Kreth, Melinda L. “Comments on and Addenda to Holdstein’s WAC Paradoxes.”
Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture. 1.2 (2001): 287-295.
Kreth “refines” Holdstein’s WAC paradoxes, as represented in “Writing Across the Curriculum” and the Paradoxes of Institutional Initiatives” (2001). Kreth reflects upon Holdstein’s claims of WAC paradoxes, considers Martin’s rebuttal of Holdstein’s article, and add her own observations of Central Michigan University’s WAC program in light of the opposing views. While Kreth generally supports Holdstein’s views of perceived paradoxes, she shows, through the local examples from CMU’s WAC, that Holdstein’s views are not universal for all WAC programs. Kreth explained, “I have outlined my experience and the program in which I work at CMU because I think that any response to the paradoxes of WAC must be a local one.” (288). Kreth’s goal is to “clarify and complicate” the current view of WAC.
Area Cluster:
101—Practices of Teaching Writing.
Methodology:
Discourse Analysis.
Valuable Citations:
Deborah Holdstein and Mary Munter.
Money Quotes;
“While reading Holdstein’s WAC paradoxes, I was reminded of Mary Munter’s (1999) tongue-in-check attack on WAC, Munter, a business communications instructor at Dartmouth College, criticizes WAC for (1) inappropriately emphasizing academic assignments over more “real world,” workplace-based assignments; (2) confusing and frustrating students; and (3) trivializing the importance and difficulty of teaching writing, especially by failing to recognize how much training and time it takes to be an effective writing instructor” (294).
“Her [Holdstein’s] sample of administrators is, however, too small to justify any generalizations about the attitudes of faculty, administrators, and students across the nation (and making such generalizations was not Holdstein’s purpose). Others need to do the work, because WAC is probably perceived and implemented in far more ways than Holdstein’s paradoxes suggest” (295).
