2002 Annual Report, Commission on Composition

During its November meetings in Baltimore, the Commission on Composition discussed a number of issues, including for the first time this year the issue of composition across modalities.  Of increasing interest to many Commission members was the relationship between talk and writing, drawing and writing, reading and writing, role-play and writing, and drama and writing.  These relationships tend not to be emphasized in the curriculum.  Relatedly, composing itself occurs not just while writing, but while engaged in all of the above modalities.  The Commission raised the question of how we might broaden definitions of composition to encompass the relationships and modalities.  The Commission also discussed the mismatch between policy and good classroom practice in writing evaluation.  As in previous years, this issue reflects strong concerns among Commission members about standardized testing and the fact that such testing drives not only writing curriculum and instruction but also writing research.  Other topics that Commission members discussed were teacher and student diversity as they regard the teaching, learning, and doing of writing; the use of writing across the curriculum as a means for making meaning rather than just an end or outcome measure; limited preparation of teachers to teach writing; writing and the digital divide; and the separation of reading instruction from writing instruction across all grade levels.

Melanie Sperling, Director