Reframing Composition Discourse in the Age of Completion-Based Policy Reform

Abstract

In conducting an institutional ethnography of Complete College Ohio (CCO), this study examines the discourse of completion education recommendations and writing administrators to understand how writing programs can amplify writing studies. In the State of Ohio, dual enrollment (DE) has allowed pre-college students to gain college credit for general education courses, particularly the composition series, in grades 7-12, without leaving their middle or high school settings, allowing students to bypass writing courses at the university completely. Examining the language of two data sets, CCO’s recommended reforms for DE and university administrators’ language on composition in the university, analysis concludes a managerial class has been implemented to surveil students and faculty to ensure degree efficiency while writing administrators omit complex talking points the higher order composing work of transfer, genre, and linguistic justice for lower-level acquisition of skills and transfer.