Skinnell, Ryan. Conceding Composition: A Crooked History of Composition's Institutional Fortunes

Citation	Skinnell, Ryan. Conceding Composition: A Crooked History of Composition's Institutional Fortunes, Utah State University Press, 2016.
Questions & Rebuttals	In the introduction Skinnell objects to critiques of composition as a "cash cow," but his analysis of the ways comp was conceded in exchange for something else essentially makes the same point: it is leveraged for institutional rather than intellectual value. Therefore, composition's profitability (FTE) could be a recent iteration of the argument he's already making. As degrees become more expensive, composition helps equal the burden of cost as a required course. It serves an institutional purpose.
Big Takeaways	"In Conceding Composition, I undertake a small inventive step by rereading the history of composition as an institutional, rather than an intellectual, entity. Contrary to popular belief, I contend that composition is, and has long been, a boon for postsecondary institutions. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, composition has routinely been used to evince postsecondary institutions credentials as providers of mass education, with the goal of maintaining political and economic support for higher education (xi). "I assert that despite well-documented and broad-ranging criticisms of first-year composition s pedagogical, theoretical, and sociocultural efficacy, the course s enduring existence in American higher education can be usefully understood by considering its positive value for meeting specific institutional needs irrespective of student needs, demographics, disciplinary knowledge, pedagogical best practices, or even improved student writing" (17) "I contend that first-year composition has been "conceded by administrators and faculty around the country to advance broaden non-disciplinary institutional interests tied to organizational development and daily operations" (24). Ch1: Methodology Ch2: Normal schools to colleges and composition Ch3: Accreditation Ch4: Gaining federal funding
Keywords	acccreditation composition institutional critique composition history concession
Glossary	Concession: "something that is yielded or surrendered, either in deference to a more powerful authority or in exchange for other benefits"; "yielding one thing to attain another desirable thing or outcome"; a space of transaction (e.g., concession stand) (14)
Quotes	Introduction "In other words, studying composition in relation to non-disciplinary institutional exigencies has the potential to significantly reshape what we know about composition s history" (12) "the connection of institutional needs to composicion education was neither incidental nor accidental" (13).  "But by reducing the cognitive demands of one kind of institutional constraint, the socalled service function, rhetoric and composition specialists might suddenly discover (1) pedagogical and scholarly opportunities that were previously obscured and (2) new lines of argument that can effectively advance the profession, both within institutions and potentially outside of them" (23). Chapter 3 "composition requirements were introduced in many places to provide evidence of coordination and standardization...Consequently, composition became one of the most prominent college courses in the country as accreditation became a dominant force in the twentieth century" (75). "The first-year requirement was less about whether students could write and much more so a concession to the institution s needs to make Harvard responsive to high schools and to nonclassically trained students" (92). Conclusion "first-year composition s value as an institutional concession helps explain why the course endured in American higher education and why it thrived, despite a steady procession of complaints from all quarters that composition did not (and does not) meet its ostensible purposes of remediating underdeveloped matriculants, preparing students for subsequent college writing tasks, or helping students to write better more generally" (138).
Summary	Introduction It's lacking content made composition useful for institutional needs. Arguments in favor of legitimizing composition by improving teaching and credentialing is a misdiagnosis. The institution doesn't see composition's value the same way compositionists do.  We should redefine composition as a concession instead of a service to 1) realize that we cannot meet institutional criteria for intellectual advances and 2) reconsider how composition fits into the university Composition not a gatekeeping mechanism but rather a proof that institutions could educate large numbers of enrollees.  Chapter 1 Skinnell rejects often propelled theories about composition and its history in favor of a symbiotic methodology. That is, composition came into being for the institution's needs for accreditation and legitimacy. Skinnell uses an institutional lens. He calls his methodology "genitive history" He then turns to other historical methodologies.  Historians often overlook institutional changes that don't directly affect the discipline, even though the changes they overlook were massively impactful for institutions of higher education. He wants to take a panoramic view of composition by privileging changes in institutions, names Arizona State University. Genetive history (his methodology) allows him to "locate concerns that affected composition education at institutions more broadly" (42). Essentially, Skinnell's genetive history means he can write a history of composition because composition is (not possessed by) but heavily associated with macro institutional changes, which means he can generalize to composition at large. Studying how institutional changes at ASU impacted composition allows Skinnell to sketch implications for composition at other places since they, too, are heavily associated with institutions. This is not a deterministic, genetic history, but a genetive history. This is different than providing a micro or macro history. However, genetive history makes larger associative connection by tracing larger motivating occurrences through the local to see how that manifested materially.  Chapter 2 "One of my explicit goals in this chapter is to challenge the false equivalence of composition at universities like Harvard and at normal schools like Tempe Normal. I contend that despite composition s importance in normal schools, it was fundamentally different from composition at colleges and universities as a direct consequence of normal schools' unique institutional mission-teaching teachers to teach in public elementary and high schools" (49). This is important in disciplinary histories as most privilege the genesis of comp at Harvard.  Normal school composition theories and pedagogies closely match those at Harvard. However, composition wasn't clinical. It didn't serve as a one-year correction and purification. Though the curricula matched, the normal school's comp courses were essentially post-secondary and unlike university composition served a very specific purpose as outlined by its charter.  Skinnell examines two normal schools to show how institutional needs to gain college designation entailed institutional shifts in how composition was placed within the institution. It was a lever. Chapter 3 There is little written in the field as to how accreditation has affected composition and vice versa.  Normal schools were encouraged (coerced) to shift to colleges based on accreditation standards. As such, comp was conceded to achieve a certain accreditation status. In striving for accreditation, inspectors assessed composition's placement in the institutional structure rather than its intellectual merits. Of particular interest, the burgeoning colleges added remedial courses to meet accreditation demands.  Conceding comp for accreditation started as early as the 1880s. (89)  Skinnell traces comp's link to accreditation back to Harvard, but Harvard is different in its concessions. Rather than conceding comp to gain accreditation, Harvard "used first-year composition to invent and develop accreditation" (91).  Harvard's involvement in the development of the first accreditation agency established its English A composition course as a standard, something expected, or as Skinnell puts it: "it was beginning to morph into a concession in a different sense-an unchallenged premise on which other arguments could be built. Specifically, first-year composition allowed the accreditation associations to advance arguments about the importance of standardization" (94).  Chapter 4 Skinnell pushes back and adds to previous comp histories that single out 1946 and the GI Bill as the most impactful federal change that influenced composition. Taking his wider institutional lens, Skinnell instead turns to earlier federal requirements in the 20th century to show how composition was conceded to meet federal standards as a way to attract funding.  Skinnell correlates curricular (institutional) changes alongside New Deal funding following Great Depression. Arizona State applied and won massive federal grants in the New Deal for infrastructure, paving the way for the soon to come GI Bill "tidal wave." Composition's exchange value in attracting federal funds had to do with constancy and a sign of stability at an institution, even though the course wasn't conceded as he previously argued. Much of this had to do with composition's role in gaining accreditation, showing the institution's legitimacy. Composition was also conceded in order to achieve university status, another gambit in securing federal funding for higher ed.  Skinnell draws an interesting line between achieving university status, implementing grad TAs to teach comp, the need for an overseer (WPA), and composition as firmly rooted as an institutional "creature." Conclusions Its institutional role prevents even its intellectual luminaries for arguing for its abolition (138).  Skinnell argues that his history of composition pushes back against composition's frequent origin story of oppression and invisibility. He further argues that any push to gain institutional recognition has unpredictable results. That is, when in the hands of administrators, his history shows a compelling case for recognizing the leverage of composition institutionally rather than validating it intellectually.  He leaves the ending a bit ambivalent as to what we should do with comp's concessionary past. He does have hope that it could be grounds for invention.
Synthesis Texts	Berlin:  Crowley Miller -any comp history-