Pedagogy Statement 2/(Mid Term Long Essay)

Mid Term Long Essay/Pedagogy Statement Week 10

According to Richard Fulkerson’s “Composition at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century,” one controversial issue in the discussion of college composition pedagogy has been the “variant contemporary approaches to to teaching college writing” (Fulkerson, 658). On the one hand, teachers who pursue a Critical/Cultural Studies approach, one informed by the type of advocacy pedagogy promoted by Paulo Freire in The Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Teaching, 26), argue that the “larger purpose is to encourage students to resist and to negotiate[…] hegemonic discourses – in order to bring about more personally humane and socially equitable economic and political arrangements” (Berlin, qtd. In Fulkerson 660). Richard Fulkerson, in commenting on this approach says that “the course aim is not ‘improved writing’ but ‘liberation’ from dominant discourse” (Fulkerson, 660) . On the other hand, an expressivist approach, characterized by the focus on the promotion of authentic voice and sincerity of scholars such as Peter Elbow (Wenger, 3/2/2009), contends that the course aim should be to “foster a writer’s aesthetic, cognitive, and moral development” by “employing free writing, journal keeping, reflective writing, and small group dialogic collaborative response” (Burnham, qtd. In Fulkerson 667). Others, Current/Traditionalists, even maintain that one might focus nearly exclusively on product, truncating writing to a quick run through of “outline, write, edit, receive grade, do grammar exercises." My own view is that a variant of what Fulkerson calls Procedural Rhetoric that emphasizes “composition as argumentation” while using rhetoric to “introduce students to an academic discourse community” (Fulkerson 671) holds out the best hope for addressing the needs of students as writers and as (at least for as long as they are in college)academics because it engages students in dialectic with the critical and cultural conversations occurring around their topics, focuses on composition without a pre-determined ideological goal, and is extremely pragmatic in that it is equally adaptable to the various disciplines the students in composition courses will eventually pursue.

In his article “Two Cheers for the Argument Culture,” Gerald Graff writes, “argumentation tends to be seen as one practice among others rather than as […] the meta-practice that all academic practices partake of and converge on” (Two Cheers, 66), and I whole heartedly agree. My approach is described above as a variant of the procedural rhetoric approach because focusing on rhetoric does not eliminate the need to actively teach and move through the writing process, nor does it address the role of assessment, the role of the teacher or the role of technology in the composition classroom. All of these elements must be combined and fully considered before I feel one has truly established a holistic composition theory. I make this statement assigning myself two specific requirements for establishing my own position as a scholar/teacher: 1) The theory should have a strong theoretical basis even if that basis is merely used as a point of departure. 2) It should be a pedagogical theory. In other words, a failure to address all the components of a composition course is a failure to have a complete theory.

Purpose of the Composition Course

The purpose of the fresman composition course is to prepare students for the writing the academy demands of them. Elbow is wrong to put it off to later classes (Responses 87) because it puts the students at a disadvantage vis a vis the expectations of the professors who believe that the students know and are familiar with the genre/tropes of academic argumentation. However, Bartholomae is also wrong in his pursuit of difficult texts as fundamental to the course to prepare students for working with them because no one else is doing so (Responses 86) as that is not the purpose of freshman composition either. I appreciate Lindemann's argument for privileging writing and leaving the texts to the periphery (see Lindemann's Freshman Composition: No Place For Literature), and Elbow's call for the primacy of actual class time spent in the act writing. I remember the most productive writing classes I've ever taken (and I am speaking of specific class sessions here) were spent writing, working at a paragraph level (because we could competently produce paragraphs worth writing within a given period), and dealing with the specific problems of our own arguments, style, thought etc. I would privilege argumentation because I believe Graff's argument that dialogic argumentation captures the essence of the most basic academic activities. The freshman composition course needs to balance the primacy of the actual writing process as a practice in the practicality of producing text, but also needs to introduce the They Say/I Say expectation of dialogic argumentation as the basis of the writing students will be expected to do in the academy and beyond. Even after their time in academe is over, they will be better prepared for their professional lives in any field if they can write in a manner that engages other opinions (for support and refutation) to logically promote an idea/argument.

Argument in the Composition Course

Graff's writing handbook They Say/I Say is what I would use as a primary text. I would place argument at the center of the course, requiring students to engage other opinions in stating their own. Contrary to certain objections raised (see Ann Jurecic's "Getting a Clue: Gerald Graff and the Life of the Mind") writing that engages other opinions does not have to be "about" (Jurecic 326) secondary literature. On the contrary one could be taught to write such argumentation without having to touch critical responses at all. It is entirely possible to produce one's own opinion on a given issue (or piece of literature if the professor so chooses) first, and then engage other opinions to frame your argument, to gain support, and to address the other side effectively. The student's own thought is still the foundation of the entire text, and the text itself is still about the issue at hand, not "about" the "secondary literature" (Jurecic 326) at all. The other brings itself in as a support to the student's argument. This places me in agreement with scholars focusing on argument such as Graff and Bartholomae, and leaves me in contradiction to those, like Elbow, who might privilege other forms of writing in the course. Simply put, creative writing, as much as I love it, and as much as lessons can be learned from the processes and techniques that transfer to academic writing, should not be the focus of freshman composition. The personal writing favored by the expressivist approach has a smaller place perhaps, in that I think it is important for the students to be reflecting on their own process as writers and their growth in addition to producing argument. So, I believe their can be a peripheral role for blogging, journaling, etc. that would allow for this reflective piece. In addition, I believe that towards the end of the course as final assessment is approaching, the reflective writing of the student on the course, their growth, and what they've learned takes on an even greater importance which I will address later.

Process in the Composition Course

Focusing on argument does not alleviate the need to focus on other aspects of writing. I believe that teaching/reinforcing the writing process is essential to the freshman composition course. Students should spend time in class actually producing text, and in in conferencing with their peers and with the teacher about their work. Elbow argues throughout his work for the need to have actual writing taking place in the classroom and I agree that the students need to engage in the process in a place that reinforces its cyclical nature instead of focusing on the finished product alone. Most students will have come from high school writing backgrounds that did this (primarily because the high school curriculum, which places all elements of English studies in the same classroom during the same time period does not often allow the time for true pursuit of process). In addition, their other courses in the university will also focus on the finished product alone. In addition to the argument for presenting the true nature of the writing process and Elbow's argument for time in class producing text, I believe that Donald Murray's work on the writing process particularly that on what he terms "rehearsing" and "re-vision" are essential. Introducing the fact that it is the writer's job to revise - every paper, every time - as Tony mentioned in his presentation on Murray is important. Students don't realize this, and high school tends to emphasize the draft and done approach, or if we're lucky a draft-edit and done approach. I also think that an explicit instruction in recognizing the elements of Murray's rehearsing process can be very, very helpful to students, as this is a part of the writing process that, outside of Murray, (and outside of the university for that matter) I have never encountered before. The twining of argument and process in instruction, leads I believe to the fairest and most accurate methods of assessment.

Assessment in the Writing Class

In addressing assessment in the freshman composition course, I turn to three sources: Donald Murray's "The Listening Eye: Reflections on the Writing Conference," Peter Elbow's "Embracing Contraries in the Teaching Process," and the CCCC Committee on Assessment's (Chaired by Kathleen Blake Yancey) "Writing Assessment: A Position Statement."

A writing course must have both formative and summative assessment. Dr. Murray's powerful description of his growth towards the use of writing conferences and his slow removal of himself from a primary position as lecturer/editor in the writing classroom should be required reading for all teacher's of writing. I believe that the conferences described here, in which Dr. Murray uses Socratic questioning to bring out students' own knowledge of writing and of their work or to create a greater awareness of their work is the perfect form of formative assessment. Application of such writing conferences with both the instructor and peers throughout the course, should provide the primary source of formative assessment.

The second area of assessment that must be addressed is summative assessment. Following principles expressed in his teachings on the writing process, Elbow argues for a separation of what I call the nurturer and the gatekeeper roles of teaching. We all have an urge to protect and promote our students, simultaneously, we all have a notion of our responsibility to society and the institution that we work at to ensure that those who pass our courses receive grades that accurately reflect their knowledge/abilities. Elbow suggests balancing the roles by separating them. In taking this approach, the teacher would first engage the gatekeeper, designing a challenging course with thorough assessment that reflects, objectively a high standard that students are expected to meet. This is the role in which the teacher greets the students, laying out course expectations, and, perhaps, even providing a copy of any final assessment to show students where they will be expected to be at the end of the course. Following this, the teacher becomes the nurturer, doing everything possible to ready the students for the challenges inherent in the course and the assessment pieces. The gatekeeper re-emerges at the end of the course to then turn a purely critical eye on the students' final products knowing that he or she has already done all that was possible to prepare students for this point.

A final word on summative assessment is taken from the CCCC committee's position statement. In the statement the authors argue for assessing "preferably...more than one sample written on more than one occasion, with sufficient time to plan, draft, rewrite, and edit each product or performance." This says to me that a portfolio assessment system should be used, not surprising considering Dr. Yancey's chairing of the committee and her extensive work on assessment and the use of portfolios. For summative assessment I would use a portfolio assessment system, to consist not only of a range of student papers across the semester, but of an extensive reflective piece written by the student covering her or his progress in knowledge and skills throughout the course. Such a portfolio would, ideally, replace a final exam in a composition course.

The Role of the Technology in the Composition Classroom

As most students will be producing their text and doing their research on a computer, it is essential that the composition teacher consider the role of technology in his or her classroom. I believe that the teacher has an obligation to review with students, at least briefly, the principles of academic honesty and how to avoid unintentional plagiarism through accurate citation and honest disclosure. I also believe that the teacher should make use of technology's opportunities for collaboration and community. Activities such as discussion boards and blogging, the use of collaborative learning tools such as the google docs program which allows students to electronically access and edit a piece of writing in a shared electronic space, can all be profitably employed. The instructor should remain aware of caveats and forewarnings given by scholars in the field such as Cynthia Selfe and others that technology cannot be blindly seen as a panacea.

The Role of the Teacher in the Classroom

I believe that Elbow captures the conflicting roles of the teacher in any classroom very effectively in the piece mentioned above "Embracing Contraries in the Teaching Process." I believe that the role of gatekeeper is pretty straightforward. What, however, is the role of nurturer? What does it look like in the classroom? I believe that the answer to this question can be found in several areas. Murray's description of conferences included in the earlier section of this essay on assessment is a primary example of the teacher as nurturer. In a safe environment the teacher discusses with the student the strengths and weaknesses of their work with an eye not to summative assessment, but with a focus on helping the student to see where they are (or where their work is) and how they can get to where they want/need to be. The teacher functions in Elbow's words as "a kind of coach (Embracing 337)." I interpret this to mean that we are with students, engaged in the work they are engaged in and working in the trenches of the paper with them to help them improve, just as a coach is often in the middle of the action on an athletic field during practice. It means we need to get very specific and help students with the little things (grammar, syntax, paragraphing, etc.) while also helping them with big picture items such as theses, organization, the development of their arguments, familiarity with various occasions/genres etc. It means that we do (to a reasonable extent) what we ask our students to do, that is, students in a writing course should see us engaged in writing. They should see us as writers as well as professors. This means having the courage to voice your own doubts, interests, goals etc. as a writer where appropriate. I feel that, as described earlier, the conference promoted by Murray is or should be a key component of this role. The teacher then, is both nurturer and gatekeeper: he or she meets the obligations to institution and society by designing tough minded assignments and assessments and holding students to high standards in completing them; she or he meets the obligations to students by working on and between each assignment and assessment with the role of coach - helping in every way possible to improve student performance.

The Role of Politics in the Classroom

As suggested at the beginning of the essay there is a push in the purpose for the composition classroom that I have not addressed. This push, what Fulkerson calls the cultural/critical studies approach, reflects the liberation pedagogy of such academics as Paulo Freire and cites a specific ideological goal of the composition classroom to liberate students from the dominant discourse (Graff, 27). While it has been argued that an ideologically neutral classroom or teaching is impossible (which I concede), I argue that having any such explicitly political ideological goal in the classroom whether openly or not does not serve the purposes of freshman composition. Instead it leads to a focus on the political issues and texts themselves, and rather than teaching writing, the focus of the course becomes at least equally if not primarily the teaching of political thought (see Fulkerson, 665). Such an approach may serve the purposes of other courses at other times, although I would prefer even a naively attempted neutrality to such any approach explicitly promoting any ideological agenda. A teacher as a person in authority can say all that he or she wants that students are free to think for themselves, but if they promote a certain agenda while espousing this idea, they will in fact cause students to either respond without thought in the manner they believe that the teacher wants, or to adopt the position held by the authority figure in the room, who will inevitably by dint of experience be more convincing and authoritative in arguing their position than any of the students (Fulkerson, 666).

I believe that there is an alternative approach that allows us to challenge students' assumptions without imposing our own beliefs. Gerald Graff in an article entitled "Teaching Politcally Without Political Correctness" advocates simply adopting a contrarian's position to each student position. Instead of pushing one agenda all the time, the teacher should find themselves playing multiple roles from multiple political perspectives in response to the students so that they can never settle too comfortably into a single paradigm, but instead are constantly questioning their own assumptions. In Graff's words "in my own teaching I find myself being a Leninist one day and a Milton Friedmanite on the next, depending on my sense of the ideological tilt of the students. And in classes where the students themselves are politically divided...I often put on one party hat or the other by turns (as well as many intermediate positions), depending on the ebb and flow of the discussion." While Graff continues to elaborate his position very thoroughly, I think that the approach as described above reflects both goals: it challenges student assumptions and it avoids promoting a particular ideological position in class.

Conclusion

I have written a bumpy essay here, that is fantastically broad, with compositionists specializing in each of the sub areas I've addressed. However, in making a statement as to one's pedagogical position, I believe that all of these elements must be included. To avoid considering them in favor of one or another being sufficient is to do a disservice to our students by ignoring key areas of composition studies.