Marback.+Embracing+Wicked+Problems+The+Turn+to+Design+in+Composition+Studies

= = =Marback, Richard. "Embracing Wicked Problems: The Turn to Design in Composition Studies"= //CCC// 61.2 2009. 397-419. Print.

Recent appeal to the concept of design in composition studies benefits teaching writing in digital media. Yet the concept of design has not been developed enough to fully benefit composition instruction. This article develops an understanding of design as a matter of resolving wicked problems and makes a case for the advantages of this understanding in composition studies.
 * Abstract **

Understanding design in composition studies is not without its challenges, “wickedness” being the most undervalued. “Wicked design problems are problems of deciding what is better when the situation is ambiguous at best.” Marback opens with a discussion about the evolution of composition studies from process to critique and then, finally, to the importance of design, discussing the relevance of wicked problems. While he agrees with the arguments made in favor of design, Marback maintains that most of the ambitions are too high. These problems should be embraced, not just solved, as there will never be a solution that fits every situation. Marback argues that composition studies do not fully teach the impact of design unless the designer is taught to consider how artifacts impact people and what emotions they create, not just the responses the designer is trying to elicit. The designer must recognize the impact artifacts may have and be sensitive to the rhetorical intentions of these creations under each set of circumstances under which the artifact is created.
 * Argument **

"So the wicked problem in any science of the artificial...is first a technical problem, the problem of figuring out how to design an appropriate response to a unique situation. Foremost, the wicked problem of design...is the problem of being accountable for responses to artifacts such as buildings and Web pages, even though the full range of divergent and potentially conflicting responses to any design can never be exhaustively predicted," (401).
 * Key Passages **

"Technologies have a structure and a pulse beyond our representations and in this way have an impact so immediately and deeply felt that we cannot express it (even if we were to fully know it)," (403).

"...designers of social futures invent artifacts that evoke responses through which we become who we are," (405).

"The richness of design derives instead from its capacity to give expression to wicked problems, an involvement of people in their manipulation of words and things---a semiotic and effective conditioning of our responses not entirely translatable into grammars of careful expression or composable into arguments of critical awareness," (406).

"Design is not an attempt to finally solve the wicked problems of designing...design is a matter of focusing student attention on visual as well as textual elements of documents," (409).

"Design begins with the immersion of the designer in responsiveness, responsiveness to artifacts as well as to others as users of artifacts. Expectations and relations do not preexist artifacts, they are the immediate and cumulative experience of interacting with artifacts," (414).

"Embracing wicked problems of design involves keeping critical discussions and explanations in perspective, retaining them as one among many responses to an artifact. Embracing the wicked problem of design is to embrace the problem of responsiveness," (416).

Berlin, James. //“Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Classroom.”// College English. 50.5 (1988): 477–94.
 * Selected Works Cited **

Buchanan, Richard. “Rhetoric, Humanism,and Design.” //Discovering Design: Explorations in Design Studies//. Ed. Richard Buchanan and Victor Margolin. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1995. 23–6.

-.“Wicked Problems in Design Thinking.” //The Idea of Design: A Design Issues Reader//. Ed. Victor Margolin and Richard Buchanan. Cambridge: MIT Press, 200.

George, Diana. //“From Analysis to Design: Visual Communication in the Teaching of Writing.”// College Composition and Communication 54.1 (2002): 11–39.

Kress, Gunther. “Design and Transformation: New Theories of Meaning.” //Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures//. Ed. Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis. New York: Routledge, 2000.149–58.

Rittel, Horst W. J., and Melvin M. Webber. //“Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning.”// Policy Sciences 4 (1973): 155–69.