Following Land’s preface and a lively introduction by Kathi Yancey, Linda and Elizabeth lay out the project, explaining when and how they came up with the idea and the fairly elaborate process they followed in identifying and categorizing writing studies’s threshold concepts. Since I had the privilege of contributing three of the entries in the volume (1.2: “Writing Addresses, Invokes, and/or Creates Audiences”; 2.5 “Writing is Performative”; and 3.3 “Writing is Informed by Prior Experience”), I went through much of this process with the other authors, reading and responding to drafts and groupings, and honing my entries with the helpful responses of other authors. As Linda and Elizabeth say, in the beginning it felt like a big “crowd sourcing” effort, as some 45 people pitched ideas and responded to the ideas of others. And it was certainly collaborative through and through, a model, in fact, for one of the principal ways that “written knowledge” gets produced.
Beginning with a discussion of a “metaconcept,” that “writing is an activity and a subject of study,” written by Linda and Elizabeth, the volume continues with five threshold concepts:
- Writing is a Social and Rhetorical Activity (10 essays)
- Writing Speaks to Situations through Recognizable Forms (7 essays)
- Writing Enacts and Creates Identities and Ideologies (6 essays)
- All Writers Have More to Learn (7 essays)
- Writing is (Also Always) a Cognitive Activity (5 essays)
Following the discussions of threshold concepts—which to my mind are succinct and to the point, presented in just the right tone and register for those entering the field—is a second part on “Using Threshold Concepts,” showing how the concepts could interact productively with writing across the curriculum, writing centers, professional development, graduate education, first-year writing, and so on. The introduction (written by the editors) and the six essays that follow provide sound advice that I’m sure will be put to good use by writing teachers and administrators, as well as by those coming to writing studies for the first time.
Linda Adler-Kassner and Elizabeth Wardle
I’ve read bits and pieces of this book—some of them many times. But not until I received a copy did I have an opportunity to really take in its thematic structure. So I am starting at the beginning and intending to read straight through, keeping a log as I go of how my understanding of “threshold concepts” grows as I engage each contribution to this volume. Especially read in relation to a few other volumes, such as Key Words in Composition (1990), Key Words in Writing Studies (2015), and the older Teaching Composition: Twelve Bibliographic Essays (1987), Threshold Concepts provides a clear, cogent, and compelling introduction to writing studies. Brava, Linda and Elizabeth—and all contributors!
