I have been a student for so long, preparing to be a composition professor, that when the day finally came, it was daunting to be on the other side of the classroom. Yet there I was, with twenty different pairs of eyes staring back at me. I was sure they were wondering what kind of teacher I would be; hard, easy, able to trust? While I was nervous, I knew what kind of teacher I wanted to be. Much like Irene Clark states in her book, Concepts in Composition, I wanted to foster “experimentation and exploration so that students will be able to entertain possibilities without fear of ridicule or negative evaluation” (58). With this in mind, I wanted to teach them genre awareness so that they could differentiate between the rhetorical strategies within genres and then be able to recognize those genres in other classes. I wanted my students to realize that writing is a process and that they should focus on the process and not the end product. And I wanted my students to realize that they were no longer writing for themselves. As college students preparing to enter the professional world, they need to realize that they are writing to an audience, to persuade others to join their way of thinking. I wanted my students to learn these basic tenets of writing so that they could then transfer this knowledge to other classes and, ultimately, to their professional careers.
I approached my English 114A class as a genre based course by having a theme concept throughout the course, but using different types of essays. The three types I focused on were personal narrative, argumentative, and literary analysis, as these were the essays the students were more likely to see in other courses. A concept I emphasized was genre awareness, which is the “understanding texts in terms of genre, viewing a text in terms of its rhetorical and social purpose, and recognizing how various elements of a text derive from its rhetorical function” (Clark 187). As there are too many different types of writings to learn in one semester, teaching genre awareness helps to demystify the writing process for students. As we went through each essay, the students needed to prove to me that they knew what each type of essay was required. For instance, in their argumentative essay, they had to show that they knew what the prior conversation was on the topic and what their stance/claim was. They also had to employ the rhetorical triangle as a way to create an effective argument. By using genre awareness, the students could engage rhetoric and rhetorical moves by analyzing, even criticizing the differences between genres.
While the students focused on genre awareness, they also needed to realize that they’re writing not only for themselves anymore, but for other people as well. Writing is seen as a solitary process when in fact writing is actually dialogic, being part of a conversation. In order to have a position, they needed to know what others were saying. Then, when they had their claim, they needed to use the rhetorical triangle to appeal to their audience. However, what may work for one audience may not work for another. Irene Clark, noted author and college professor, believes that “helping students understand multiple notions of audience, incorporating the concept of audience into writing assignments, and spending time in class examining audience cues in texts will enable students to write for a broad range of readers in both their educational and professional lives” (126). An exercise I used to prove this to my students was to have them write a letter to a friend and then one to the author. While both letters were about the same topic, the writing varied because the audience was different. By acknowledging the audience and the perspectives that changed with differing audiences, the students were able to write with the idea of the conversation being discussed and the possible reactions from others. They were able to anticipate varying responses and write with this in mind.
An idea that has circulated around for several years is that writing should not be graded by its final end product, but rather should be judged by how the writer gets to the final product, their process. Process takes the individual steps of writing and focuses on these steps to enhance students’ writings. Often, students become overwhelmed by writing because they are focused on the rules and the idea of failing. But Mike Rose, author of “Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language,” has researched process variation with composition students and found that the “students that offer the least precise rules and plans have the least trouble composing” (157). The students were better adept at writing by forgetting the requirements and focusing on their specific writing process. By focusing on their process, the students were able to generate ideas and content that facilitated their writing, and the grade then became an afterthought. For example, in my 114A class, I had many students who “hated” writing. But they hated it because they zeroed in on the page numbers and mechanics and couldn’t even think of topics to write. I used scaffolding in my class, a series of exercises designed to generate ideas for their essays. These exercises were a simple check grade, so the students were able to focus on the ideas. By the time the essay prompt was revealed, many of the students already had ideas about what they wanted to write about, so their end product happened effortlessly. And they were able to do so because I reinforced that the journey (process) was more important than the destination (product).
While I found these techniques to be helpful, I want to incorporate more in my English 114B course. The majority of my students from the A course are also taking me for the B course. This provides me with the opportunity not to just review but to cover techniques I was unable to focus on previously. And while 114A was a more individual type of writing class, 114B is more expansive with collaboration within groups and real world applications, like the building and maintaining a website for the duration of the semester. Therefore, while keeping these techniques in mind, I will be introducing Elbow’s concept of expression with Graff’s concept of format and structure. Peter Elbow is a leading advocate of voice and believes that even “freewriting is stronger than the essays we get only because it is expressive, narrative, or descriptive writing and the student was not constrained” (176). The writing is stronger because the student is able to focus on their voice and their prior knowledge. Gerald Graff, on the other hand, believes that writing can be simplified by using templates. He argues that these strategies “simplify the basic ‘moves’ of public argument for students who have difficulty making them on their own” (40). He uses formats as a way to guide the students in writing, to show it as a formula to be figured out. These two concepts seem to be polar opposites, but both are about helping the students find their way in writing. Combining these two ideas creates a balance where the students are able to speak with their individual strengths in their writings while still keeping within the framework of what is being asked of them in the essay prompt. And by keeping genre awareness in mind, the students will be able to respond to the differences in the varying structures without losing their voice.
Each semester I like to have a theme and it seems appropriate that my 114B course theme is identity. What is their identity in different contexts? As identity is performative, it changes when in different settings, much like writing in varying genres. According to Anis Bawarshi, “genres also help shape and maintain the ways we act within particular situations-helping us as both readers and writers to function within those situations while also shaping the ways we come to know them” (Clark 183). And since voicing expression will be emphasized, the students will be exploring these various ideas of identities and how they come about in differing realms of reality. Much like identity, by focusing on the differences in writing assignments, the students can learn the techniques for understanding any assignment and, ultimately, any project created in their post college careers.
The idea behind the implementation of these concepts is so that the students can then transfer this knowledge to other courses and even in their professional lives once they graduate. This idea is known as knowledge transfer and it is the key for success when writing across the curriculum. Authors of Writing Across Contexts: Transfer, Composition, and Sites of Writing, Kathleen Yancey, Liane Robertson, and Kara Taczak, state that “research suggests that students do develop a writing process and they do use and adapt it as they move beyond FYC” (emphasis in original, 16). So rather than just teach literary analysis, I plan to use assignments that require critical thinking to attack real world issues. By learning the rhetorical strategies to assess these issues, they can then use the same strategies in other arenas. For instance, I plan on teaching visual rhetoric and implementing this concept as a requirement for their project web, which will entail a working website. The students learn then not only the tools to create an online presence, but the strategies that can make said presentation effective. According to Lisa Gerrard, this type of essay is a multimodal, which “makes meaning by interconnecting words with interactive features… visual elements, … moving media, … sound effects, … or any combination of these media” (420). The culmination of the semester will be group presentations in which the students not only defend their positions on the effect of online media on individual identities, but also defend their choices in how they made their websites aesthetically pleasing and effective. This type of multimodality, a means of incorporating writing and media with a sense of fluidity and confidence, can be used in other classes for presentations, and in meetings in their careers.
While I do emphasize transfer knowledge as a concept in my teaching of English 114B, I do not see English composition courses as simply skills courses. Based on the several techniques discussed, I believe the opposite. English composition does have a place in the curriculum of higher education. Skills course implies that it is easily taught and then completed, but English composition is so much more than that. Writing is essential because it is used throughout any one’s college career. Mastering the basic tenets of writing is key in succeeding in college. While one can excel in Chemistry, you do not need this skill for all your other courses. You will, however, need to know how to write a report for that same Chemistry class. Writing echoes throughout the halls of higher education, yet its education can never be seen as completed. It is a widely held belief that “writing is a recursive process and that teaching writing means helping students develop a process that works effectively for them” (Clark 23), but it is never linear or static. I often tell my students that they are never truly finished with their essays. There is no such thing as a perfect essay and there is always something in their writing that can be adjusted, tuned, fixed. Writing is the most important thing they can learn in school as it will serve them their entire lives. By implementing these techniques, I am being the teacher I want to be because my students will leave my class with the tools and strategies to do well in their writings.
Works Cited:
Clark, Irene. Concepts in Composition: Theory and Practice in the Teaching of Writing. 2nd Edition. New York: Routledge, 2012. Print.
Elbow, Peter. “Closing my Eyes as I Speak: An Argument for Ignoring Audience.” Teaching Composition: Background Readings. Ed. T.R. Johnson. 3rd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008. Print.
Gerrard, Lisa. “Writing in Multiple Media.” Concepts in Composition: Theory and Practice in the Teaching of Writing. 2nd Edition. Irene Clark. New York: Routledge, 2012. Print.
Rose, Mike. “Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language: A Cognitivist Analysis of Writer’s Block.” Teaching Composition: Background Readings. Ed. T.R. Johnson. 3rd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008. Print.
Yancey, Kathleen Blake, Liane Robertson, and Kara Taczak. Writing Across Contexts: Transfer, Composition, and Sites of Writing. Logan: Utah State University Press, 2014. Print.