MA student
Writing, Rhetoric, & Discourse
DePaul University
New (and old) Visions
for First-Year Writing
An Annotated Bibliography
For the final project in Proseminar, we were given the choice between writing a conference paper, a Keyword essay like those included in Keywords in Writing Studies, or an annotated bibliography, defined by Dr. Pete Vandenberg as follows:
An annotated bibliography that represents extended reading on a clearly articulated problem in the field—not a “topic.” The annotated bibliography should be considered not as an end in itself, but as “spade work” for a longer project that you might be able to develop later. This option is appropriate if you would really like to choose Option One [the conference paper] but you don’t think you can fully articulate an argument by the end of the term. An annotated bibliography for this course should include a critical introduction outlining the problem you take up; a minimum of 10-12 annotations of scholarly articles/book chapters clearly related to the discourse taken up by the class is appropriate.
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Since my experience in Proseminar could best be described as trying to drink from a fire hose of knowledge while simultaneously being dunked in a dunk tank of knowledge, I did not think I could "fully articulate an argument" on any topic--I could barely articulate a question! Thus, I explored some questions I had developed about first-year writing through our course readings. Some of my questions, and hesitant answers, foreshadow what I would come to learn and beliefs I would come to develop in WRD 540, Teaching Writing, but at this point, I was exploring on my own, without much of a foundation. My exigence is described in greater detail in the introduction to my annotated bibliography, below.
In reflection...
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Looking back, I feel both proud of and embarrassed by this project. I suspect that fact indicates growth and learning: I am able to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of the work from my new position further into the field, with more knowledge and discourse awareness regarding the subject of first-year composition. I see that I was asking good questions, though not necessarily original ones. I was making valuable connections, some well-worn and some more my own. I was reading and writing and thinking well, with curiosity, rigor, and heart.
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I was also trying to make hypotheses with not very much background knowledge and sometimes reinventing the wheel in the process. When I read this document, I cringe at my own naivete. But I try also to smile on my good instincts and on what I was able to accomplish so early in this program. I appreciate the way that being an outsider to this discourse, with less knowledge of either its beliefs or its practices than I have now, allowed me to follow my own curiosity and instincts since for me the terrain was mostly unmapped. I look at where my research led me and how I steered my own learning without a map and see that I managed to end up pretty darn close to the place my professors have taken me, and I am proud. I put my own spin on it, too, based on my experiences and my values, and seeing that gives me hope for my future as a student and scholar: I can find and follow the standard path, but I can also find valuable paths of my own, on my own.