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"In her study of four writers in the workplace, Anne Beaufort challenges the assumptions of high school and college writing teachers. How? By showing us that going from school writing to work is like falling out of bed while asleep. She concludes, among other things, that a ‘student can gain full measure from a general writing course only with serious, sustained engagement with a specific subject matter.’ That one idea alone hits at the very foundation of writing instruction in most U.S. schools."
–Miles Myers, Former Executive Secretary, National Council of Teachers of English
"Writing in the Real World is one of the best ethnographies to come out of composition studies in many a year. Richly detailed, carefully argued, and beautifully written, this book situates us in an organization where writing is for high-stakes and invites us to follow four competent writers over the course of a year as they gain writing expertise. Beaufort adds new energy to recent debates about discourse communities and general vs. contextualized writing knowledge, and she goes a great distance in helping us understand what constitutes writing expertise."
–Glynda Hull, University of California at Berkeley
How can we prepare the workforce of tomorrow to meet the increasing writing demands placed upon them in the Information Age? In this timely text, Anne Beaufort provides a multidimensional response to this critical question. Through analyzing the knowledge domains writers draw upon in specific writing situations, Beaufort illuminates the conditions that contribute to the ongoing development of writing skills.
Using findings gathered in a longitudinal study of four women, Beaufort renders a richly drawn ethnographical account of how writers are socialized into ways of communicating according to the conventions of their workplace. Beaufort offers a vital view of the developmental process entailed in attaining writing fluency in school and beyond, and the conditions that contribute to acquiring such expertise. Her book illuminates what it takes to foster the flexibility and versatility writers must possess in the workplace of the twenty-first century.
Anne Beaufort is an assistant professor and director of the College Writing Program in the Department of Literature at American University.
