English 201 / For Instructors

Annotated Bibliography on Advanced Composition

This annotated bibliography lists books and articles related to the issue of defining "advanced composition." One of the central issues for a 201 instructor to work out is how their course is different from freshman composition (English 100). Is intermediate or advanced composition just like freshman composition, only "harder"? What does "harder" mean anyway?

A good deal of teaching research in composition focuses on first-year composition or more seemingly generic topics like argument, peer workshops, or evaluation. There is a need in the field for more research dedicated to the complexities of teaching composition beyond the freshman year, what it means to us as teachers, and what it can mean for our interactions with students. Admittedly, English 201 is a strange beast because (1) it is taught primarily by teaching assistants (graduate students, not faculty), (2) there is no specific writing prerequisite for it, and (3) only one subsequent writing-specific course is currently offered in the English department (English 315, with only one or two sections per year). That said, the following books and articles may be used to inform and expand your ideas about English 201 as intermediate/advanced composition. All sources are available through our library system.

Books

Adams, Katherine H. and John L. Adams. Teaching Advanced Composition: Why and How. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton, 1991. (Note: Chapters are listed in the order they appear in the book.)

Adams and Adams. "Advanced Composition: Where Did It Come From? Where Is It Going?"
After providing a brief history regarding the evolution or disappearance of composition in the University, the authors suggest that advanced comp courses deal with four issues: the artist, audience, work, or universe. Different classes incorporate these four aspects in different ways but "also demonstrate the continuing lack of definition and consensus concerning an advanced curriculum." And it is because of this lack of definition that many teachers and administrators think general courses, such as these, should be eliminated.

Penfield, Elizabeth. "Freshman/English/Advanced Writing: How Do We Distinguish the Two?"
Penfield suggests that most students enrolled in post-freshman writing are sophomores at non-research institutions that have minimal to average admissions standards. One important difference is that advanced comp is often taught by professors, not TAs or adjuncts, thus offering considerable latitude in the goals of the course and evaluation of the student. The students are also quite different. They often elect to take advanced comp, "enjoy having written," and can call upon a wide range of experiences. The bulk of the article is a description of her class and its workings. The quantity of writing in her class: 50 pages of journal entries, five short essays, and 3 extended papers.

Carter, Michael. "What Is Advanced about Advanced Composition?: A Theory of Expertise in Writing."
Carter begins by describing the attitude towards advanced comp as an extension of freshman comp (most textbooks in advanced comp classes are freshman texts and teachers often use the same format as their freshman comp classes). Carter proposes an entirely new theory to be applied to advanced comp. He writes, "the development of expertise in writing is the movement from global writing strategies to sophisticated knowledge of special rhetorical situations. Expertise, then, is the result of specialized knowledge that comes from experience in a specific writing situation." He suggests we lead students toward expertise in a discipline by "(1) teaching them the role that writing plays in the construction of knowledge . . . (2) helping them analyze the discourse of the discipline so they can learn the specialized features of discourse and the role that those features play in the discourse community; and (3) providing them opportunities for writing within the discipline, to apply the general strategies they have previously learned to specialized situations."

Zebroski, James Thomas. Thinking Through Theory: Vygotskian Perspectives on the Teaching of Writing. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1994.

Chapter 4: Creating the Advanced Writing Course
Zebroski lays out the following theoretical principles: "1. A composition course is a composition; 2. Students need to be given chances in a writing course to construct theory; 3. Individual and community are in a dialectical relationship and all writing topics and practices need to be approached with this dialectic in mind." Then some principles that may result in tension with the aforementioned: "1. "Advanced" in Advanced Writing means advanced writing theory, practices, and experiences; 2. An advanced writing course is not a generic writing course; 3. Students must have the opportunity in the advanced writing course to do a large amount of writing on whatever topic they want." The bulk of this chapter then outlines the evolution of his advanced writing course.

Articles

Note: These are listed in order of publication, most recent first

Mitchell, Felicia. "Balancing Individual Projects and Collaborative Learning in an Advanced Writing Class (in In Focus: Collaboration and Composition)" CCC, Vol. 43, No. 3. (Oct., 1992), pp. 393-400.
Mitchell describes a class in which each student learns about a different style of writing through analysis and practice and then compiles a handbook as their final project.

Ewald, Helen Rothschild "What We Could Tell Advanced Student Writers about Audience." JAC 11.1 (1991).
"Writers, then, must learn to appreciate the role of reader input in interpretation. Instead of depending on purely text-based strategies to produce reader-based writing, writers must learn to project accurately the various schemata that readers will bring to the text. In so doing, the writer's aim would not be, for example, to discover how much a reader knows about the topic in order to decide which details to include or exclude in the eventual text. Such a concern with textual detail again wrongly assumes that readers derive meaning primarily from text specifics. Rather, the writer should be concerned with such issues as these: What schemata (including organizational frameworks) might the reader associate with the subject?; What schemata are necessarily embedded in or appropriate to the subject?; Does the reader possess the "appropriate" schemata?"

Hilligoss, Susan, "Preoccupations: Private Writing and Advanced Composition." JAC (9) 1989, 124-34.
In this article Hilligoss speculates about the differences between private writing and personal writing in context of the academy. She describes a class she taught in which they deeply investigated how the three intersected and the variety of ways that students already write, and how this history of being a writer influences their present work. Working with a variety of genres, the writing becomes more real to the students, instead of just an exercise in futility.

Covino, William A. "Defining Advanced Composition: Contributions from the History of Rhetoric." JAC 8 (1988).
"Looking to Plato's Phaedrus, Aristotle's Rhetoric, and Cicero's De Oratore, we can define advanced composition as the open intellectual play of multiple perspectives, a definition later reaffirmed by Montaigne, Vico, and De Quincey, who follow in the tradition of the Ancients by emphasizing discursive license and continuing to define advanced composition as endless wondering." He offers an assignment in the dialogue style that doesn't allow students to revert to formulaic writing and forces them to continue to entertain opposing views.

Sullivan, Patricia. "Desktop Publishing: A Powerful Tool for Advanced Composition Courses." CCC, Vol. 39, No. 3. (Oct., 1988), pp. 344-347. (in staffroom interchange)
Sullivan describes a class she teaches which includes desktop publishing and at the end of the semester students "publish" several pieces. Not only does it teach writing (and writing quickly to get feedback) but it also includes a discussion of how words and images interplay on a page.

Hairston, Maxine. "Working with Advanced Writers." CCC, Vol. 35, No. 2. (May, 1984), pp. 196-208.
Hairston begins by articulating problems she sees with students current writing: wordiness, highly nominalized, impersonal, overly ambitious, highly generalized, and has no sense of audience. She then goes on the trace the development of this style throughout a student's career as a student - for instance, teachers often reward a thick, hard to read paper with high grades. Even good writers attach a writing assignment with a precise methodology that serves to get the job done, period. Her solution is to have writing become intrinsically rewarding for the students - not just writing for a grade. The way to do this, Hairston suggests, is to remove the penalty for risk and to instead reward it.

Fulkerson, Richard. "Some Theoretical Speculation on the Advanced Composition Curriculum." JAC 1.1 (1980).
Fulkerson suggests that there be a variety of advanced comp courses such as Advanced Self-Expression, Advanced Rhetoric, Advanced Investigative Writing, and classes on form based on the four theories of discourse. (idea I loved: asking that the students seriously probe their past experiences with composition classes and write a thoughtful essay on what they had learned and how they had been treated.)

Hogan, Michael P. "Advanced Composition: A Survey." JAC 1.1 (1980).
"In its general form the advanced course may be viewed as covering the range of the freshman course but in greater depth," with emphasis on "alternative strategies in solving writing problems" and analysis of "the reasons for choosing among verbal forms and theories of rhetoric." Specialized courses "isolate certain kinds of writing problems for intensive examination." Specific course descriptions may be determined by types of writing (forms), writing situations and content; students' goals; modes; or specific problems such as "theories of style or history of English prose style." "Qualifications of Instructors: The teachers of advanced composition should have the following: 1) "special qualifications both as teachers and writers"; 2) "more than ordinary success in teaching freshman composition; 3) a liberal "academic training"; 4) professional interest in teaching writing, demonstrated by participating in professional societies; 5) "a wide range of extra-academic experience, especially in the areas of professional interest of the students." Finally he notes that there has been a proliferation of information about freshman comp, but relatively little about advanced comp.

Stewart, Donald. "Practical Work for Students in Advanced Composition." CCC Vol. 31, No. 1. (Feb., 1980), pp. 81-83.
Begins by arguing that writing in the class is artificial and that students should write for publication. So to make this writing real to both a freshman class and an advanced class, he had the upperclassmen grade the freshman papers. The discussion about effective writing and what made "good" writing was very productive. He closes by writing, "Students always do better work when they are playing for keeps."

Orth, Michael P. "An Advanced Composition Course Aimed at Publication." CCC Vol. 27, No. 2. (May, 1976), pp. 210-212. (in staffroom interchange)
Orth discusses a class he teaches where the end goal of the class is to have a piece of writing that is then submitted to a real magazine for possible publication. This allows Orth to discuss a variety of aspects of writing for a particular magazine or audience and his students see the writing as viable and "real."

 

Journals

College Composition and Communication (CCC): Available on-line and full-text through JSTOR via MadCat

Journal of Advanced Composition (JAC): Available on-line and full-text for years 2001 and earlier at http://jac.gsu.edu

compiled and annotated by Melanie Hoftyzer, 2005

 

Professor Michael Bernard-Donals - Chair
Professor Jane Zuengler - Associate Chair
Professor Jacques Lezra - Director of Graduate Studies
Professor Sherry Reames - Undergraduate Director