchers in a num-
ber of fields (including, but not limited to, rhetoric and composition,
linguistics, and literacy studies) investigate questions about writing.
These include:
• How have forms of writing developed over time?
• What conceptions of writing do people have, and what values are sug-
gested by these conceptions? What writing practices and processes are
encouraged by these conceptions? Where do these conceptions come
from?
• How is writing produced by individuals and groups, for what purpos-
es, and with what implications or consequences?
• How are attitudes toward the production and uses of writing shaped
by individuals and groups within specific contexts?
• How have different approaches to shaping the production of writing
taken form, with what motivations, and to what ends?
• How is writing a technology, and how do writing technologies impact
how writing happens and what can be done with writing?

Outside of scholars involved in the study of writing, the idea that writ-
ing is not only an activity in which people engage but also a subject of
study often comes as a surprise, partially because people tend to expe-
rience writing as a finished product that represents ideas in seemingly
rigid forms but also because writing is often seen as a “basic skill” that a
person can learn once and for all and not think about again.
Research in writing and rhetoric has demonstrated that these ideas
about writing do not match the ways that writing actually works and
16   Part 1 : T hreshold C oncepts of W riting

happens, but this more complex view of writing is not one that is widely
shared or understood beyond the field. In fact, to be considered “suc-
cessful,” all writers must learn to study expectations for writing within
specific contexts and participate in those to some degree.
The threshold concept that writing is a subject of study as well as an
activity is troublesome because it contravenes popular conceptions of
writing as a basic, ideology-free skill. When teachers and learners recog-
nize writing as complex enough to require study, and recognize that the
study of writing suggests they should approach, learn, and teach writing
differently, they are then invited to behave differently and to change
their conceptions of what writing is and their practices around writing
that extend from those conceptions.