The Crystal Ball Project: Predicting the Future of Composition and the Preparation of Composition Teachers

Abstract

In this article the authors peer into current elementary classrooms and college composition courses in 2020 to envision what K–12 and composition curricula can do now to ensure today's students are prepared for those future composition classes. The authors interviewed veteran (20 or more years) K–6 teachers in a small university town and directors of composition programs. Both interview sets expressed a concern that we are not keeping pace with the changing literacies of our students. The interviews with the K–6 teachers also showed that students bring different literacy skills to elementary school than a generation ago. In addition, the authors conducted a survey across a multicampus research university to ascertain the kinds of compositions instructors assigned and whether multimodal compositions were an option. The survey indicated that change is already occurring at the university level. The authors argue it is imperative that K–16 educators, starting with middle and high school teachers, begin to dialogue about new literacies now or we will not be ready to prepare our students at either the secondary or university levels for 2020 and beyond.