Writing Thresholds: A Website about Threshold Concepts in Writing Studies
Threshold Concepts of Writing
Threshold concepts have become prominent in writing studies pedagogies, most notably those that follow a Writing about Writing framework. Threshold concepts offer writing studies teachers an opportunity to help learners think like a writer (Phillips et al., 2019; Yancey et al., 2014). As Johnson (2019) discussed, threshold concepts enable writing teachers to use writing theories and make them practical for learners in their classrooms. Threshold concepts, to quote Downs and Robertson (2015), can help bring “individual theories about writing within a framework that allows for transformation” (p. 111). This transformation shifts a writer's values and perceptions of what writing is, how it is done, what it is used for, and how it can have maximum effect on the writer’s audience. Connecting writers to theories of writing can give them an in-depth knowledge of a writing concept that they can then practice through classroom activities, interactions, and assignments.
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Asking Critical Questions of Writing Threshold Concepts
Although threshold concepts have proven a useful pedagogical approach in the writing classroom, there has been increased discussion around what these concepts should be. Threshold concepts are meant to offer “ways of seeing, ways of understanding that change a learner’s stance” (Yancey, 2015, x). But every learner is different. Writers come to the classroom with disparate experiences and insights.
To properly meet this diversity of students and develop threshold concept pedagogies that accommodate them, writing scholars have been asking critical questions such as: Who determines threshold concepts? What role might students play in developing and understanding threshold concepts of writing? Why are certain threshold concepts appropriate in one context but ineffective in another? How might threshold concepts meet the diversity of learners who take writing courses each year?
These are big questions. They won’t be answered quickly—many may never have definitive answers. But recent scholarship, such as the articles in (Re)Considering What We Know offer the first step in developing these conversations.