Teaching writing…
I’ve been starting to put together a list of places where one can learn how to teach writing at the undergraduate level for a friend of mine who’s looking into grad school. So, I figured I might throw the question out to anyone who might be reading this…cast the net wider, so to speak.
Right now, the vast majority of my experience has been with Writing in the Disciplines programs, in particular the Knight Institute at Cornell. To be concise, Writing in the Disciplines (or Writing Across the Curriculum, or any of a number of other titles) yanks writing instruction out of the first-year english composition courses to which is has traditionally been relegated and situates in classes throughout the disciplines. The goal of a WID/WAC program (love those acronyms) is to establish that writing is something that happens everywhere, not just in composition classes, as well as to teach students the conventions and norms of writing in a given discipline.
It seems that most WID/WAC courses rely wither on faculty converts who drink the Kool-Aid and become converts to this way of teaching within their discipline, or by finding graduate students who teach either pre-defined courses or create their own. Hence, my own experiences teaching Science and Media and the forthcoming Writing as Technology seminars at Cornell.
A list of WAC/WID programs can be found here, but I’ll mention a few that I know a little more personally. I’ve met the people in charge of Princeton’s Writing in the Disciplines program, and they seem exceptionally committed to WAC/WID pedagogy (including offering some sweet fellowships not just to Princeton graduate students but also to visiting postdocs!). Duke University also has a great program, also with good support for students and postdocs. I met Jim Slevin of Georgetown’s program earlier this year, and they seem another interesting place, as do George Mason, NYU, University of New Hampshire, and MIT .
The thing here is that pretty much all of these programs are places where you learn to import WAC/WID into your “real” work – the pedagogical training is a corollary to your main graduate work in a discipline. From what I can tell, at none of these programs would one begin school already knowing that one would be teaching writing, nor would one even be guaranteed training in this pedagogy. It’s kind of a bonus, one which in my case has dramatically changed the way I think of teaching.
So, here’s my question – where does someone (like my friend) who knows she’s interested in teaching writing, not necessarily within any specific disciplinary framework, go for a graduate degree? Are there any MFA programs that’re particularly strong in pedagogical training/opportunities? How about composition programs (which I’ll admit that I know embarassingly little about)?
And let it be said that I’m including a link to Invisible Adjunct’s site here, which is the best gateway available into the network of articles, blogs, and other commentary on the darker side of higher education and graduate education…plus, this piece by Thomas Benton sums things up nicely.