Questioning the Value of Composition / ISMLL 73-139

In an introduction to current scholarship in composition, David Bartholomae, in his essay "Composition," provides a list of exemplary texts for those of us fairly new to the field and raises an important question as to the value of composition in the university. Though the suggested texts, research, and objects of study in composition are of pertinent significance it's Bartholomae's take on the value of student writing that stands out to me the most. Although Barholomae insists that when it comes to student writing, "Questions of value should be a constant source of debate" (120), it's that very "value and promise" that makes composition a necessary and good part of the English field in the first place. Freshman composition remains one of the last links we have to classical English studies and many today believe it to be an outdated and mundane method for teaching students how to write. Barholomae believes that "a field can spend too much time looking at itself and its history, and [that this] is the case with composition" (120). He thinks that a shift of focus from field to student writer may be a benefit to composition as a positive discipline and be a step to answering the critics who deem it as unnecessary and unworthy.

I agree with Barholomae's focus on the student rather than the field. Sure, the field is what makes the student, but along the same lines is it not the student who eventually makes the field? Bartholomae maintains that there is still plenty of historical work to be done but reveals that the periods and areas of much of today's work is "becoming more limited and more local" (120). With that in mind it's harder to deem a student's work as good or unworthy by measuring it against history. Instead, we need to find a way to put student writing at the center of composition, making it an accurate reflection of her or his writing ability. I know it sounds a bit far-fetched, but finding a way to measure the unmeasurable is hard enough as it is, so why not break written word down to the core of what it is and the mind it comes from to get a better answer to the various questions that judge its value?