Since its initial publication, Writing about Writing has empowered tens of thousands of students to investigate assumptions about writing and to explore how writing works. It does so by making writing itself the subject of inquiry. Unique to Wardle and Downs' approach, the text presents "threshold concepts" about writing--central ideas that writers need to understand in order to progress. As they come to a deeper understanding of these threshold concepts, students are able to transfer their understanding to any writing situation they encounter. This new edition has been refined and improved based on input from instructors using the text. Now with more explicit instruction to support academic writers, a new Part One explains the value of investigating writing, introduces threshold concepts and the notion of transfer, details the elements of genre and rhetorical reading, and offers a guide for conducting writing studies research at a level appropriate for undergraduates. The readings chapters have been updated and streamlined, and as in past editions they are supported with introductions, scaffolded questions, and activities. An extensive Instructor's Manual by teacher-trainer Matt Bryan provides support for teaching with a writing-about-writing approach.
Naming What We Know examines the core principles of knowledge in the discipline of writing studies using the lens of “threshold concepts”—concepts that are critical for epistemological participation in a discipline. The first part of the book defines and describes thirty-seven threshold concepts of the discipline in entries written by some of the field’s most active researchers and teachers, all of whom participated in a collaborative wiki discussion guided by the editors. These entries are clear and accessible, written for an audience of writing scholars, students, and colleagues in other disciplines and policy makers outside the academy. Contributors describe the conceptual background of the field and the principles that run throughout practice, whether in research, teaching, assessment, or public work around writing. Chapters in the second part of the book describe the benefits and challenges of using threshold concepts in specific sites—first-year writing programs, WAC/WID programs, writing centers, writing majors—and for professional development to present this framework in action. Naming What We Know opens a dialogue about the concepts that writing scholars and teachers agree are critical and about why those concepts should and do matter to people outside the field.
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