Purdy begins by acknowledging the growing interest in writing studies to align writing programs with art and design disciplines rather than its traditional home in English departments.
If many in writing studies are turning to writing-as-design and design writing, they should know the reasons they make such moves. "Writing studies has arguably not yet realize this “fuller turn,” and that is where this article seeks to intervene" (614).
"Ultimately, I argue that design thinking offers a useful approach for tackling 'wicked' multimodal/multimedia composing tasks, an approach that asks us to reconsider writing's home in the university" (614).
The Categories of Design Use: What Do We Mean by Design?
After identifying the way "design" is used in articles and which publications use design ideas, Purdy concludes authors invoke design for five reasons in writing studies.
1. "to serve as a synonym for the words plan or structure." Since this represents a banal usage of the early ideas concerning design, Purdy doesn't address it.
2. "to conceptualize composing as multimodal." "This use of design coincides with the visual turn in writing studies, when teacher- scholars advocated seeing texts as visual; treating images as texts; and analyzing the rhetorical nature and function of images, layout, and other design features."
"importing vocabulary from design...helps teacher-scholars account for and theorize compositions using multiple modalities" (617).
3. "to recognize digital, multimedia composition...a desire to move the field beyond a sole focus on print and to account for texts in multiple media." "design offers a way to make better sense of the rhetorical work of digital media." "drawing on design ofers a perceptual lens for making sense of an inclusive range of textual productions."
4. "to draw attention to the material conditions of composing." "use design to make visible how processes and products of writing are inherently physical, embodied, and ideological...emphasize the nonneutrality of forms and acts of writing" (618).
5. "to discuss the academic discipline of design studies...they call attention to the discipline of design studies and ways in which writing studies should (or should not) draw on it." They explore possible disciplinary and interdisciplinary links.
Design Thinking: How Might We Approach Design in Relation to Writing Studies?
"Design thinking is an approach to solving complex design problems that is associated with work in architecture, engineering, and art and design disciplines" (620).
The orientations of design thinking:
1. Forward orientation: focus on future problems
2. Use of synthesis as well as analysis: focuses on combination and connection more than critique
3. Generation of many, diverse solutions: initially focuses on quantity of ideas rather than quality.
"Design thinking treats composing decisions as deliberate and consequential." Design thinking is generative and focused on creation more than critique. Therefore, design thinking doesn't abandon analysis; it links it to synthesis.
Similar to process-oriented composition, design thinking utilizes steps. Purdy uses Stanford's design school's heuristic:
1. Understand (research in writing process): gaining background knowledge in primary and secondary research
2. Observe (think about audience): observation of interaction with physical spaces
3. Define: focus on user's needs; "create an actionable point of view.
4. Ideate: generate multiple ideas to meet user needs without assessing the idea's quality
5. Prototype: "create a quick, rough representation"
6. Test: trying it out and receiving feedback
The overlap in writing process and design thinking supports writing studies' interest in design.
The "ideate" step offers an interesting notion of invention, one that stresses multiple variations on a theme.
The Saving Our Stories Project: An Example Application of Design Thinking
The example in this section combines the understand and observe step into a singular empathizing step. Defining an actionable need helped them frame and create ideas.
Conclusion: What Does Design Mean for Writing Studies?
"we need to consider what set of intellectual questions are signaled by using design in our scholarship and adopting a design orientation to writing" (632).
"Through the lens of design, a central concern of the discipline [that is, writing studies/composition] is to explore the ways in which people make meaning with any and all available resources." This movement will help the discipline focus on communicative practices, not just writing.
We can be qualified to teach the gamut that design studies includes through collaboration, which is a long-standing strength of the writing studies discipline.
Since design is by nature generative, Purdy argues that it belongs in writing studies based on its focus on meaning making. "Through the lens of design, writing studies is not defined by what we know but by the ways in which we create" (634).
Design thinking can help validate the field of writing in the university.
Purdy avoids answering whether or not writing studies within a design paradigm belong in English departments because that isn't the most fruitful question to ask. Instead we should ask these questions first:
1. Which disciplinary associations (e.g., design studies, library and infor- mation science, digital humanities, architecture, multimedia arts) are consonant with our focus and goals?
2. In what ways can we (formally and informally) cultivate these relationships on curricular and programmatic levels?
3. In what ways can we effectively communicate the need for these changes to the range of stakeholders affected by them?
4. How can we train the next generation of writing studies scholars to enact these changes?
No comments:
Post a Comment