Number 11: for the week of April 8, 2010

My dear readers,

The main topic at issue in this week's readings is the idea of how to teach writing. Which of the myriad of competing theories is best? Is there one theory so pedagogically sound that it would completely cover every conceivable writing situation for every conceivable student? In fact, can writing even be taught?

First of all, let me go ahead and say that I believe writing can be taught. I have run across few things in life that cannot be taught. How to teach it, now that's the kicker. Personally, I do not believe that there is one single theory of "proper" writing pedagogy. Writing is an activity that expresses itself so many different ways in so many different genres that it seems to me both simplistic and more than a little arrogant to say that any single theory is so supreme that all others should be done away with. I ask you, show me one area of life where that is the case. I'll wager you cannot do it, because no area of life is as clear cut as all that.

"Post process pedagogy: a philosophical exercise" deals with that same idea. It considers whether writing can even be taught, and after coming to the conclusion that it can advocates attempting and even mixing a variety of approaches. When I had said in class that the writing process is "whatever works" that is essentially what I mean. In other words, one size does not fit all students. Mind you, I do believe that it is possible and likely for each individual student to find a writing process that works for them. Moreover, once they find it I think they should stick to it unless it stops providing satisfying results and personal fulfillment which I see as two of writings main goals. This is part of the reason why at the start of every paper writing cycle, I give my English 102 students one "drafting day". When they come in on those days, they are free to use any generative process they choose: outlining, concept mapping, clustering, or anything else they can think of. Nearly all of my students, by their own admission, have never yet been given the freedom to explore the writing process and find out what works for them. They've always just been force-fed someone else's prescriptive program. I believe I mentioned earlier in the semester about the girl who asked me if I required a concept map with the first paper. See, that's what I mean most students don't see things like concept mapping as tools to help them in the writing process. Instead they see them as one more hoop they have to jump through to keep the professor from breathing fire down their neck. I never want my students to have to feel like they have to do things exactly the way I do them if that is not what works best for them.

In his article "contemporary composition: the major pedagogical theories" Berlin has it right when he says that we are teaching a view of reality when we are teaching writing. That is completely true because writing involves generating, assimilating and then communicating notions about the world. Even if we don't want to go that far we could say that we are teaching a view of what writing and academia are every time we teach writing. That is because what we as individual writing teachers choose to emphasize or leave out of our teaching will on some level shape the students that emerge from our classes. I do not think that this is done maliciously. I simply think that each writing teacher is using the skills and examples they have built up over a lifetime. Parker J. Palmer in The Courage to Teach says the teachers must teach from who they are. That is why I teach writing using not only literary and composition examples but also examples from history, sports, and even Saturday morning cartoons. I teach this way because that is who I am. Whatever your method, or philosophical slant if you show your students you genuinely believe in the "bill of goods" you are "selling them" they usually respond well in my albeit limited experience. I also enjoyed the idea of Berlin talking about teaching writing in terms of a view of reality because it made me think of his earlier article about current traditional rhetoric and how constrained and formulaic most of that is.

I like the idea Downs proposes in his article about renaming and re-envisioning first-year composition as introduction to writing studies. If we did that, maybe more students would be able to learn about writing is about effective communication and self-expression not just red ink on paper, letter grades, and sleepless nights. Maybe then we could teach students about the principles behind rhetoric and how to be persuasive without them worrying about the next hoop they have to jump through grade wise. Mind you, I can see how it would be difficult to get something like that off the ground since most people outside of composition only care about visible results like the number of typos in a paper.

Along those same lines one particular point mentioned in Fulkerson's article "composition at the turn of the 21st century" particularly strikes me. That is the idea that many teachers try on some level to prepare their students for "the" academic discourse community… yeah, like there is only one. Are you kidding? There are dozens at least. Every department of every college qualifies as one. Every discipline from engineering to theater needs and wants different things out of its writers. Add to that the fact that every composition classroom is slightly different because no two instructors are identical and you may get the impression, as I do, that the most of composition teacher can do most of the time is to give his or her students experience with as many different types of writing as the constraints of the composition class will allow. Of course it is difficult to do this in many cases because most composition students are so new to the college environment they haven't a clue what academic discipline or discourse community they want to have anything to do with. Therefore, while I as a composition teacher might hopefully expose them at some point to types of writing they will eventually have to do in their chosen majors they will invariably see any other kind of writing that I show them as worthless. Indeed, if they don't have a major yet they might see every kind of writing I show them as worthless for anything other than a grade on a transcript. I've got to be honest, no one ever had to explain the value of writing to me. When you are as physically isolated as I have been at many points in my life you quickly learn to make full use of any tool you can find that helps connect you to others.

I have to admit of all the articles for this week "what works in teaching composition" was the least understandable to me and therefore the least helpful. On a different note, the fact that they found so many different theories present in the studies they examined testifies to the state of flux characterizing this type of pedagogy.

Thank you so much for your time,

James Altman