The readings these past two weeks (and, I suspect, those still to come) have fed my general sense of bitterness about teaching freshman comp/rhet—a sense that was particularly strong after this past year of teaching, and also continual ideas about how to fix it all. In fact, as I wrote I took notes in three files: my standard reading outlines, ideas for blog posts, and ideas to implement in my classes. Hopefully my thoughts will become more organized in the coming weeks, but for now here’s a catch-all pile of thoughts (akin to Macrorie’s freewriting with a purpsose, perhaps).
I’ve long been unhappy about the lack of undergraduate rhetoric courses (what happened to the classes between freshman year and grad school, for example?), a question largely answered by the discussions of the origin of modern English depts. by Parker and Horner (though my dissatisfaction remains). I speculate that a return to rhetoric might move fresh-comp toward the broad applicability people desire it to have.
This leads me to take a slightly defensive position for a moment and stand up both for comps position in the English dept, as well as the ever-unpopular essay. English depts may have overreached for selfish reasons, but it’s been my experience that other departments are fiercely resistant to teaching writing, and many instructors in, for example history, simply refuse to discuss writing at all despite having essay requirements for their classes. So let’s not pin the blame on English depts. alone. Next, let me say right off that I agree the expectation that FYC can teach “writing” to all students in all disciplines is absolutely impossible. Teaching one very specific form of writing in one year may also be impossible (I’m still bitter, apparently). But, given that wildly broad requirement, is it possible that the essay actually might be a somewhat sensible form to teach? Might it be that elements of essay style and structure (clarity of purpose, organization, etc) can be applied to a range of other writing? Perhaps, accidental as it may be, the essay is not such a horrible way to try to do the impossible and teach all forms of writing to all students in two semesters.
Another thing that struck me was how little teaching comp has changed. Jardine’s order of assigned themes, as outlined in Horner, could apply to any number of comp classes today. However, I’m not sure that change is an innately good thing; math teaching is likely awfully similar to a century ago as well. I read Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions a year ago, and it’s struck me again and again since then that the humanities are decidedly not the sciences as people seem to revisit the same issues again and again rather than building from previous knowledge or even letting a paradigm guide future research. As Kitzhaber notes, changes in teaching are generally circular, with ideas discarded in one place simultaneously adopted in another. Very frustrating.
I know we were assigned 200 words, and perhaps in the future I’ll try to reduce my entries to a mere 400, but let me add one more item: one idea I’m considering for my next 1301 course.
Let students choose their own topics through the following process:
1. They freewrite a few times to develop ideas
2. They write a short proposal for their project
3. Write an outline that they “present” in a class discussion where we all discuss and banter and so forth so they have to do more than read an outline to the class)
4. Then they write the real thing (but likely a piece at a time, with lots of peer editing)
BUT… what’s the role of assigned readings in such a setup? Not sure.
Woo – Steve, I think this class might be cathartic for you. :)
ReplyDeleteI agree that the essay is underrated. It’s true that most people never write an essay except in academia (and for academic purposes). But if our students are going to spend the next four (or more) years in academia, then we should probably teach them how to write for it. I owe my entire college career to a high school English teacher who taught me how to write a clean essay quickly. Once I entered college, I spent half the time that my peers did writing term papers, which made school much more manageable.
I think that the bitterness about the essay comes from two sources. First is that writing instructors slavishly stick to the essay even when presented with more practical (work-relevant) options. Second is that I think English teachers are just sick of reading essays.
One thing I find… unhelpful… about the essay is when instructors blindly present it as the epitome of writing, which is what I think some of the readings/podcasts were hinting at. When taught this way, instructors fail to make the essay skills (like organization) generalizable across contexts. Instructors think the essay’s virtues are “obvious.”
In reality, though, students are really crappy at generalizing across contexts. Well, at least mine are; I don’t know how yours are. But mine cannot generalize a skill (e.g., “organization”) from one context (“essay”) and apply it to a different context (“proposal”). Instructors need to realize the limitations of the essay and help students learn to reflectively synthesize those skills to more contexts.
Finally, I really like your 1301 ideas. I do something similar in my upper division course, though with multiple assignments at once. The assigned readings serve to 1) inspire their ideas and 2) guide them in formatting and grammar. To this end, I usually have one formatting book like the _Little, Brown Handbook_ and another more narrative book. Since my class is a service learning course, I’ve been using Mary Pipher’s _Writing to Change the World_.
Good post, Steve. Your paragraph on writing across the curriculum makes me realize that persons who teach composition bear an unreasonable load. It also helps me realize that the essay is really a coin of the realm rather than just the least harmful form in which to teach writing. I really identified with Macrorie’s and others’ observation that no one writes an essay after college. However, if students realize that their audience will be instructors in many of their upper-level classes across various disciplines, then maybe we as composition instructors can incorporate more useful assignments directed toward those audiences. Instead of “Just write…,” maybe we should say “Just write for your economics professor.”
ReplyDeleteSteve,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your blog. My opinion comes from the outside looking in, and yours is certainly from the inside looking out. I firmly believe that English Composition has so much potential. However, you made me think should writing only be taught for one year in college? Unfortunately, with students coming from different high schools and being at different levels….it depends. One of last week’s readings highlighted “provision for the superior student and remedial courses.” To fully maximize students’ writing potential I think it’s best to cater to the needs of the students. For the superior students maybe all they need is year of English Composition. On the other hand, the students who need more help should take remedial English courses, which would probably spread their writing classes out over the course of a couple of years. Either way, English Composition is taught as a one size fits all course and it shouldn’t be.