DISCIPLINARITY AND FIRST-YEAR COMPOSITION: Shifting to a New Paradigm

As our field considers its disciplinarity, there are complex issues shaping both internal and external perceptions of what we do as scholars and teachers of writing, a perception fraught with tension and potential consequence for our future as a discipline. One such tension is related to the content we teach in our first-year composition (FYC) courses to best benefit student learning. This content dilemma is related to what we want students to learn in FYC and what we see as the role of our first-year courses in the larger picture of academia. Given what’s at stake for both our students