[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-seo-598925-105":3,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":81,"doc-detail-598925-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"ok",{"site_id":7,"language":8,"slug":9,"title":10,"keywords":11,"description":12,"schema_data":13,"social_meta":74,"head_meta":76,"extra_data":78,"updated_unix":80},105,"en","composition-forum-35-proliferating-textual-possibilities","Composition Forum - 35 - Proliferating Textual Possibilities","","Tinkering is presented as a practical, playful learning strategy and a material approach that composition pedagogy can harness through a specifically defined practice: critical-creative tinkering. In this approach, writers enter source texts by reading and rewriting them, cutting and reorganizing parts to generate alternative iterations. The article develops this pedagogy with tinkering assignments and student responses from two writing-intensive courses: introductory literature and professional writing.",{"@graph":14,"@context":73},[15,34,56],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/","Research & Report",3,{"item":32,"name":10,"@type":21,"position":33},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/composition-forum-35-proliferating-textual-possibilities/598925/",4,{"url":32,"name":10,"@type":35,"image":36,"author":41,"headline":10,"publisher":44,"fileFormat":47,"inLanguage":8,"description":12,"dateModified":48,"datePublished":49,"encodingFormat":47,"isAccessibleForFree":50,"interactionStatistic":51},"DigitalDocument",{"url":37,"@type":38,"width":39,"height":40},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/composition-forum-35-proliferating-textual-possibilities/598925.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":42,"@type":43},"jay","Person",{"url":19,"name":45,"@type":46},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-30","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":52,"interactionType":53,"userInteractionCount":55},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":54},"ViewAction",6,{"@type":57,"mainEntity":58},"FAQPage",[59,65,69],{"name":60,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":62},"What is critical-creative tinkering, as described in the article?","Question",{"text":63,"@type":64},"Critical-creative tinkering is a writing practice where a writer dwells inside a source text by reading and rewriting it—rearranging, reformatting, cutting, and adding—to produce an alternative version.","Answer",{"name":66,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":67},"How does the article position tinkering within composition pedagogy?",{"text":68,"@type":64},"It frames critical-creative tinkering as a composition pedagogy with a playful exploratory ethos, emphasizing movement across texts and contexts, and encouraging students to gain critical insight through alternative interpretations.",{"name":70,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":71},"How is critical-creative tinkering different from earlier work on tinkering in digital media?",{"text":72,"@type":64},"Earlier contributions often focus on digital media, such as web design nonlinearity and coding through modification. The article argues instead for a general composition pedagogy that builds language facility through reading and rewriting preexisting texts, offering consistent moves for re-versioning many kinds of texts.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":32,"og:type":75,"og:title":10,"og:site_name":45,"og:description":12},"article",{"robots":77,"canonical":32},"index,follow",{"doc_id":79,"site_id":7},598925,1792192291,{"code":4,"msg":82,"data":83},"success",[84,88,92,96,101,105,110,114,119,122,126],{"id":22,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":85,"show_sort_weight":86,"slug":87},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":26,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":89,"show_sort_weight":90,"slug":91},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":33,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":93,"show_sort_weight":94,"slug":95},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":97,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":98,"show_sort_weight":99,"slug":100},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":55,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":102,"show_sort_weight":103,"slug":104},"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":106,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":107,"show_sort_weight":108,"slug":109},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":111,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":29,"show_sort_weight":112,"slug":113},8,30,"research-report",{"id":115,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":116,"show_sort_weight":117,"slug":118},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":117,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":120,"show_sort_weight":117,"slug":121},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":123,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":124,"show_sort_weight":123,"slug":125},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":127,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":128,"show_sort_weight":97,"slug":129},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":82,"data":131},{"doc_id":79,"user_id":132,"nickname":42,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":111,"category_name":29,"doc_title":10,"doc_description":12,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":55,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":22,"is_downloadable":22,"audit_status":22,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":8,"site_id":7,"html_lang":8,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":12,"update_tm":144,"read_time":145},3985747858866,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_a8503ba1806abce46bf441b54a3ca4cd","Current Issue  From the Editors  Weblog  Editorial Board  Editorial Policy  Submissions Archives  Accessibility  Search  \nComposition Forum 35, Spring 2017  \nProliferating Textual Possibilities: Toward Pedagogies of CriticalCreative Tinkering  \nDanielle Koupf  \nAbstract: Tinkering is a longstanding material practice that has gained popularity in recent years as a learning strategy at numerous schools, camps, and makerspaces. This article seeks to establish in composition pedagogy tinkering’s playful, exploratory ethos by introducing a practice called critical-creative tinkering. In critical-creative tinkering, a writer dwells inside a source text by reading and rewriting it, generating an alternative text. Building on the itinerant status of traditional tinkers, this article promotes critical-creative tinkering as a pedagogy that moves or travels across the curriculum. Toward that end, it presents tinkering assignments and student responses to them from two different writing-intensive courses: an introductory literature course and a professional writing course.  \nTinkering originally described the work of an itinerant tinsmith, who patched together broken metal utensils, usually imperfectly (“Tinker, n.”) . Though the term traditionally carried a negative connotation,{1} more recently it has been recovered in a positive light to describe material practices that involve modifying or repurposing heterogeneous parts toward both imaginative and practical ends (Balsamo n. pag. ; Franz 23) . In fact, tinkering has been called a twentyfirst-century literacy (Balsamo n. pag. ) and has been promoted by many schools, institutes, and makerspaces that advance a hands-on, experimental approach to learning and creativity.{2}  \nIn this essay, I aim to establish in composition pedagogy the ethos that pervades makerspaces, one characterized by an emphasis on building and sharing, an invitation to explore and meander, and a commitment to working beyond conventional boundaries. I introduce the term critical-creative tinkering to describe rewriting activities that modify old texts and invent new ones through the manipulation of preexisting parts. In advancing such activities, I build on the momentum of recent remix studies{3} in rhetoric and composition that establish the intellectual value of selecting, cutting, and rearranging prior materials, yet I shift to language itself as the remix-able resource. In critical-creative tinkering, a writer dwells inside a source text by reading and rewriting it—rearranging or reformatting it, cutting some pieces here and adding others there. What results is an alternative version of the original—a new iteration. I argue that this practice can yield critical insight into the source text by prompting questions and possible interpretations. Atthe same time, it is a generative activity that produces writing and is therefore creative in a material sense.  \nThe concept of tinkering is not entirely new to rhetoric and composition, but previous contributions have primarily focused on its relevance to digital media (Sayers; Vee) . With his “tinker-centric pedagogy,” Jentery Sayers envisions tinkering as a tool for adapting English studies to the digital age. He demonstrates in a range of assignments how hallmarks of tinkering, such as experimentation and collaboration, can help introduce students to central concepts in digital media. One assignment, for instance, exposes students to the nonlinearity of web design, while another introduces them to coding through the trial-and-error modification of a website’s source code. Critical-creative tinkering, by contrast, is a general composition pedagogy that fosters facility with language through reading andrewriting preexisting texts. It offers students a consistent set of moves for manipulating and thus re-versioning nearly any text they encounter. While we both embrace tinkering’s exploratory ethos, Sayers and I differ in how we put this ethos into practice and toward what","cbCaiaJHpoaPHcET","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaiaJHpoaPHcET","pdf",149477,14,"English","# Proliferating Textual Possibilities: Toward Pedagogies of Critical- Creative Tinkering\n## Abstract\n## Tinkering as a Material Practice and Literacy\n## Critical-Creative Tinkering in Composition Pedagogy\n## Distinction from Tinker-Centric Digital Media Pedagogy\n## Material Metaphors for Composition and Style\n## Mobility, Itineracy, and Nonlinear Movement","[{\"question\":\"What is critical-creative tinkering, as described in the article?\",\"answer\":\"Critical-creative tinkering is a writing practice where a writer dwells inside a source text by reading and rewriting it—rearranging, reformatting, cutting, and adding—to produce an alternative version.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the article position tinkering within composition pedagogy?\",\"answer\":\"It frames critical-creative tinkering as a composition pedagogy with a playful exploratory ethos, emphasizing movement across texts and contexts, and encouraging students to gain critical insight through alternative interpretations.\"},{\"question\":\"How is critical-creative tinkering different from earlier work on tinkering in digital media?\",\"answer\":\"Earlier contributions often focus on digital media, such as web design nonlinearity and coding through modification. The article argues instead for a general composition pedagogy that builds language facility through reading and rewriting preexisting texts, offering consistent moves for re-versioning many kinds of texts.\"}]","Composition Forum - 35 - Proliferating Textual Possibilities | PDF",1792087856,35]