On demand: 9/15/06 Brief Summary of Fulkerson's "Composition at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century" #567crt

Despite being at its root an argumentative piece on the complicated nature of composition (less unified, more splintered, ready for the new theory wars), Fulkerson’s piece is also succinct in documenting the various and sundry approaches to the teaching of writing.  (Un)fortunately, each of the approaches is problematic; while CCS risks indoctrination and may leave little room for any actual teaching of writing, expressivism suffers from a lack of definition due to its all-encompassing nature and procedural rhetoric is something of an unstable trinity (argumentation, genre and academic discourse).  Fulkerson makes this presentation within the context of axiology, process, pedagogy and epistemology, emphasizing the importance and influence of each upon the creation of a composition course.  By positioning his argument in such a way, Fulkerson inherently encourages teachers of writing to consider more deeply their own positions and approaches.

 

4 responses
nice summary
Well said, Doc!
Wow, how did I miss this? Makes Fulkerson a lot more appealing than I first thought. I say that with a bit of an admitted ego, because this makes him seem a lot closer to my own position than I realized.
Great summary. I found his article much easier to understand/follow than Berlin's because of the way he structured and explained his arguments. It doesn't seem that CCS and expressivism are actually ways to teach composition, but they are more topics to focus writings around.