CCR 720: Anson (2008): "The Intelligent Design of Writing Programs"

Anson, Chris M. "The Intelligent Design of Writing Programs: Reliance on Belief or a Future of Evidence." WPA: Writing Program Administration 32.1 (Fall 2008): 11-36.

Informal summary:

· Argues that the discipline of college composition needs to perform research in the field that provides actual evidence, not our own theory based on story-telling (lore, ethnography) of our experiences in the classroom. Get away from essay-driven articles and towards evidence-driven articles.

· Shows how one critic of composition classrooms (although not grounded in evidence either) has great power in damaging the discipline (in the sense of public opinion) (cites Nan Miller’s report, 2006).

· Likens our disciplinary dilemma to historical court case (State of Tennessee vs. John Scopes) where it was eventually overturned by the Surpreme Court (by way of technicality) that evolution theories be abolished in public schools over the Divine Creation of Man. Aruges, therefore, that we’re a discipline of intelligent design and not of evolution and

o “intelligent design theory is not ready for parallel treatment in the schools because it is based on belief, not on a preponderance of evidence. Current practice—in the teaching of science or the teaching of writing—needs to be supported not by hunches buy by the best that the research traditions of these tow disciplinary areas can provide us, with the understanding that their very existence depends on an openness to challenge and a spirit of continual inquiry” (20).

· Argues for six movements in our discipline

o Foundational research and synthesis (24)

o Replications and extensions (26)

o Graduate education (27)

o Connections with our publics (28)

o Increased scrutiny and critique (29)

o Improved research communities (31)

· Quotable quote:

o “My point is this: if we continue to rely on belief in our pedagogies and administrative decisions, whether theorized or not, whether argued from logic or anecdote, experience or conviction, we do not better to support a case for those decisions than what most detractors do to support cases against them. Instead, we need a more robust plan for building on the strong base of exiting research into our assumptions about how students best learn to write” (11-12).