Naming What We Know

 "I recommend this book to librarians as well as to faculty right across the disciplines. It packs a lot of knowledge about writing into a small but rich package. It also might provide librarians with a model for how to talk to our non-librarian colleagues about the big ideas we all hope students will grasp without reducing them to a checklist to be covered in library sessions."
—Inside Higher Ed

"Essentially a collection of insights from the most experienced and most knowledgeable scholars and practitioners in the field of writing studies. It is like that old video of “We Are the World,” where Stevie Wonder gives way to Paul Simon who hands it off to Willie Nelson to Michael Jackson to Diana Ross, and oh, even Bob Dylan showed up. . . . I found the book so rich in insight, that it’s best read piecemeal, the same way I’d read a collection of poetry, so each concept gets sufficient time to roll around my head."
—John Warner, Recommended Reading for the Start of the Semester, Inside Higher Ed

Naming What We Know examines the core principles of knowledge in the discipline of writing studies using the lens of “threshold concepts”—concepts that are critical for epistemological participation in a discipline. The first part of the book defines and describes thirty-seven threshold concepts of the discipline in entries written by some of the field’s most active researchers and teachers, all of whom participated in a collaborative wiki discussion guided by the editors. These entries are clear and accessible, written for an audience of writing scholars, students, and colleagues in other disciplines and policy makers outside the academy. Contributors describe the conceptual background of the field and the principles that run throughout practice, whether in research, teaching, assessment, or public work around writing. Chapters in the second part of the book describe the benefits and challenges of using threshold concepts in specific sites—first-year writing programs, WAC/WID programs, writing centers, writing majors—and for professional development to present this framework in action.

Naming What We Know opens a dialogue about the concepts that writing scholars and teachers agree are critical and about why those concepts should and do matter to people outside the field.

Contributors: Linda Adler-Kassner, Chris M. Anson, Cheryl Ball, Charles Bazerman, Collin Brooke, Allison Carr, Colin Charlton, Doug Downs, Dylan B. Dryer, John Duffy, Heidi Estrem, Jeffrey T. Grabill, Bill Hart-Davidson, Bradley Hughes, Asao B. Inoue, ray Land, Neal Lerner, Andrea A. Lunsford, John Majewski, Paul Kei Matsuda, Rebecca Nowacek, Peggy O’Neill, Liane Robertson, Kevin Roozen, Shirley Rose, David R. Russell, J. Blake Scott, Tony Scott, Kara Taczak, Howard Tinberg, Victor Villanueva, Elizabeth Wardle, Kathleen Blake Yancey

Naming What We Know, Classroom Edition