Not having the intestinal fortitude to deal with the WPA listserv, I tend to rely on other folks like Jeff to remind me why I don’t subscribe. Jeff’s comments on the Taylorism of composition are right on, in my view, as are his earlier remarks on the continuing divide between theory and practice.

However, I see something curious and perhaps useful here. Jeff identifies two separate objections to theory on the WPA list.

As we’ve gotten academically cuter with our pedagogical ideas, we’ve shunted ourselves further from both the writing program administrators who can understand and appreciate them, and even further from the possibility of their finding their way into the actual lesson plans in the tens of thousands of classrooms that teach writing in America.

and

So what I think about these days, instead of worrying about whether language accomplishes anything meaningful or injustice continues infecting the human spirit, is whether each individual caught up in the process of first-year composition at my school actually ends up writing more effectively.

The second passage recognizes strikes me as an I love the Eighties encounter with theory: postmodern deconstruction 101 and liberatory pedagogy a la Friere. I agree that these are not things worth worrying about. However I don’t see how Taylorism becomes the default alternative to these. What these theories share (in the 80s) was a kind of viral colonization of English Studies. On the one hand, every other dissertation was a "deconstruction" of this or that, (almost) needless to say, a totally bizarre appropriation of Derrida. On the other hand, many, especially in comp., were proclaiming their opposition to the banking model of education and seeking ways to make FYC into a socially progressive and consciousness-raising pedagogical experience.

Interestingly, I think the first passage points to a more contemporary and fragmentary trend in theory. Setting aside for a moment the potential sexism of "cuteness" discussed on Jenny’s blog, I read this as a remark upon the proliferation of differential theoretical concepts. This strikes me as far more an extension of the philosphical project of post-structuralism than producing a deconstruction industry. And looking at ideology and agency from a post-Marxist perspective (as I tend to do), I also can’t lament the diffusion of some grand disciplinary project of remediation or liberation or revolution or whatever "it" was meant to be.

However, here are a couple clues for the WPA list. And I’m sure they will be "heard" as well here as they would on the list. First, theories of this variety are not meant to be "applied" by administrators to programs. In fact, they go quite a distance intellectually to avoid this kind of capture. Second, writing is not efficient or "effective." Neither is teaching. Efficiency is a code word for vivesection.

It’s hard to imagine much that is more horrofic within the scope of rhetoric and composition than someone successfully producing an efficient and effective pedagogy that is adopted by tens of thousands of compositions classrooms. I mean aren’t the writing process and portfolios enough of a nightmare? Do we want a high-tech iteration of New Critical readings carried out in five paragraphs?

That said, using my school as an example, there is clearly a problem with 50-60 sections of FYC taught every semester by woefully underpaid adjuncts. Without criticizing or valorizing my colleagues, it is not reasonable to have faculty continually teaching courses without supporting their ongoing development. The issue isn’t training them all to deliver the same content in the same way. The point is to provide faculty with the support they need to develop their own courses based upon an informed understanding of their discipline.

Of course this isn’t going to "solve the problem." As I’ve written earlier here (it’s late; don’t ask me where), our students alledged lack of literacy is an ideological "fact" structured into their relative role within higher education. Students must lack literacy if they are to remain students. The problem of literacy then necessitates all manner of general education courses.

What if we were to assume students were highly literate and struggle to read and interpret their texts the way we might a literary text or a piece of philosophy or any text written by a member of a discourse community very different from our own?

But that’s not it either… The point is that literacy obscures the aporia of communication and lays the foundation for Taylorist pedagogy with its implict promise that language can communicate "effectively."

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