Writers Not Writing: Engaging Students in the Troublesome Knowledge of Transfer

[jvsti...@gmail.com]

Below is the abstract for what I'll be presenting at the conference:

Recently, scholars have argued for using threshold concepts of Writing Studies to support writing-related transfer in FYC courses (Adler-Kassner and Downs; Yancey, Robertson, and Taczak; Adler-Kassner, Clark, Robertson, Taczak, and Yancey). The acquisition of threshold concepts such as “writing is a social and rhetorical act,” “writing invokes/responds to different audiences,” and the like represent the rhetorical meta-awareness widely recognized as supportive of writing-related transfer. But threshold concepts also represent “alien” or “troublesome” knowledge that requires epistemological and ontological transformations in learners (Perkins; Myer and Land). This fact raises the question of why students would be willing to acquire knowledge that, by definition, is impossible for students to see the value or usefulness of until after they have acquired it. In other words, teaching threshold concepts to support transfer presumes student engagement in writing-related learning rather than supports it. The speaker argues that FYC instruction can better support student engagement and, thus, transfer by framing threshold concepts of writing as knowledge for achieving objectives students value highly which may or may not be writing. The speaker provides an overview of what such a FYC curriculum would look like in actual practice.