Exposing the Field of Writing

To the editors:

I had to laugh at the unnamed writing program director who said Tom Jehn wasn’t “an intellectual force in the field.” As someone who taught Expos for eight years, I can attest that there are no “intellectual forces” in the field, which I wouldn’t say is even a “field.” Yes, there is something called “composition studies” (sometimes “composition theory”), there is at least one professional society, and there are peer-reviewed journals, but all that can be safely ignored by any good writing teacher, as indeed was the case by most of my colleagues during my time. Pedagogy is important, and we were lucky to have Gordon Harvey (author of the Harvard standby Writing with Sources) to teach us how to teach writing until he was mysteriously removed in 2006, but I would describe writing instruction as an artisan’s trade that is hampered by theory just as would be true in watchmaking or leather-working.

As his colleague for eight years and friend for longer, I can say that Tom Jehn is the perfect choice to lead Expos. As the article’s other quotations suggest, he has spent two intense years rebuilding a program with transparency, decency, and new ideas. A superb teacher himself—perhaps the article could have given his average Q rating over the last 10 years? —he has proven himself an effective and trusted administrator. He’s also pretty bright: an intellectual force I would say, if the term wasn’t already debased. Harvard’s undergraduates will benefit from a master teacher in charge more than from any leading composition scholar it may find elsewhere.

Eric Weinberger

Cambridge, Mass.

April 28, 2009