This interview appeared in the Fall 2021 Letters & Science magazine.
Our goal in English 100 is for students to be able to plan their own writing as they respond to particular writing purposes in their lives. I want them to develop the confidence and ability to ask questions about writing, whether that means asking an instructor for more information or clarification about an assignment, offering feedback to peers about their writing, or asking critical questions to make sense of what is going on in the world.
This past year made it clear that information literacy, critical thinking and ethical argument are necessary not only in our academic work but in our daily lives. The COVID-19 pandemic, the murder of George Floyd and other Black victims, anti-Asian violence, a humanitarian crisis on the border, and increasing conflict in our political discourse raised fear, outrage and confusion among students and instructors. How can writing help them make sense of what’s going on? How can students be critical users of information and critical communicators?
Our approach in preparing instructors is to model how they might approach their own students. We “teach” how to teach the course, and we want to provide a balance of guidance and flexibility to our instructors so they know they have the room to develop their own approach within the framework. Our goal is not to have instructors simply deliver a ready-made course; we want them to make the course their own so that they can teach it because they believe in it.
Overall, our goal is to be accessible, inclusive and anti-racist, which means including diverse writers and experiences, but also much more. It’s about attending to our students and their real-life circumstances and understanding how violence and crises in the world are affecting them.
I want students to recognize the ubiquity and meaning of writing in their lives. Students often have a very limited idea of writing, because they experience it in very specific contexts such as school, where it is presented as a high-stakes assessment or as busywork, something to be done because it results in a grade. Or they imagine it as something highly creative or intellectual and leading to a vocation that they don’t aspire to. Many students don’t see where writing fits into their lives except as something that is simply transactional, functional or a burden because it’s required. But writing is more than that if you let it be part of your life and find a place for it.
I was honored to be appointed the inaugural Charles Q. Anderson Professor of English in July 2020. This professorship was established by Dr. Erling Anderson, a UW-Madison alum who graduated with an English major in 1972, to honor his father, Charles Q. Anderson. Erling Anderson earned a PhD in clinical psychology and was an associate professor in the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. He felt strongly about the value of a liberal arts education and believed that his English degree set him up for success in the sciences.
