Abstract

The US system has many benefits. It has the potential for making students more aware of the uses of written discourse in higher education and in society. It can and often does provide a curricular space for welcoming students to higher education and thus, potentially, for broadening rather than restricting access to those social roles colleges and universities prepare and credential students to enter. And in the last thirty years GWSI courses have provided a focus for an unprecedented research effort on writing in a range of social institutions. But there are trade-offs. The fundamental limitations of GWSI courses in higher education have been felt since the courses were begun over a century ago, and many have called for the abolition of this peculiar US curricular institution. Seven years ago I published an article tracing the history of attempts to abolish first-year composition courses (1988). I discussed Albert Kitzhaber's famous 1960 article, "Death-or Transfiguration," as an anti-abolitionist argument, since it was written in response to Warner Rice's "Proposal for the Abolition of Freshman English" (1960). However, on rereading Kitzhaber's article in light of the last seven years of growth in writing-across- the-curriculum programs and research into writing in academic and non-academic settings in the US and abroad, I now see his article in a different light. It is at bottom another call for abolition, and a very prescient one. Let me summarize four of Kitzhaber's points, points that seem to me to describe the current state of first-year composition as well as they described its state three decades ago when Kitzhaber conducted his major national research study of the course, Themes, Theories, and Therapy (1963). First, he says, there is a "lack of general agreement about course content, so that depending on the prejudices of the teacher, departmental policy (or lack of it), or current fads, the course may center on . . ." There follows a list of 1950's approaches, for which one could supply an equally long and varied list of 1990's approaches. Second, the course cannot "be said even by the most charitably disposed critic to be on the same level of intellectual rigor and maturity as textbooks and class work in other freshman courses such as chemistry or economics" (367). Third, Kitzhaber calls the aims of the course "over-ambitious-to eradicate, in three hours a week for 30 or 35 weeks, habits of thought and expression that have been forming for at least 15 years and to which the student is as closely wedded as he is to his skin; and to fix indelibly a different set of habits from which the student will never afterwards deviate." Fourth, instead of going on to defend the course, as one might expect in a rebuttal to an attack on it, Kitzhaber admits that those who have studied its effectiveness (and no one had studied this more than he) have "too seldom" been able to find "a comforting relationship between the degree of improvement and the quantity of labor expended." Such a relationship might exist, he says, but it is difficult to tease out of the complex of factors that make up the improvement of writing (367). Kitzhaber goes on to argue that these problems are inherent in the course's institutional position in American education. That is, he does not argue that the course merely needs firmer content, more intellectual rigor, more realistic expectations, and greater effectiveness. The problems of the course cannot be understood by looking at the In this article I extend Kitzhaber's analysis of these long-standing problems of GWSI using the framework of Activity Theory. I first explain the theory and use it to analyze the problems. Second, I use the theory to analyze the institutional position of GWSI courses. Finally, I reexamine two reforms Kitzhaber suggests in the structure of secondary and higher education that, he argues, will permit the transfiguration of firstyear composition courses as we know them. The first and most important is the expansion of writing across the curriculum. The second is the creation of a liberal arts course in the uses of writing in society, which would redeem the curricular space now occupied by GWSI for activities that may better accomplish the democratic goals of American higher education. I conclude by suggesting that through these reforms we might preserve and extend the many benefits that composition studies have given and continue to give to US higher education while overcoming the structural problems inherent in GWSI. Activity Theory Activity Theory is a tradition of psychological theory and research originating with engaged in labor and the acquisition of labor-specific practices through apprenticeship Activity Theory analyzes human behavior and consciousness in terms of activity systems: goal-directed, historically-situated, cooperative human interactions, such as a child's attempt to reach an out-of-reach toy, a job interview, a "date," a social club, a classroom, a discipline, a profession, an institution, a political movement, and so on. The activity system is the basic unit of analysis for both cultures' and individuals' psychological and social processes. This unit is a functional system (see I use the term object(ive) because it refers not only to persons or objects in a passive state (what is acted upon) but also to the goal of an intentional activity, an objective, though the objective may be envisioned differently by different participants in the activity system. In an activity system, the object(ive) remains the same while the mediational means, the tools, may vary. In a very simple activity system, for example, a two-year-old child (subject) wishes to reach a toy on a high shelf Second, as the example of the child suggests, changes in human behavior and consciousness, individual or collective, are mediated by other human beings through the use of tools (in the example: the chair, the child's cry, the father's pointing, etc.). No mind is self-sufficient. Activity systems are inherently social. Change occurs through the historically-situated interactions of people and tools over time. As Leont'ev says, an activity system is not "an aggregate of reactions, but a system with its own structure, its own internal transformations, and its own development. . . If we removed human activity from the system of social relationships and social life, it would not exist and would have no structure" (1981, pp. 46-47). Human activities are complex systems in constant change, interaction, and self-reorganization as human beings collaboratively adapt to and transform their environments through their actions with tools (including writing). Thus, consciousness is not individual but intersubjective, networks of systems mediated by our tools of interaction. Indeed, to paraphrase Robert Frost, human activity is social whether we work together or alone, for even the writer alone in a study is formed by and (potentially) forming the actions of others through the tool of writing. The solitary writer is part of some activity system(s) that give meaning and motive to individual acts of composition. Third, activity systems are dialectal. Change is not one-directional. It is accomplished through joint activity, whether cooperative or conflictual, face-to-face or widely separated in space or time. The participants in an activity system appropriate (borrow and transform) the tools and object(ive)s and points of view of others, leading to changes in the means of pursuing the object(ive) of the activity system. For example, a discipline may appropriate some terminology (and thus concept) from another discipline and thus transform the way it goes about its work, just as it might appropriate a mechanical research instrument from another discipline. But in the process, it may also transform the terminology it has appropriated, investing it with new meaning, just as it might redesign for its own object(ive) mechanical research instruments appropriated from another discipline. Fourth, the unit of analysis in Activity Theory is not the workings of an individual mind but the relations among the participants and their shared cultural tools. Thus, activity systems can be analyzed from multiple perspectives (of the various participants) and at many levels (from the individual to the broadest cultural levels). And an analyst can shift among multiple views to study an activity system, triangulating the various views (Engestrom 1990). A central question for Activity Theory analysis is choosing the most useful "lenses" or perspectives for analysis among the many possible ones Fifth and finally, Activity Theory explains change in terms of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD): the object(ive)-directed interactions among people, where one or more of the participants could not, by themselves, effectively work toward the objective (Newman, Griffin, and Cole, 1989, p. 61). In these "construction zones" writing and learning take place as people, using their tools, mutually change themselves and their tools. All learning is situated within some activity system(s). And one learns by participating-directly or vicariously-in some activity system(s). From this perspective, adolescents and adults do not "learn to write," period. Nor do they improve their writing in a general way outside of all activity systems and then apply an autonomous skill to them. Rather, one acquires the genres (typified semiotic means) used by some activity field, as one interacts with people involved in the activity field and the material objects and signs those people use (including those marks on a surface that we call writing). This Activity Literacy is not learned in and of itself and then applied to contexts (activity systems). It does not exist autonomously, divorced from some specific human activity. Literacy is always and everywhere bound up with the activity systems that it changes through its mediation of behavior-and which change it, for writing is an immensely protean tool that activity systems are always and everywhere changing to meet their needs. Activity Theory Analysis of GWSI as Writing with No Particular Content What is the activity system of a first-year composition course? The subjects of the activity are clear: the students and the teachers, primarily. However, the object(ive) and the semiotic tools of the activity system are extremely ambiguous, and this ambiguity may help explain the four problems Kitzhaber noted. I will examine two traditional formulations of the object(ive)s of the course: 1) improving students writing in general and 2) teaching students a general academic or public discourse. GWSI as teaching or improving writing in general The object(ive) of GWSI is most often described as teaching students "to write" or to "improve their writing." If writing were an autonomous skill, generalizable to all activity systems that use writing, improving writing in general would be a clear object(ive) of an activity system. But writing does not exist apart from its uses, for it is a tool for accomplishing object(ive)s beyond itself. The tool is continually transformed by its use into myriad and always-changing genres. Every text is some genre, to paraphrase Bakhtin (1986), part of some activity system(s). Learning to write means learning to write in the ways (genres) those in an activity system write (though one must remember that this is complicated by the fact that activity systems and their tools-including genresare always in dialectical change). From this theoretical perspective, the object(ive) of GWSI courses is extremely ambiguous because those involved in it are teaching and learning the use of a tool (writing) for no particular activity system. And the tool can be used for any number of object(ive)s (in myriad activity systems) and transformed into any number of forms (genres). To illustrate the ambiguity inherent in GWSI courses, let me draw an analogy between games that require a particular kind of tool-a ball-and activity systems (disciplines, professions, businesses, etc.) that require a particular kind of tool-the marks that we call writing. Many different games are played with a ball. The originators of each game have appropriated this tool for the object(ive) of each, the "object of the game." The kind of game (activity) changes the form of the ball (tool)-large, small, hard, soft, leather, rubber, round, oblong, and so on. The object(ive) and the history of each game also condition the uses of the ball. One could play volleyball by using the head, as in soccer, but it is much less effective in achieving the object of the game than using the wrists and hands. Some people are very adept at some games and therefore at using some kinds of balls, while they may be completely lost using a ball in another game because they have never participated in it. (I play ping-pong pretty well, but my nine-year-old daughter laughs at my fumbling attempts to play another game with a ball of similar size-jacks.) However, ways of using a ball (ball-handling, if you will) are "generalizable" to the extent that in two or more games the tool (ball) is used in similar ways for similar object(ive)s. (A good croquet player might easily learn to put, or a good tennis player learn squash.) But there is no autonomous, generalizable skill called ball-using or ball-handling that can be learned and then applied to all ball games. As one becomes adept at more and more ball games (and thus learns more ways of using more kinds of balls), it is more likely-but by no means certain-that one will be able to learn a new ball game more quickly, since it is more likely that there will be some ways of ball-using in the new game that resemble ways of ball using in a game one already knows. It may also be true that one may have "learned how to learn" ball games. That is, a person may have learned how to keep one's eye on the ball, how to monitor one's movements in relation to the ball, how to watch more experienced players for clues on ball-handling, and so on. But this does not mean that person's "ball-using skill" is autonomous and general in any meaningful sense. It is the accumulation of some specific ball-using skills (and not others) learned in some specific ball games that bear some similarities. To try to teach students to improve their writing by taking a GWSI course is something like trying to teach people to improve their ping-pong, jacks, volleyball, basketball, field hockey, and so on by attending a course in general ball-using. Such a course would of necessity have a problem of content. What kinds of games (and therefore ball-use skills) should one teach? And how can one teach ball-using skills unless one also teaches students the games, since the skills have their motive and meaning only in terms of a particular game or games that use them? Such a course would have a problem of rigor since those who truly know how to play a particular game would look askance at the instruction such a course could provide (particularly if the instructor did not herself play all the games with some facility). And it would also have a problem of unrealistic expectations, since it would be impossible to teach all-or even a few-ball games in one course. Finally, it would be extremely difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of a course in general ball-using since one always evaluates the effectiveness of ball-using within a particular game, not in general. And ways of using a ball that work well in one game (volleyball, for example) would bring disaster in another (such as soccer). Let us apply the analogy to GWSI. Many different kinds of activity systems are carried on with writing (to many of them, writing is as indispensable as balls are to ball games). The kind of activity-its object(ive) and its history-changes the way the tool, writing, is used. The activity also changes the tool itself: the grammar, lexicon, format, and so on. These differences, as I noted earlier, we might call genres-historicallyconstituted ways of forming and using this tool called writing among the people who carry on an activity. Some people are very adept at writing certain genres because they have participated a great deal in the activity system that uses them, while they may be much less adept (or even incompetent, from the point of view of an adept) at writing a genre from an activity system in which they have not participated. A Nobel laureate who wrote a world-changing scientific paper might fail miserably at writing a straight news account of the discovery for the front page of the local newspaper-though the scientist reads the newspaper every day. This is because scientists do not ordinarily participate in the activity system of journalism and have not learned its genres. Like the handling of balls, the writing of genres is "generalizable" to the extent that written text is handled in similarly ways for similar object(ive)s. A person who can write a footnote in a history paper may find it easier to learn to write a footnote in a chemistry paper than a person who has never written a footnote (though the differences in citation purposes and practices may actually make it more difficult-what second language teachers call "interference.") As one becomes adept at more and more activities that require writing and hence at writing more genres, it is more likely (but by no means certain) that one will be able to master a new genre more quickly, since it is more likely that there will be some features of the new genre/activity that resemble features in a genre/activity one already knows. It may also be true that a person may have "learned how to learn" new genres. That is, one may have learned to be alert to the role language plays in an activity system, to take instruction from an adept in the genres one is trying to learn, to notice the differences in writing processes of various activity systems, and so on. Indeed, research in second language acquisition suggests strongly that it is easier for adults to learn third language than a second, and perhaps the same is true for learning genres GWSI as teaching academic or public discourse A second frequently-mentioned object(ive) for GWSI courses is that they teach students to write or to write better what is thought of as a universal educated discourse, a general kind of discourse that all educated (or truly educated) persons in a culture share. This hypothetical universal educated discourse, UED as I will abbreviate it, is most often termed "academic discourse" or, even more broadly, "public discourse." These formulations of the activity system of composition seem to narrow somewhat the genres (and thus the content) of GWSI, but like the myth of autonomous literacy, of which they are really a part, they also rest on a widely held myth about the nature of discourse, a conventions that is academic discourse or public discourse per se, because "academia" and the "public" are not activity systems in any useful sense for writing instruction. These categories create and preserve the false notion that there can exist "good writing" independent of an activity system that judges the success of a text by its results within that activity system, and that the teaching and learning of such writing can be divorced from any activity system beyond GWSI (Miller, 1991, chap. 2). Academia in general has no object(ive) that those carrying on its immensely varied activities share. It exists to select and prepare people for a wide range of activity systems within and beyond institutions of higher education. From this perspective, academic discourse consists of the dynamic aggregate of all the many specialized discourses of all the activity systems (disciplines and departments) that make up academia. And the protean tool called writing is appropriated and transformed by each activity system according to its object(ive)s and the material conditions of its work to evolve myriad genres within academia. The genres of various disciplines within academia are much more usefully characterized by their differences in discourse than by the similarities. Disciplinary discourses vary immensely, and even when activity systems appropriate identical discourse features, they do so for differing object(ive)s and thus often use the features differently. For example, pointing to the footnotes in a theoretical physics article and those in an article from PMLA would not be very helpful to a novice learning to write both genres, as compared with pointing out the very different object(ive)s of the two disciplines' activity systems, the very different material conditions of their work, the vast differences in their histories-differences which explain the profound and crucial differences in their uses of citation and documentation Moreover, many of the genres written in institutions of higher education are not particular to academia, because many of the activity systems involved in academic institutions are also involved in other, non-academic institutions, and with them their genres. Thus, any feature of academic writing that one might point to will also likely be found in a great deal of non-academic writing, and it is those connections-not the connections among academic departments-that are most important to those who use writing. Many texts written by chemists, engineers, economists, creative writers, musicians, and so on outside of academia are virtually indistinguishable from many texts written by their counterparts within academia, and vice versa. An activity system with its object(ive) and tools-including the tools I have called genres-is not confined to one institution but can be shared among several. For example, the writing of an ecologist in a biology department will likely have far more in common with the writing of people of engaged in studying and preserving the environment in a government agency or nonprofit organization than with the writing of colleagues down the hall in history or engineering, because ecologists in various institutional settings share certain object(ive)s, a certain history passed on through their training, and certain tools of their activity (including genres) that have developed historically to meet those object(ive)s.