Student-Authored Textbooks: Challenging Expertise, Establishing Authority, Shaping Discourse.

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Title: Student-Authored Textbooks: Challenging Expertise, Establishing Authority, Shaping Discourse.
Authors: Friend, Chris1
Source: Composition Studies. Fall2024, Vol. 52 Issue 2, p29-49. 21p.
Subject Terms: *Students, *Textbooks, *Discourse, *Audience awareness
Abstract: Composition courses have a contentious relationship with textbooks. On one hand, textbooks grant legitimacy to a "eld that historically struggled with its image of being in service to other "elds. On the other hand, in a course designed to teach students authorial agency, discursive sensitivity, audience awareness, and the dialogic nature of writing, textbooks' typical monolithic anonymity and ethos of sacred infallibility puts them at odds with the content they contain. Further, because textbooks are often written by prominent, established scholars long separated from the undergraduate experience, theoretically sound and widely accessible textbooks can be hard to "nd. To address these issues, this article proposes context-specific, student-generated textbooks as a way to achieve three goals: First, to challenge the traditional understanding of expertise by emphasizing constructed knowledge. Second, to leverage student positionality, allowing students to write as authorities while learning the discipline. And third, to become a platform for discourse within an institution's composition program. Overall, this article argues that creating textbooks gives students practical experience with meaningful writing situations and genuine, familiar audiences. By creating course materials, students learn to assert authorial expertise, build audience-aware writing strategies, and enact iterative revision practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Copyright of Composition Studies is the property of Composition Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
Database: Education Research Complete
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  Data: Student-Authored Textbooks: Challenging Expertise, Establishing Authority, Shaping Discourse.
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  Data: Composition courses have a contentious relationship with textbooks. On one hand, textbooks grant legitimacy to a "eld that historically struggled with its image of being in service to other "elds. On the other hand, in a course designed to teach students authorial agency, discursive sensitivity, audience awareness, and the dialogic nature of writing, textbooks' typical monolithic anonymity and ethos of sacred infallibility puts them at odds with the content they contain. Further, because textbooks are often written by prominent, established scholars long separated from the undergraduate experience, theoretically sound and widely accessible textbooks can be hard to "nd. To address these issues, this article proposes context-specific, student-generated textbooks as a way to achieve three goals: First, to challenge the traditional understanding of expertise by emphasizing constructed knowledge. Second, to leverage student positionality, allowing students to write as authorities while learning the discipline. And third, to become a platform for discourse within an institution's composition program. Overall, this article argues that creating textbooks gives students practical experience with meaningful writing situations and genuine, familiar audiences. By creating course materials, students learn to assert authorial expertise, build audience-aware writing strategies, and enact iterative revision practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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  Data: <i>Copyright of Composition Studies is the property of Composition Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract.</i> (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
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        Text: English
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      – SubjectFull: Students
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Textbooks
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      – SubjectFull: Discourse
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      – SubjectFull: Audience awareness
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              Text: Fall2024
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