Situating Writing Processes

Hannah Rule

ISBN 10: 1607329239 / ISBN 13: 9781607329237

Published by University Press of Colorado, US, 2020

About this Item

What should it mean today to "teach writing as a process"? In Situating Writing Processes, Hannah J. Rule takes stock of this familiar commonplace in composition studies, arguing for a renewed understanding of process that emphasizes situatedness. To situate processes is to physically locate them: to observe the infinite ways they are shaped by particular bodies and affects, environments and spaces, others near and distant, and various tools or objects. When we call attention to the physical, material, and located dimensions of processes, we foreground the differences, contingencies, and lived experiences of composing. Doing so is critical, Rule argues, to finally letting go of discrete skills and instead teaching writing as experience in seeing and responding to ranging constraints immediate and distant, material and social. Situating processes ultimately emphasizes vulnerability: how all writing involves risk, uncertainty, and the possibility of failure, as processes are susceptible to the participation and control of forces on ranging scales and always in excess of the writer alone. Accounting for context, difference, and improvisation, Situating Writing Processes helps writing teachers and scholars freshly reimagine the histories and potential of an enduring concept.

Seller Inventory # LU-9781607329237

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Situating Writing Processes
• Publisher: University Press of Colorado, US
• Publication Date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1607329239
• ISBN 13: 9781607329237
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: New
• Weight: 275 grams

About this title

Synopsis

What should it mean today to "teach writing as a process"? In Situating Writing Processes, Hannah J. Rule takes stock of this familiar commonplace in composition studies, arguing for a renewed understanding of process that emphasizes situatedness. To situate processes is to physically locate them: to observe the infinite ways they are shaped by particular bodies and affects, environments and spaces, others near and distant, and various tools or objects. When we call attention to the physical, material, and located dimensions of processes, we foreground the differences, contingencies, and lived experiences of composing. Doing so is critical, Rule argues, to finally letting go of discrete skills and instead teaching writing as experience in seeing and responding to ranging constraints immediate and distant, material and social. Situating processes ultimately emphasizes vulnerability: how all writing involves risk, uncertainty, and the possibility of failure, as processes are susceptible to the participation and control of forces on ranging scales and always in excess of the writer alone. Accounting for context, difference, and improvisation, Situating Writing Processes helps writing teachers and scholars freshly reimagine the histories and potential of an enduring concept.

About the Author

Hannah J. Rule is assistant professor of English in composition and rhetoric at the University of South Carolina. In both her research and teaching, Rule asks questions related to writing pedagogies, writing process histories and theories, and the embodied and material dimensions of composing. Her scholarship appears in a range of venues including College Composition and Communication, Composition Studies, and Composition Forum.