(Re)Considering What We Know: Learning Thresholds in Writing, Composition, Rhetoric, and Literacy

by Linda Adler-Kassner (Editor), Elizabeth Wardle (Editor)

Overview

Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies, published in 2015, contributed to a discussion about the relevance of identifying key concepts and ideas of writing studies. (Re)Considering What We Know continues that conversation while simultaneously raising questions about the ideas around threshold concepts. Contributions introduce new concepts, investigate threshold concepts as a framework, and explore their use within and beyond writing.
 
Part 1 raises questions about the ideologies of consensus that are associated with naming threshold concepts of a discipline. Contributions challenge the idea of consensus and seek to expand both the threshold concepts framework and the concepts themselves. Part 2 focuses on threshold concepts in action and practice, demonstrating the innovative ways threshold concepts and a threshold concepts framework have been used in writing courses and programs. Part 3 shows how a threshold concepts framework can help us engage in conversations beyond writing studies.
 
(Re)Considering What We Know raises new questions and offers new ideas that can help to advance the discussion and use of threshold concepts in the field of writing studies. It will be of great interest to scholars and graduate students in writing studies, especially those who have previously engaged with Naming What We Know.
 
Contributors:
Marianne Ahokas, Jonathan Alexander, Chris M. Anson, Ian G. Anson, Sarah Ben-Zvi, Jami Blaauw-Hara, Mark Blaauw-Hara, Maggie Black, Dominic Borowiak, Chris Castillo, Chen Chen, Sandra Descourtis, Norbert Elliot, Heidi Estrem, Alison Farrell, Matthew Fogarty, Joanne Baird Giordano, James Hammond, Holly Hassel, Lauren Heap, Jennifer Heinert, Doug Hesse, Jonathan Isaac, Katie Kalish, Páraic Kerrigan, Ann Meejung Kim, Kassia Krzus-Shaw, Saul Lopez, Jennifer Helane Maher, Aishah Mahmood, Aimee Mapes, Kerry Marsden, Susan Miller-Cochran, Deborah Mutnick, Rebecca Nowacek, Sarah O’Brien, Ọlá Ọládipọ̀, Peggy O’Neill, Cassandra Phillips, Mya Poe, Patricia Ratanapraphart, Jacqueline Rhodes, Samitha Senanayake, Susan E. Shadle, Dawn Shepherd, Katherine Stein, Patrick Sullivan, Brenna Swift, Carrie Strand Tebeau, Matt Thul, Nikhil Tiwari, Lisa Tremain, Lisa Velarde, Kate Vieira, Gordon Blaine West, Anne-Marie Womack, Kathleen Blake Yancey, Xiaopei Yang, Madylan Yarc
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781607329329
Publisher:	Utah State University Press
Publication date:	01/10/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	354
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Linda Adler-Kassner is professor of writing studies, associate dean of undergraduate education, and faculty director of the Center for Innovative Teaching, Research, and Learning at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research and teaching focus broadly on how literate agents and activities—such as writers, writing, and writing studies—are defined in contexts inside the academy and in public discourse. She also examines the implications and consequences of those definitions and how writing faculty can participate in shaping them. She is author, coauthor, or coeditor of nine books, including Reframing Writing Assessment, Naming What We Know, and The Activist WPA.

Elizabeth Wardle is the Roger and Joyce Howe Distinguished Professor of Written Communication and director of the Roger and Joyce Howe Center for Writing Excellence at Miami University. She previously directed writing programs at the University of Dayton and the University of Central Florida. Her scholarship focuses on the teaching and learning of writing in various contexts, from first-year composition to writing in the disciplines. She is coeditor of Naming What We Know, Composition, Rhetoric, and Disciplinarity, and Writing about Writing, now in its fourth edition.
 

Table of Contents

Contents Acknowledgments Editors’ Introduction: Threshold Concepts, Naming What We Know, and Reconsidering our Shared Conceptions / Linda Adler-Kassner and Elizabeth Wardle Part 1: Challenges, Critiques, And New Conceptions 1. Recognizing the Limits of Threshold Concept Theory / Elizabeth Wardle, Linda Adler-Kassner, Jonathan Alexander, Norbert Elliot, J.W. Hammond, Mya Poe, Jacqueline Rhodes, and Anne-MarieWomack 2. Literacy Is a Sociohistoric Phenomenon with the Potential to Liberate and Oppress / Kate Vieira, Lauren Heap, Sandra Descourtis, Jonathan Isaac, Samitha Senanayake, Brenna Swift, Chris Castillo, Ann Meejung Kim, Kassia Krzus-Shaw, Maggie Black, Ọlá Ọlá 3. Thinking like a Writer: Threshold Concepts and First-Year Writers in Open-Admissions Classrooms / Cassandra Phillips, Holly Hassel, Jennifer Heinert, Joanne Baird Giordano, and Katie Kalish 4. Writing as Practiced and Studied beyond “Writing Studies” / Doug Hesse and Peggy O’Neill 5. Rhetoric as Persistently “Troublesome Knowledge”: Implications for Disciplinarity / Jennifer Helene Maher 6. The World Confronts Us with Uncertainty: Deep Reading as a Threshold Concept / Patrick Sullivan 7. Expanding the Inquiry: What Everyday Writing with Drawing Helps Us Understand about Writing and about Writing-Based Threshold Concepts / Kathleen Blake Yancey Part 2: Using Threshold Concepts To Engage With Writing Teachers And Students 8. Doors between Disciplines: Threshold Concepts and the Community College Writing Program / Mark Blaauw-Hara, Carrie Strand Tebeau, Dominic Borowiak, Jami Blaauw-Hara 9. Extending What We Know: Reflections on the Transformational Value of Threshold Concepts for Writing Studies Contingent Faculty / Lisa Tremain, Marianne Ahokas, Sarah Ben-Zvi,and Kerry Marsden 10. Threshold Concepts and Curriculum Redesign in First-Year Writing / Heidi Estrem, Dawn Shepherd, and Susan E. Shadle 11. Framing Graduate Teaching Assistant Preparation around Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies / Aimee C. Mapes and Susan Miller-Cochran 12. Threshold Concepts and the Phenomenal Forms / Deborah Mutnick 13. Grappling with Threshold Concepts over Time: A Perspective from Tutor Education / Rebecca Nowacek, Aishah Mahmood, Katherine Stein, Madylan Yarc, Saul Lopez, and Matt Thul 14. “I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On”: Liminality in Undergraduate Writing / Matthew Fogarty, Páraic Kerrigan, Sarah O’Brien, and Alison Farrell Part 3 : Threshold Concepts And Writing: Beyond The Discipline 15. Rethinking Epistemologically Inclusive Teaching / Linda Adler-Kassner 16. Using a Threshold Concepts Framework to Facilitate an Expertise-Based WAC Model for Faculty Development / Elizabeth Wardle 17. Talking about Writing: A Study of Key Writing Terms Used Instructionally across the Curriculum / Chris M. Anson, Chen Chen, and Ian G. Anson Editors’ Conclusion: Expanding and Examining What We (Think We) Know / Linda Adler-Kassnerand Elizabeth Wardle About the Authors

Editorial Reviews

“An important contribution to the discipline and to professional development for both new teachers of first-year writing and faculty across the curriculum who teach writing-intensive or writing-embedded courses. (Re)Considering What We Know pulls back the curtain on the discipline’s identification of its threshold concepts and welcomes readers to explore the challenges and questions of naming what we know as a discipline while also illustrating how we can apply this framework to activities that support writing studies’ continued evolution.”
—Jessie Moore, Elon University
 
“(Re)Considering What We Know reflects what people are thinking and asking after a few years of working with threshold concepts in the real, material environments of postsecondary writing education.”
—Tony Scott, Syracuse University
 

From the Publisher