Who Teaches Writing

Reviewed by Katherine Kominis, Adjunct Faculty, Bunker Hill Community College on 3/15/23

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

Elements that begin each essay are very useful as prompts for pre-reading: as "What you will learn" and "Key terms." As post-reading material and writing assignments, the "Discussion Questions" in each chapter are very useful to implement the content and students' learning goals.
The four main units of the book are on narrative writing; writing with primary research; "analyzing writing," and "evaluating writing," so a course instructor who focuses on one type might select sections that are most important to the learning objectives.
A major advantage of this text is that it focuses on various contexts, social and functional, of writing, and is written by nine contributors with different backgrounds in writing. So, again, an instructor can choose topics most appropriate for his/her course. Examples are memoirs and narratives; a Shakespearean scholar analyzing the narrative form; a writing center administrator and socially-based writing goals; creative writers demonstrating techniques for analyzing any text; and interdisciplinary writers with ethnographic-based content. I would envision it being used as a course textbook, as described above, and for a team of professional educators in college writing who are evaluating and shaping a writing curriculum.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

I found the book accurate and based on solid scholarship, with extensive footnotes as required. The wide range of subjects relating to college writing is a major feature, which worked well with including nine major contributors (more than the average number). This could have presented problems in editing and proofreading, but the content seems error-free and not filled with unnecessary literary jargon.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

The wide range of topics, with writing in several rhetorical forms and purposes, and a variety of experts from poetic to Shakespearean to ethnographic to "service learning" to a "sports rhetorician" and video game expert has created a broad framework of writing and text analysis that should ensure relevant content for a variety of uses in a college setting. Various elements of the book could be useful to both beginning college writing courses, and to discussion among graduate students and writing tutors.

Clarity rating: 5

An elemental goal of a textbook on writing should be to keep the "jargon" to a minimum, to write in an accessible manner, and display a variety of voices from experts in various forms of writing content. This goal is admirably accomplished.

Consistency rating: 5

It is appropriate that a book that emphasizes "finding ways to enjoy [writing] and fear it less," (introduction) has been carefully framed to include a variety of voices from various fields of writing and levels of expertise. Writers from literary scholars to seasoned writing instructors, one of whom is a "former first-year comp student," demonstrate that writing is a universal skill with unique features of perspective and purpose.
The outline of pre- and post-reading is consistent across the units and essays, and the terminology, while sophisticated, is addressed with the pre-reading feature of "key terms" before each essay.

Modularity rating: 5

The topic "A Writing Studies Scholar teaches interview-based writing Assignments," by Dr. Tyler Branson, is a good example of a well-designed text. Its topic of how to create, and write from, interview-based assignments, can also be used to teach students how to write from this kind of primary research material, self-generated, as well as the standard research materials. While the content in this essay is complex, the headings and "principles" as an organizational feature are helpful in guiding a student's new learning of this research skill.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

The text is well-organized according to its purpose to approach and discuss writing in various social functions and rhetorical forms. The opening prompts of "What you will learn," and "Key terms," mentioned above, are good for previewing and guiding students into the topics. The four units of "Writing a narrative," "Writing with Primary Research," "Analyzing Writing," and "Evaluating Writing" create a usable framework of subjects.

Interface rating: 5

The outline of each essay is well-done and useful for maximum understanding of the content. It is useful to have a few illustrations, and also to include authors' photos. I found no navigation issues.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

I found no grammatical errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

As stated above, the writers are drawn from many aspects of professional writing and teaching; rhetorical, literary, sociological, community practice. Diverse backgrounds are featured, and the overall use of language is respectful and informed. I can see, from the wealth of subjects and experts in various writing fields, that cultural richness in diversity has been a goal of the editors.

An example of how relevant the essays are to teaching ways to understand information, evaluate it, and write about it, is the essay "A Librarian teaches evaluating Information, by Holly Reiter. The topics of "How to distinguish between different types of web sources," Strategies for fact-checking popular information sources found on the web," and "Ways to evaluate information for bias, scope and relevancy," are essential factors to be practiced, reviewed in each writing assignment, and used as a framework not only for writing, but, of course, for reading across the disciplines. I am so happy to have found this essay, and will use it in my beginning college writing courses.

Reviewed by Jackson Stone Justine, Special Purpose Faculty, Radford University on 1/13/23

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

Overall, this textbook does an excellent job of achieving the question: Who Teaches Writing? I was thoroughly impressed with the various professional backgrounds of the chapter writers. While the book is geared towards first year composition classes, I appreciate reading how a writing center administrator (chapter 8) would approach teaching a composition assignment versus how a creative writer (chapter 11) would do so. Providing numerous voices grants this book a larger scope than a traditional rhetoric and composition textbook.
The textbook is divided into four parts: Writing a Narrative, Writing with Primary Research, Analyzing Writing, and Evaluating Writing. Each part corresponds with a unit taught in Oklahoma State University's first year writing classes, but any composition instructor could easily select which chapters are relevant for his or her class.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

As a seasoned first year writing instructor, I found much of the content similar to my own university's courses. Despite the variety of different perspectives offered throughout the textbook, the introduction establishes a unifying concept throughout - writing is a lifelong skill that requires practice and reflection. Each chapter ends with discussion questions that tend to be inviting and open ended for student writers. Writing instructors will find the content of the textbook accurate.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

I find this textbook highly relevant as a composition writing mentor who works with graduate teaching assistants to develop their sense of instruction style. Every instructor will approach learning differently. As a mentor, I would assign individual chapters that best reflect the interests of my GTAs. For example, some of my GTAs are creative writers while others prefer the more analytical and traditional study of English literature. The ones interested in creative writing might enjoy Chapter 13's "A Poet Teaches Analysis." The traditional ones might find Chapter 10's "A Modernist Teaches Analysis" more to their tastes. I also think it would be beneficial for my GTAs to read chapters outside their interests to broaden their perspectives regarding approaches to first year writing.

Clarity rating: 5

Very little jargon is used throughout the textbook, and with any key terms, the writers do an excellent job defining them. Most of the chapters I found clear and easy to understand, though a few chapters may benefit with additional instruction in class. For example, Chapter 5's "A Feminist Teaches Writing through Institutional Ethnography" was rather dense compared to previous chapters. Some students may struggle with reading that chapter, but discussing institutional ethnography in the classroom before assigning the reading could potentially clear up any confusion.

Consistency rating: 4

This is the one area the textbook could significantly improve upon. In Part 1, the beginning of each chapter included an estimated time it takes to finish the reading. I think this was a marvelous idea as freshmen often find the task of reading daunting, but unfortunately the time estimates were inconsistent in parts 2, 3, and 4. If the authors would work to include the time estimate for each chapter, I think both students and instructors would appreciate it.
The only other inconsistency I noticed was the absence of the "What Will You Learn" box in chapter 11. This introductory information can help students better prepare for a reading.

Modularity rating: 5

Overall, the information is well-organized and easy to read. The textbook was designed to be accessible for screen readers. While most of the textbook is no frills, a few images are present. Unfortunately, I found these images to be unnecessary and even a bit distracting since so many chapters did not use images. The image on page 99 did not have any alt text or text under the image to caption it. I think it would be useful to label which images are meant as decoration versus which ones are relevant to the content of the chapter.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

The textbook's organization is strong. Each part is clearly labeled and the chapters are grouped together well. Some chapters may be shorter than others, but I think the variety keeps the prose fresh and interesting. The chapters in each section offered a fine balance of ones that felt conversational while others a bit more formal in tone.

Interface rating: 4

The only main recommendation I have for interfacing is to include hyperlinks to chapters. If I assign an ebook to my students, it's useful to click on the chapter title and have the PDF 'jump down' rather than having to scroll to the section.
In addition, the formatting was off on pages 128 and 129. My PDF showed two blank pages that might be from a table formatting error.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

I did not notice any grammatical errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

The textbook offers a splendid sense of cultural relevance. Each chapter author has a different area of expertise, yet all of them embrace the idea of writing as a process of practice and reflection. In addition, I liked the sample texts used in the textbook. For example, in Chapter 3's "A Shakespearean Taches Narrative," the author compares Shakespeare's Hamlet to Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton. Blending classics with modern favorites is a great way to get students to connect to a subject. What intrigues me the most is how different the voices are in each chapter. Rather than a textbook that has a uniform voice, each writer has a distinct voice. Reading each chapter demonstrates the key mission of this textbook - many people teach writing, and they don't all sound the same.