The Ethics of Identity - WHAT IS A COMPOSITIONIST? - Amy Lynch-Biniek

Oct 15, 2026

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The article examines how composition teachers are misunderstood within and beyond academia, framing composition as ethical work tied to identity rather than mechanical punctuation instruction. It analyzes ambiguity around what composition is, how administrators and researchers may fail to recognize it as a research field, and how this ignorance affects staffing, status, and resources. Drawing on conference work and program realities, it argues that compositionists must articulate their own ethical answers to “What is a composition teacher?”

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages7

Reading Time11 min

AccessFree to download

The Ethics of Identity

What Is a Compositionist?

Misunderstanding Composition Beyond Academia

Identity, Staffing, and Ethical Practice

The CEA Forum Summer/Fall 2007: 36.2 THE ETHICS OF IDENTITY: WHAT IS A COMPOSITIONIST? Amy Lynch-Biniek I have been tutoring and teaching writing for fifteen years, and my mother still has no idea what I do. It's not just her, really; my father has no idea either, and he has been a high school English teacher for thirty-five years. Infact, I have discovered that few people outside of academia know what it is I do. Most often, when I tell people that I am a composition teacher, I am greeted with at best an expression of pity for how much work all those papers must be, and at worst with a banal remark about the sad state of student prose. Many assume I am a creative writing teacher. Despite the rise in composition graduate programs and the improving market for composition specialists, even within the university, faculty from other disciplines frequently have vague notions of my marking essays with red ink; a few seem to imagine my work as a series of punctuation drills. Some professors even express resentment that my composition class did not prepare students to their satisfaction, laying the burden of persistent organizational or mechanical errors on the compositionists' shoulders.“What are you doing in that class?” asked a history professor who shared many of the same students as I.“They can't seem to write a proper introduction!”Once, when a pesky philosophy teacher all but blamed the downfall of civilization on students' inability to use apostrophes properly, a colleague of mine pointed out that yes, they forget their Plato quickly, too. He did not seem to appreciate this comparison, believing, perhaps, that writing is a simpler skill set one can teach (and that students can master) in a single semester. These perceptions may coincide with the positions of some writing teachers, but it is an inaccurate depiction of what a great many of us do—or would like to be doing. Beyond the classroom door, many administrators are not quite sure what composition is, either. Certainly they may know of scholarship in composition; they are aware that graduate programs in the field exist; and intellectually they may even have considered what its study would entail. Nevertheless, some educators, however dedicated, have yet to move beyond a pragmatic view of composition as a problem to be dealt with, a collection of required classes to be scheduled, a persistent blip on the assessment radar. Certainly composition teachers have become respected or powerful at some institutions or within some English departments; even so, many key administrators and researchers have very little sense of what a compositionistis, and this ignorance has repercussions for the field. For instance, at the 2007 Conference on College Composition and Communication, Louise Wetherbee Phelps reported on her work in The Visibility Project, which aims to convince the National Research Council (NRC) to recognize Rhetoric and Composition as a research field. The NRC surveys and assesses doctoral programs in higher education, affecting funding of doctoral programs, research agendas, and more. Until now, this organization has not included Composition as a field—is it any surprise, then, that “composition” is an ambiguous term to so many? This ambiguity plays out in the who's who of composition teaching. It may be that writing programs with full-time faculty are on the rise, but the staffing reality remains mostly one of adjunct, non-tenured positions and graduate assistantships. While Schneider reports that Composition graduates are getting jobs at faster rates than Literature graduates (par 26-27), the bulk of Composition positions are still part-time and non-tenure track. The CCCC Committee on Part-Time / Adjunct Issues, working with the Coalition on the Academic Workforce, reported in 2001 that even in freestanding writing programs, part-time employees, adjuncts, and graduate assistants teach 75% of introductory courses,“among the highest percentages” acros

FAQs

Why does the author say few people outside academia understand composition work?

The author describes how people respond with pity or dismissive remarks, often assuming the job is simply creative writing or punctuation drills. Even within universities, faculty from other disciplines hold vague or inaccurate views of marking and teaching composition.

How does ambiguity about composition affect the field?

The article links ambiguity to institutional decisions and recognition, including the lack of composition as a recognized research field by the NRC until efforts like the Visibility Project. This influences research agendas, funding, and how composition is treated in higher education.

What does the author identify as ethical responsibility for composition teachers?

The author argues that teaching composition has consequences for students’ real lives and must be answerable to justice. Compositionists should reflect on and declare their own answers to what it means to be a composition teacher, especially under corporatization and standardization.

Oct 15, 2026

Upload by SANS