Examining Writing in a Time of Change: An Interview with Anne Ruggles Gere about NCTE’s “Writing Now” Policy Research Brief

By Troy Hicks, CEE Web Editing Team
Assistant Professor of English, Central Michigan University

“The meaning of writing is changing pretty dramatically,” claims Anne Ruggles Gere, Past-President of NCTE. Given the theme of this fall’s annual convention, “Because Shift Happens: Teaching in the Twenty-First Century,” her work on NCTE’s new “Writing Now” Policy Research Brief is particularly timely, and the topic of this CEE Podcast.

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“We need to look at what ‘writing’ is coming to mean,” believes Gere. She is the Gertrude Buck Collegiate Professor at the University of Michigan as well as the Director, Sweetland Writing Center and Co-Chair, Joint Ph.D. in English and Education. She leads NCTE’s James R. Squire Office of Policy Research and coordinated the team who composed the “Writing Now” brief.

To begin this examination, she argues that CEE members need to investigate how research on writing is framed. “There are claims being made for and about writing that I think need some more careful analysis.” Gere outlines some of these changes in what writing has come to mean by highlighting three key themes. As the brief explains, “current research on writing makes these things clear: Instructional practices, writing genres, and assessments should be holistic, authentic, and varied” (p. 2). She suggests that English Educators can play a key role in interpreting research and setting an agenda that examines writing from a broader perspective.

In particular, Gere discusses how new media writing changes the landscape for understand these instructional practices, genres, and assessment. Moreover, she suggests that we identify a research agenda that merges our perspectives on quantitative and qualitative research. “As English Educators, we really need to think about how we can begin to look at those two kinds of research in relation to one another and think about how the gaps between them can be bridged.” Gere concludes by suggesting that we continue to examine writing with new media, yet rely on the rhetorical principles that have guided us over time: what is the purpose, who is the audience?

Interested in learning more about NCTE's policy research?
Click here and visit the James R. Squire Office of Policy Research in the English Language Arts webpage for links and additional information.