Our History

The Division of Rhetoric & Writing became the Department of Rhetoric & Writing in November 2006. Though our status as a department is relatively new, our discipline has enjoyed a long history at UT.

Our mission and purpose has been shaped over the years by the array of fine rhetoricians and composition scholars who have worked in the Department of English, many of whom were luminaries in the field. James Kinneavy and Maxine Hairston are just two of those whose impact is still felt in the way our department approaches the teaching of rhetoric and writing. Long before graduate students in English could officially concentrate in rhetoric, these scholars encouraged their students and colleagues to approach literature and other forms of discourse rhetorically. They also laid the groundwork for the argumentation-based courses that are the foundation of our undergraduate curriculum and of RHE306, the required first-year course in writing.

Due to the influence of these and other rhetoricians, scholarly interest in rhetoric and composition studies grew at UT, and in 1993, the Division of Rhetoric & Composition (later renamed the Division of Rhetoric & Writing) was established to provide an outstanding undergraduate writing program at the University of Texas. It was assisted in carrying out that mission by three components that are critical to the Department to this day: the Undergraduate Writing Center, the Computer Writing and Research Lab, and the Writing Across the Curriculum Initiative/Substantial Writing Component Program.

Founded along with the DRW, the Undergraduate Writing Center (UWC) is one of the largest facilities of its kind in the country. In a typical year, UWC consultants hold more than 10,000 sessions with UT students. The Center's services—ranging from assistance on first-year papers to help with job resumes—are available to all undergraduates, and its website provides interactive tutorials and handouts that address many aspects of the writing process.

At its inception the DRW also assumed leadership of the Computer Writing and Research Lab (CWRL), one of the first and most respected centers for the study of writing and pedagogy in electronic environments. Founded in 1986 by Jerome Bump and John Slatin, the CWRL maintains five state-of-the art computer classrooms, a multimedia lab, and a comprehensive Web site. Like the UWC, it is staffed primarily by graduate student instructors, whose teaching and research contribute to the developing body of knowledge about the uses of computer technology in writing instruction.

More recently, the DRW initiated programs to support the numerous Substantial Writing Component (SWC) courses at the University of Texas. The College of Liberal Arts Writing Across the Curriculum Initiative (WAC) maintains a resource-rich website to support writing instruction in every discipline. The WAC director and coordinator also conduct faculty workshops in writing instruction and assessment techniques, and they perform their own assessments of writing instruction quality at UT.

In addition to overseeing these components, the Department of Rhetoric & Writing contributes to various programs designed to benefit elementary and secondary schools in Texas. We teach courses that support the UTeach-Liberal Arts program; and with the Office of the Vice President for Community and School Relations, we have developed SPURS, Students Partnering for Undergraduate Rhetoric Success. Individually, many of our faculty members conduct faculty workshops with primary and secondary school educators around the state and the nation.

In Fall 2006, the College of Liberal Arts made a rhetoric major available to undergraduates. The DRW also offers a minor (available since 1999) and supports the undergraduate English major by teaching upper-division courses in rhetoric and composition that fulfill Area IV requirements.

In addition to providing quality instruction to undergraduates, our faculty teach the majority of graduate courses in two of the Department of English's Ph.D. concentrations: Rhetoric, and Computers and English Studies (the first program of its kind in the nation). Since 1967, more than 75 dissertations have been completed in these areas; and since the Rhetoric concentration began in 1979, almost every graduate who has sought one has taken a tenure-track position. Others have explored less traditional paths and become highly successful educational software developers, science writers, and independent scholars.