From CUNY Academic Commons

The field of Composition has produced an astonishing amount of research in its 40 year history. Yet, Composition researchers have missed many opportunities to have their work influence university (administrators, Board members, Donors) and non-university (media, elected officials, general public) stakeholders who influence policy decisions or control the purse-strings that in turn influences our classrooms and our students’ lives.

A local example of this phenomenon: One could make the claim that no other university has produced more composition research than CUNY. Yet, during the debates over ending remedial writing at senior colleges in 1999, Compositionists had little to no influence on the outcome.

At this year’s CCCCs, Sondra Perl has been asked to be one of eight respected researchers and administrators to discuss strategies for remixing and re-purposing our research for audiences outside of Composition. This discussion should be of interest to all those invested in making our research reach the ears of those who do not read our professional publications or attend our conferences.

As part of her research for this discussion, Sondra would like to hear from us about how we envision our research can reach an audience beyond fellow composition researchers and teachers.

She has been asked to consider the following questions.

1. What communication or publication venues should Cs members consider in order to obtain a larger audience for their research?
2. What are some recommended strategies for leveraging our research to influence stakeholders outside our organization?
3. What are some examples of arguments based upon our research that have failed to influence those outside of Cs and what lessons can we learn from these failures?
4. What groundwork do we as an organization need to undertake before we can effectively reach the ears of larger audiences?
5. How might our research agendas need to change if we want to maximize our influence with administrators and other non-Cs stakeholders?

Prior to the gathering on Feb. 5, we could begin the discussion here, and certainly after the session we could continue it here.

Start here: