Original_To:  BITNET%"mbu-l@ttuvm1.bitnet"
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.mbu-l
Date:         Fri, 11 Sep 1992 07:31:00 EDT
From:         "Composition Digest (Robert Royar,
              Moderator)" <R0MILL01@ULKYVX.BITNET>
Subject:      (Fwd: *C&CD*) Suspicion, paranoia, resistance,
              and comp/lit splits (2)

Date:         Fri, 11 Sep 1992 04:45:50 EDT
From:         IN%"RobertRoyar@Delphi.com" Robert Royar (C&CD Moderator)
Message-Id:   <1992Sep11.044550.1.Grendel.Lair@Cratylus>
Subject:      Suspicion, paranoia, resistance, and comp/lit splits (2)
Reply-to:     IN%"R0MILL01@ULKYVX.LOUISVILLE.EDU"  C&CD
Organization: Cratylus Educational Software

IMHO this is an interesting albeit unproductive thread, but it's a Friday
and early and I'm only on my second cup of coffee for the morning, so ...

I've become something of the de facto cordinator of NYIT's yearly computers
and writing conference (1993 topic: "Whole Language Literacy", BTW--plug
plug) and in that capacity I've talked with a number of Metro NYC English
teachers especially high-school English.  For the most part in the suburbs
(LI, Westchester, Rockland counties) English means Lit and very little
writing instruction per se.  For example, whole Language is really very new
to the teachers around here--at least it's new in its being adopted or
sanctioned by the curricular control police.  When we organize the
conference, there is always some conflict between the comp/rhet forces
(represented currently by myself and Marshall Kremers) and the lit faction
(represented by most of the remainder of the, ever decreasing, English
faculty).  This battle stems in part from the perception from the Lit side
(respected publishers of articles in their fields) that we're pandering to
the "service aspects" of our department--a department whose only major is
Tech writing with about six students signed up.

Surviving as a faculty member in a department such as this when one's
background is not lit--I took a lot of linguistics and social science
classes and as little lit as was required as an undergrad and grad
student--can be difficult:

  - because of the success of composition in recent years at
    placing its trainees and in the relative proliferation of
    positions that require/request some composition training,

  - because of the difference in mind set many comp-trained folks
    have compared to those whose backgrounds were primarily
    literature,

  - because of the difficulty in getting release or institutional
    support for research, and

  - because of the lack of collegial interest in informal
    discussions about comp as a discipline.

Comp's success raised the competition level, and DOES threaten traditional
lit faculties in the average college where administrations are interested
more in how well English can serve a broad student population and less in
what they perceive as obscure wanderings.  While I'll grant that many of
the lit-trained-and-focusing illuminati have contributed to the comp field
(although I would count their numbers on fewer fingers than are on two
hands and I'd further assert that most of them made their contributions
after themselves becoming converts and subsequently being excommunicated
from their former Lit power positions), the working-stiff instructors and
faculty (such as myself and the majority) do not often contact such
enlightened attitudes.

I imagine that many of the CMU grads are trained in non-lit fields and in
"non-traditional" (for literary fields) research methods.  The CMU grads
I've spoken to focused a great deal on cognition and composition.  They're
trained in research methods that are not rooted in the tubers of the
Library but grounded in empirical investigation.  While generalizations are
dangerous, I'd hazard that many of us have encountered strong resistance to
the application of these research methods.  A case in point is the
difficulty the minority of comp people at this school have in getting
department release time to research classroom-based (pedagogical) issues
compared to the relative ease the lit members of the faculty have in
getting grants to research topics in their fields (often with little or no
classroom application value). Judging from the paucity of NEH grants which
focus on comp (or computers and comp for that matter) as compared to lit
issues, I'd say the attitude is wide spread.

The difficulty at getting release affects the work load--comp people here
teach a full load (13-14 hours per semester) and get release only for
administrative work (often creating jealousies among some non-comp
faculty), while most of the lit teachers have at least a few hours release
for litery research.  This affects one's chances of promotion and tenure.
If an institution expects research, but does not support that research,
then chances for tenure/promotion are minimal.  But when your research
methods are not understood by departmental colleagues because those are not
the methods they use, nor were they trained in their use, it becomes
exceedingly difficult to convince those colleagues of the value of your
research or your ability to carry it out.  Eventually, it becomes difficult
to explain your position to them.

The difficulty of explaining one's interests and position tends to isolate
the lone comper in a lit faculty.  I've heard this question from too many
people to ignore it.

  How can you just teach writing to these kids all the time?
  Wouldn't you really rather teach some Lit?  I know I couldn't
  stand it!

I know others on these lists have told me they've confronted similar
attitudes.  Who does one in this type of position talk to about classroom
design, lesson plans, teaching techniques--i.e. the *praxis* about which
Anne Berthoff so often has written?  I've gotten embroiled in committee
meetings in which lit faculty have expounded on "Deridian concepts as
applied to the use of portfolios" but through which a year of said meetings
led not to one practicable classroom method for the application of
portfolios or to even an outline of how said portfolios may be assessed.
It's the focus on practice that may be the greatest difference between most
of us who studied and are devoted to comp and those who studied lit and are
devoted to it.  I honestly feel a stronger professional affinity and
connection to the creative writers, dramatists, and communication arts
faculty than to the lit faculty.  The former faculty are forced by their
disciplines to focus on production and method.  The latter often tend to
view those issues as either uninteresting or wrong headed.

 -- Robert Royar (RobertRoyar@Delphi.com) New York Institute of Technology
    And thus each man will view the fair as his own booth has gone
                                                         - Laurence Sterne

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