#16. Composition is not an Abstraction

I am aware of NCTE's decision last month to dissolve 4Cs, and as a scholar just starting their career, this obviously saddens me, as I greatly enjoyed my own experience at the two 4Cs I was able to attend in 2025 (Baltimore) and this year in 2026 (Cleveland). I am also aware that more experienced members of the field are mobilizing to address the situation, and while there is a lot of uncertainty, I feel optimistic that the field will be able to reconfigure itself and make up for what is a large loss to the discipline. 

I am a lowly graduate student and try not to involve myself in the greater politics of the field. I will not posit any grand opinions or make any declarations for what direction the field should take, however, this whole situation has awakened me to a larger question of who we are as a discipline. What is composition? How do we quantify it? What should come to mind when one thinks about composition studies? Perhaps everyone might agree that composition means different things to different people. It is also important to note that in bringing up 4Cs, those who are interested in composition are only one subset of the membership, considering that 4Cs has also traditionally been a space for rhetoricians. Many would also take issue with the term "composition" as well, and I wouldn't be surprised if I am the only person at 4Cs who actually identifies as a "compositionist." The term feels fairly old-fashioned, as I hear most people use the more modern term "writing studies" to describe the field. These semantics probably warrant their own blog post, however, I am trying to point out it that it is difficult, if not impossible, to define what the discipline actually is or what it is supposed to be. 

Published by Southern Illinois University Press.

I was reading Susan Miller's (1991)Textual Carnivals and a particular excerpt struck my eye. My discussion of the excerpt has little relation to Miller's overall argument in her book, however I did find it relevant to this larger question of the field's identity. I am not sure of the originator of this concept, but I have heard the idea that institutions are not abstractions but are carried out and kept alive by the actions of people. Writing in 1991, Miller offers a quantification of the field in terms of the people, money, and time invested in it year after year: 

"But a great deal of evidence directs us to relate our experiences with composition to larger structures that maintain cultural hegemony. Although neither radical literary and gender theorists nor sociologists, political scientists, or certain economists have made this specific connection, grounds for a broader political interpretation of composition do not rely on my, or anyone else's, imagination.

The teaching of writing, at least according to publishers of textbooks for writing courses, engages about four million freshman-level students each year. If we consider how many additional students take upper-level writing and graduate courses in rhetoric and composition theory, adding another million to this figure is probably not an exaggeration. If we divide this expanded number by twenty-four, the mean class size reported in the Association of Departments of English "1983-1984 Sample" (Huber 45), we can estimate that at least 165,000 teaching assignments are made each year in classes relevant to postsecondary writing, not counting classes offered in government or professional settings. Estimating an average course load in writing courses among two- to four- year institutions would be foolish, but it is probably safe to guess that at least 25,000 individuals are engaged in college-level composition teaching each academic year. Were the number half this, it would still represent an impressive investment of academic resources, but the number is undoubtedly higher. 

If we also consider that, at an average price of ten to fifteen dollars, composition textbooks require at least a $40 million expenditure for students, and that wages for composition teaching involve at least $50 million (if we assume a low figure for average pay of $2000 per course), we could safely estimate (adding administrative costs) that $100 million is spent each year in America on something we might think of as teaching students to write at the college level. Were high-school and extra-academic statistics included, the numbers would be staggering. Whatever else composition is, it is a major national industry when measured monetarily.

Considering how small writing classes are in comparison to the average college course, writing instruction also represents a major temporal investment. The labor-intensive character of taking, or of teaching, a writing course is well documented on the pulse, if not in the statistics, of the four to five million individuals involved each year as writing teachers and students" (pp. 4-5).  

Looking over Goose Creek Bridge in Southold, NY.

Again, this account of the field was offered in 1991, so these figures are obviously outdated. Adjusting for inflation and population increases, it would be interesting to consider the current state of the field according to these metrics. I would imagine that in the current day, or at some point in the recent past, there are more people, money, and time invested in the field than ever before. There are days where I wake up and wonder what I am doing in graduate school. Is anything I'm doing actually making an impact? Considering Miller's characterization of the field, one can conclude that at a macro-level, the field does wield and possess a lot of power. This fact can hopefully serve as one reminder that what we are doing matters, at least in a capitalistic sense. Sort of an anticlimactic and maybe not the most satisfying ending, but hopefully this post can serve as some food for thought in uncertain times. 

References

Miller, S. (1991). Textual carnivals: The politics of composition. Southern Illinois University Press.