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In This Chapter
For the first portion of our semester, our inquiry will be centered on Writing Studies, Composition, and Rhetoric. We’ll be examining the discipline of writing studies and the goal of First Year Composition (FYC) Courses as we practice our reading, analysis, synthesis, and argument skills. In the second half of the semester we will turn those skills towards original research.
What is Writing Studies?
You probably already know that there are professional researchers with PhDs who study biology, chemistry, sociology, physics, and other disciplines in order to discover new knowledge. You’ve probably heard of expert historians and anthropologists who discover new information for how we can understand our past. But did you know that there is a discipline called Writing Studies, where experts study how people acquire and develop writing skills?
Writing Studies (sometimes called Composition Studies) is an academic field that was established in the mid-twentieth century. Experts in this field research and study how people write. The field is broad and varied, but much of it focuses specifically on how college students learn to compose, improve their writing skills, and become stronger writers.
Researchers and scholars who specialize in Writing Studies, Rhetoric, and Composition are interested in the way writers learn and change. First Year Composition (FYC) Courses, like this one, use the research and findings from Writing Studies to teach beginning college students the conventions and skills needed in college-level writing.
This semester, you’ll be joining in and beginning your own study of writing and composition.
Our class’s design, content, activities, and requirements all come from research and current scholarship in this field. Understanding some of these basic concepts and ideas can help you better understand this course, its goals, and its outcomes.
What are Threshold Concepts
One portion of the field of Writing Studies has focused on something called Threshold Concepts. In 2016, Linda Adler-Kassner and Elizabeth Wardle published a book called Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies. In this book, they outlined the foundational ideas–the Threshold Concepts–for teaching and learning writing skills.
What are Threshold Concepts?
Threshold Concepts Are Transformative Learning
A ‘threshold concept’ is a concept that, once understood, changes the way that a person thinks about a topic.
“A threshold concept can be considered as akin to a portal, opening up a new and previously inaccessible way of thinking about something. It represents a transformed way of understanding, or interpreting, or viewing something without which the learner cannot progress.’ (Meyer and Land, 2003, p1)
A threshold concept is an idea that is essential for mastering the subject and for adopting a worldview that allows fluency, literacy, and expertise in a discipline.
The idea of Threshold Concepts was first identified in 2006 by researchers J.