Cover: CM Achieve for Writing About Writing 4e (1-Term Online) for University of Northern Colorado, 4th Edition by Elizabeth Wardle; Doug Downs
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CM Achieve for Writing About Writing 4e (1-Term Online) for University of Northern Colorado

Fourth Edition ©2021 Elizabeth Wardle; Doug Downs

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

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Cover: CM Achieve for Writing About Writing 4e (1-Term Online) for University of Northern Colorado, 4th Edition by Elizabeth Wardle; Doug Downs

Join the movement that is transforming First-Year Composition

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. 

Features

Focuses on threshold concepts that will improve students’ writing practice. In Writing about Writing, students explore the field’s “threshold concepts” —central ideas that they need to understand in order to progress as writers. The purpose of studying threshold concepts is introduced in Chapter 1.  Chapters 4-7 each take up a threshold concept for students to explore through readings, journal and discussion questions, and writing assignments. As they come to a deeper understanding of these threshold concepts, students are able to transfer this healthier and more productive understanding of writing to any writing situation they will encounter.

Readings introduce transformative ideas in Writing Studies, with scaffolded support for students.  The introductions and questions that accompany the readings help students see these texts as springboards for exploring their own experiences with writing, discourse, and literacy.  The student essays included among the readings illustrate the power of a writing-about-writing approach—and students’ ability to contribute to the conversation about writing.

Writing prompts and assignments encourage students to formulate their own questions about writing and pursue answers through reflection and research.  “Write Reflectively” and “Try Thinking Differently” activities in Part One, and “Questions for Discussion and Journaling,” “Applying and Exploring Ideas,” and “Meta Moments” in Part Two engage students in critical and creative thinking about the subject of writing. Major Writing Assignment options in every chapter provide scaffolded instruction for engaging in writing studies research at an appropriate level for first-year students.

 

 

New to This Edition

In a new Part One (Chapters 1-3), Wardle and Downs empower students to enter the conversation about writing. In these new chapters, Wardle and Downs lay the foundation for students to engage with the readings and frame their work as inquiry. Using a conversational style and accessible examples, the authors cover such topics as why threshold concepts matter, how transfer works, what genres are and how writers depend on them, principles of rhetorical reading, and guidelines for conducting primary research on writing.

A new sequence of readings in Part Two (Chapters 4-7) reflects the feedback of Writing about Writing teachers. These chapters, organized around threshold concepts of Writing Studies, continue to offer a mix of readings by scholars, professional writers, and students.  The sequence of chapters has been changed to better align with how teachers are using the book, and some readings have been moved into different chapters--but the text remains flexible for instructors who like to create their own sequences.  

New readings reflect current subjects of inquiry in Writing Studies. Notable additions include these:

  • Michael-John DePalma and Kara Poe Alexander’s “A Bag Full of Snakes: Negotiating the Challenges of Multimodal Composition,” examines how students compose with multimodal resources including sounds, video, and images, noting a number of ways that these tools
    can make it more difficult to be effective for audiences.
  • Vershawn Ashanti Young’s “Should Writers Use They Own English,” argues against the tradition of allowing only “standard English” in school and college, asserting instead that we should teach people how to “code-mesh” by embedding multiple versions of a language in whatever writing or speaking they’re doing.
  • John Swales’s “Reflections on the Concept of Discourse Community” offers a retrospective on developing his theory of discourse communities, while also evolving and updating the theory with additional elements for recognizing them.
  • New student essays cover such topics as multilingualism and racism, the uses of rhetoric in popular culture, and writing strategies used by bloggers.

More major writing assignment options for students to explore. Among the six new major writing assignments are multimodal options that encourage students to explore visual and audio means of presenting their insights and findings. All of the writing assignments include prompts for getting started, guidance for drafting and revision, and “what makes it good?” criteria for the final paper. 

"Writing About Writing is the text for developing and supporting a composition course to guide students through understanding what writing is and who they are in relation to composing and consuming different kinds of texts. It is my foundational go-to for helping students work through the complex and difficult questions and processes of writing. And its my personal pedagogical refresher." 

--Andrew Hollinger, University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley

"Writing About Writing does a phenomenal job of teaching students the key threshold concepts that they desperately need to be able to navigate their composition courses, the university, and their personal and professional lives. I adopted it as my text simply because it just does a great job at getting students to be invested in improving their own writing practice."

--Allison Morrow, University of South Alabama

Digital Options

Table of Contents

* Part One. Exploring Threshold Concepts of Writing through Inquiry
 
* Chapter 1. Investigating Writing: Threshold Concepts and Transfer
Why Study Writing?
Threshold Concepts of Writing
Transfer: Applying Learning to New Writing Situations
 
Major Writing Assignments: Writing about Threshold Concepts
Assignment Option 1: Challenging and Exploring Your Conceptions about Writing
* Assignment Option 2: What Is Writing and How Does It Work in the World? A Collage and Artist’s Statement
 
 
* Chapter 2. Readers, Writers, and Texts: Understanding Genre and Rhetorical Reading
Reading and Writing for Conversational Inquiry
Genres and How Writers and Readers Depend on Them
Rhetorical Reading: The Reader’s Role in Conversational Inquiry
 
* Major Writing Assignment: Genre Analysis
 
 
* Chapter 3. Participating in Conversational Inquiry about Writing
Walking into the Party
Formulating a Research Question
Seeking Answers by Gathering Data
Telling Your Story: Sharing Your Research
 
Major Writing Assignments: Participating in Conversational Inquiry
* Assignment Option 1: Entering the Burkean Parlor: Exploring a Conversation about Writing
* Assignment Option 2: Developing a Research Question
 
 
Part Two. Joining Conversations about Writing
         
Chapter 4. Composing
Threshold Concept: Writing Is a Process and All Writers Have More to Learn
Anne Lamott, Shitty First Drafts
Sondra Perl, The Composing Processes of Unskilled College Writers
Carol Berkenkotter, Decisions and Revisions: The Planning Strategies of a Publishing
Writer, and Donald M. Murray, Response of a Laboratory Rat—or, Being Protocoled
Nancy Sommers, Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers
Mike Rose, Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language: A Cognitivist Analysis of Writer’s Block
* Michael-John DePalma and Kara Poe Alexander, A Bag Full of Snakes: Negotiating the Challenges of Multimodal Composition
* Jaydelle Celestine, Did I Create the Process? Or Did the Process Create Me?
Richard Straub, Responding—Really Responding—to Other Students’ Writing
 
Major Writing Assignments: Writing about Processes
Assignment Option 1: Autoethnography
Assignment Option 2: Portrait of a Writer
* Assignment Option 3: Illustrating Writers’ Processes
 
 
Chapter 5. Literacies
Threshold Concept: Writing Is Impacted by Identities and Prior Experiences
Deborah Brandt, Sponsors of Literacy
Sandra Cisneros, Only Daughter
Victor Villanueva, Excerpt from Bootstraps: From an American Academic of Color
Arturo Tejada Jr., Esther Gutierrez, Brisa Galindo, DeShonna Wallace, and Sonia Castaneda, Challenging Our Labels: Rejecting the Language of Remediation
Joseph M. Williams, The Phenomenology of Error
* Vershawn Ashanti Young, Should Writers Use They Own English?
Barbara Mellix, From Outside, In
* Julie Wan, Chinks in My Armor: Reclaiming One’s Voice
 
Major Writing Assignments: Writing about Literacies
Assignment Option 1: Literacy Narrative
Assignment Option 2: Group Analysis of Literacy History
Assignment Option 3: Linguistic Observation and Analysis
 
Chapter 6. Rhetoric
Threshold Concept: “Good” Writing Is Contextual
Doug Downs, Rhetoric: Making Sense of Human Interaction and Meaning-Making
Keith Grant-Davie, Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents
James E. Porter, Intertextuality and the Discourse Community
Christina Haas and Linda Flower, Rhetorical Reading Strategies and the Construction of Meaning
Margaret Kantz, Helping Students Use Textual Sources Persuasively
Donald M. Murray, All Writing Is Autobiography
* Julia Arbutus, The Value of Rhetorical Analysis Outside Academia
 
Major Writing Assignments: Writing about Rhetoric
Assignment Option 1: Rhetorical Analysis of a Previous Writing Experience
* Assignment Option 2: Navigating Sources That Disagree
Assignment Option 3: Rhetorical Reading Analysis: Reconstructing a Text’s Context, Exigence, Motivations and Aims
 
Chapter 7. Communities
Threshold Concept: People Collaborate to Get Things Done with Writing
James Paul Gee, Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction
Tony Mirabelli, Learning to Serve: The Language and Literacy of Food Service Workers
* John Swales, Reflections on the Concept of Discourse Community
Ann M. Johns, Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice: Membership, Conflict, and Diversity
Perri Klass, Learning the Language
Lucille P. McCarthy, A Stranger in Strange Lands: A College Student Writing across the Curriculum
Sean Branick, Coaches Can Read, Too: An Ethnographic Study of a Football Coaching Discourse Community
Elizabeth Wardle, Identity, Authority, and Learning to Write in New Workplaces
* Arielle Feldman, Galaxy-Wide Writing Strategies Used by Official Star Wars Bloggers
 
Major Writing Assignments: Writing about Discourse Communities
Assignment Option 1: Discourse Community Ethnography
Assignment Option 2: Reflection on Gaining Authority in New Discourse Communities
*Assignment Option 3: Writing That Makes a Difference in a Community
Headshot of Elizabeth Wardle

Elizabeth Wardle

Elizabeth Wardle is the Roger and Joyce Howe Distinguished Professor of Written Communication and Director of the Roger and Joyce Howe Center for Writing Excellence at Miami University. She was Chair of the Department of Writing and Rhetoric at the University of Central Florida (UCF), and Director of Writing Programs at UCF and University of Dayton. These experiences fed her interest in how students learn and repurpose what they know in new settings. With Linda Adler-Kassner, she is co-editor of Naming  What  We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies (2015), winner of the WPA Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Discipline (2016), and of (Re)Considering What We Know: Learning Thresholds in Writing, Composition, Rhetoric, and Literacy; with Rita Malenczyk, Susan Miller-Cochran, and Kathleen Blake Yancey, she is co-editor of Composition, Rhetoric, and Disciplinarity (2018). Her current research focuses on how to enact grassroots change via writing across the curriculum programs, and her forthcoming co-edited collection with faculty from across disciplines is Changing Conceptions, Changing Practices: Innovating Teaching and Learning Across Disciplines (2022).

Headshot of Doug Downs

Doug Downs

Doug Downs is Associate Professor of  Rhetoric and Writing Studies and former Director of the Core Writing Program in the Department of English at Montana State University (Bozeman). His interests are in college-level writing, research, and reading pedagogy, especially as these intersect in first-year composition courses and in undergraduate research. He served as editor of Young Scholars in Writing, the national peer-reviewed journal of undergraduate research on writing and rhetoric, from 2015 to 2020. His current research projects involve methods of mentoring undergraduate research, inclusive writing pedagogies that help students grow as writers, and how we can teach rhetorics that foster constructive and cooperative public discourse.

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Instructor's Manual for Writing about Writing

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Sample Syllabi

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Suggestions for using Writing about Writing in online and remote instruction

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Transition Guide for Writing about Writing: 3e to 4e

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How Writing about Writing Supports WPA Outcomes