One of the central difficulties involved in a discussion of writing pedagogy is that we have little to no evidence concerning what kinds of pedagogies are employed in college writing programs. The same is true of college classes in general, but the generally punitive results of outside scrutiny of writing classes (from administrators, boards of regents, or the public) have made many writing teachers even more wary than their colleagues in other disciplines about sharing details of their practice. Thus our professional literature is replete with case studies that typically focus on one or two classes and from which it is impossible to generalize. This point is made repeatedly by Fulkerson in his 2005 survey of the field. He advances the tentative hypothesis that expressivism is a lot more widespread than is reflected in our journals and the prevalence of cultural studies approaches less so. Nevertheless, a more accurate assessment "would require survey data we simply do not have" (p. 659) [1].
In what follows, then, my own view is similarly partial; my remarks about general tendencies in writing pedagogy are based on my experience working in three very different writing programs, my interest in the literature of writing assessment and instructional design, and my experience as the director of a large writing program. But my intention is also to be constructively (I hope) provocative. To that end my concern is not with the conventional labels that accompany discussions of writing pedagogy (expressivist, social-constructivist, current-traditionalist, WID, WAC, etc.); in general I've never found adhering to a single school of thought to be terribly useful in teaching real students. However one label is almost never applied to the writing classroom; on the rare occasions it is employed it is usually as a pejorative: simulation. My argument, in contrast, is not simply that simulation is a misunderstood term that in fact represents a core learning modality, but that the key to effective writing instruction is to embrace the fact that the writing classroom is a simulation space [2].
On the face of it, it seems as if the first-year writing classroom is a prime candidate to be considered as the college equivalent of an MMORPG starter city. At most colleges the freshman writing requirement is the one course that is undertaken by a substantial majority of students. Furthermore, freshman writing is widely considered by the university as a whole to be a foundational course that is necessary for effective participation not only in academics but in the students' lives after college. In the same way, the starter city is a design construct that is used by game developers to provide players with the essential skills and understanding they will need to play the game effectively and (hopefully) enjoyably over the long haul. Both game and writing class thus represent the start of a complex and challenging journey that will last for several years. Furthermore, both MMORPGs and writing programs are linked to the degree that they are not usually discussed as simulations.
MMORPGs typically are not labeled simulations by gamers or game critics. Indeed, the academic non-gamer may tend to think of them in slightly pejorative terms as simulacral; in their evocation of sci-fi futures, otherworldly fantasy or alternative histories, they are simulations of nonexistent originals. But this is to accept a very narrow view of simulation in which the goal of a simulation is only representational, to recreate the look and even the behavioral characteristics of a real-world referent. The purpose of simulation, however, is actually to provide an environment where the participant can inhabit a convincing world and experiment with modifications of their own behavior (military war games, airline pilots training in simulators, etc.). The real focus of these games, therefore, is to provide experimental environments that support the development of complex and dynamic human communities. They are extremely sophisticated and challenging behavioral, social, organizational and often political simulations.
Writing is a gateway technology: a platform for engaging with, exploring, and influencing our world. And to that end writing classrooms clearly function as training grounds where students practice the skills of argument, critical thinking, analysis, and self-presentation that will be necessary when they undertake "real" writing projects in the "real" world. Thus students practice audience analysis, test for logical fallacies, examine the ethical imperatives and logistical practicalities of citation principles, analyze the makeup of larger discursive structures, all on the understanding that they will be able to employ these techniques in other writing projects in other domains beyond the writing class. Our classes provide opportunities to practice these skills so that those skills will become so ingrained that students will (ideally) deploy them with relative ease at a later date. We often couch this kind of course outcome in the language of "generalization" or "transferable skills." However anyone who has organized an emergency response simulation, overseen a military exercise, or trained someone in a flight simulator would recognize this set of tasks where technique is conjoined with behavior modification as being essentially simulational.
Moreover, the metalanguage we use to create and analyze the effectiveness of both MMORPGs and the first-year writing class is (or at least should be) similar. While we can discuss electronic games in general as instances of art, engineering, philosophy, and programming, the operative conceptual and technical structure is that of design. Games' creators are referred to as game designers; gamers, developers and critics all discuss art design, level design, world design, and so on. Furthermore, if we take seriously the critique of contemporary education represented by Gee, Papert, and Prensky, amongst others, one that is grounded in the importance of creating learning experiences designed to capitalize upon and cultivate the learning potential of individuals, then the language of design is one we ourselves should be employing to discuss not just writing classes but writing.
Indeed, this claim is at the heart of New London Group's (1996) "A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures." This widely cited article has found favor with a variety of teachers due to its argument for the need to move beyond a conception of literacy "centered on language only, and usually on a singular national form of language at that, which is conceived as a stable system based on rules such as mastering sound-letter correspondence" [3]. (This concern was articulated earlier by Papert (1993) when he coined the term "letteracy" to describe the narrow set of abilities related to reading and writing alphabetic texts; he thereby raised the possibility that students could "become highly literate independent of their progress toward letteracy" (p. 11) [4].) Moreover, the group's concern with developing a pedagogy that addresses "the multiplicity of communications channels and media, and the increasing saliency of cultural and linguistic diversity" has been enthusiastically cited by proponents of cultural studies writing curricula and those that have focused more narrowly on incorporating new media into the writing classroom. But one of the most significant aspects of the article is the one that I find mentioned rarely if at all. In order to define the content of a multiliteracy pedagogy, the authors outline a pedagogy based around the concept of design:
The notion of design connects powerfully to the sort of creative intelligence the best practitioners need in order to be able, continually, to redesign their activities in the very act of practice. It connects as well to the idea that learning and productivity are the results of the designs (the structures) of complex systems of people, environments, technology, beliefs, and texts.
It is clear from the elaborate structure that follows this claim that the group's understanding of design goes well beyond the somewhat vague notion of "course design" that many of us employ. Typically our notion of "course design" tends to be vaguely descriptive (here is what I am going to cover in my class), or narrowly utilitarian (this is how I've laid out my syllabus). More significantly, the connection they draw between design and complex systems maps on to the definition of simulation as the modeling of complex systems, a perspective articulated by both Frasca and Bogost (who can be found wandering the streets of Simulata).
A metalanguage based around design goes further even than the insistence of Fulkerson that creating a composition course is heavily dependent upon having a coherent philosophy of composition (p. 657). A metalanguage of design has the advantage over the concept of a "philosophy" in that it lends itself easily to the idea of a firm goal, something that is designed to be used in the world. "Philosophy, " by contrast, is all too apt to fall into a vague domain of intentions/hopes/dreams/fantasies, the imaginary constructions of our classes we so often employ for ourselves and others. Nevertheless, Fulkerson's point is that some kind of metalanguage is necessary. “It’s easy to create a course that is self-contradictory and thus baffling to students," he cautions. "We may teach one thing, assign another, and actually expect a third” (p. 680).
It is, finally, the potential for incoherence that underscores the importance of attending to the concept of simulation. Failure to attend to the teaching of writing as a simulation project results not simply in a course where there may be mismatches between some elements of the course. Rather there is the potential for the entire course project to be so massively self-contradictory as to be confusing to the point of either contemporary or retrospective irrelevance in the eyes of students. Refusing to consider the writing classroom as a simulation space does not mean that one is simply operating according to a different teaching methodology or writing philosophy, because there are many different philosophies and methodologies that can be incorporated under the notion of simulation, just as there are many design philosophies and approaches that can be brought to bear on the development of a game. Rather, the failure to attend to simulation as the core structure of the metalanguage of teaching writing simply produces badly designed simulations.
There are many reasons why writing teachers might be resistant to the idea of design in general and simulation in particular. Some may see both as bearing the taint of low commerce. I've encountered colleagues who by contrast resent the way in which both seem to focus on a final product in a way that seems at odds with the cultivation of an individual point of view. The latter, indeed, may suggest that Fulkerson's comment about expressivism in fact being more widespread than we realize contains a measure of truth. However I think the resistance to the idea of the teaching of writing as simulation has more to do with the way in which our field has, at least since the 1960s, revolved around twin suns:
1) Apprenticeship: In our romanticization of the early modern roots of the apprenticeship model, we fancy ourselves beneficent overseers of a team of eager disciples (and how quickly commerce slides over into religion in our metaphors) practicing their craft. The reality of the early modern period was radically different: the master was often a whip-cracking (sometimes literally so) tyrant, and the reason for his severity highlights the massive gulf between our writing classes and the actuality of real-world apprenticeship: while apprentices were learning their trade they were crafting real products for a real marketplace and their skill or lack thereof would reflect on their master (hmm. . .we don't like that bit of the apprenticeship model much, come to think of it). The same is true of the apprenticeship model today. A plumber's apprentice is a learner, true, and some of that learning involves what we might think of as "academic" study. The bulk of it, however, is learning through observation and practice at the side of the master plumber. They are learning by working on real projects for flesh and blood clients.
2) Authenticity: Writing teachers are prone to consider that very far from being a simulative space, the overriding imperative of their classes is the production of authenticity. This is understandable: we issue instructions, and something that looks like real writing, ink on paper, pixels on a screen, pops out the other end. From one point of view this writing is authentic: students have labored over it the way that they will over a writing project beyond the boundaries of the class, and what they have produced is filled with the profound insights, necessary compromises and strategic evasions that are the hallmarks of writing from across the academic, professional and creative spectra. The criteria for what counts as real and authentic in this context are based heavily on the artifactual and the representational. Can the piece be packaged and processed in the same way as other examples of writing out in the world? Check. Does it bear the formal and contextual markers of a piece of authentic writing (depending on the genre: logical argument, structure, references, a "voice")? Check. There is nothing wrong with these criteria from the point of view of establishing objectives for a class; they make for perfectly adequate grading and achievement measures. They are much less relevant if you want to make a claim that students are learning the skills that will be necessary for their writing to participate in the cut and thrust of actual discourse communities. Out in the world, the effectiveness of writing is rarely measured by whether it looks like other examples of writing but upon the work it is able to do, sometimes in isolation, more usually in juxtaposition with other pieces of writing and forms of communication.
To illustrate how tightly writing teachers orbit this binary, the next section considers two kinds of objectives common to US college writing classes, each of which typically gives rise to a broad spectrum of in-class activities and assignments.
1. Fulkerson, R. (2005). Composition at the turn of the twenty-first century." College Composition and Communication, 56 (4). 654-687.
2. The vexed status of simulation in both gaming and pedagogical cultures could well justify a side trip to the city of Simulata.
3. The New London Group. (1996). "A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures." Harvard Educational Review, 66 (1). Subsequently republished in Cope, B. & Kalantzis, M. (Eds.). Multiliteracies: Literacy learning and the design of social futures. London: Routledge.
4. Papert, S. (1993). The children's machine: Rethinking school in the age of the computer. New York: Basic Books.
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