James'+Thoughts+on+Composition

I think Ray brings up a great point. Writers should have time to write as writers. It should be a separate discipline. Yancey's article, in many ways, points out that this should be easy to do. We don't have to write with pencils or smeared ink pens anymore.

My definition of composition, then would be a combination of Ray and Yancey's points. Composition is it's own discipline. There's not a substitute for it. Composition is its own independent activity. It requires thought and focus to compose information and ideas. A tragedy of high school English is that student's aren't often given the chance to compose, at least not within the realms of their own creativity. I also agree with Yancey's broader point that composition's medium changes. Students today compose for many reasons, but they do so on blogs, social sites, or wiki pages. The important thing is that it's composition, and as an instructor, one must find a way to make composition it's own discipline and use the mediums students will want to use.