R3: Theme for Composition (B?)

“The instructor said,

Go home and write
a page tonight.
And let that page come out of you—
Then, it will be true.”

-Langston Hughes, “Theme for English B”

Langston’s first assignment for English B (and his submission) seemed so idealistic to me.  A professor posing the same assignment to a class of 30 students would surely be lucky to get even 1 response like Langston’s (I thought).  But with a little more direction (“…a page tonight [about how powerful language can be].”) and a curriculum focused on a thematic inquiry , these results seem more realistic.  Bringing student experience and expertise to the center stage empowers, motivates, and refreshes students to excel in life (and composition class)!

As we near the development of our own courses, I am relieved to realize the variety of directions, topics, and personalities encountered in exploring the instruction of Composition in FYC chapters 5-8.  It is refreshing to read about the value of individuality at the collegiate level when uniformity is all the rave at the high school level.  That isn’t to say I’m inspired to jump ship, but I’m inspired to right my own ship.

Mere teachers  can’t change policies that dictate our profession, but we can modify our curricula to foster individuality.  The more we read, it becomes increasingly apparent that what experience or expertise students individually possess are the foundation of course content.  The failure of our education system lies in the muting of such uniqueness in favor of prescriptive methods, general conformity, and strict adherence to the literary canon.

By allowing (and even encouraging) students to discuss personally relevant topics (sometimes even in their native language which may completely ignore conventions of SWE), we are providing ownership, value, purpose, and ultimately intrinsic motivation to improve writing (or expand writing repertoire).  In fact, many of these instructors suggest an even “tighter” focus on individual experience with language and composition to provide for individuality, but still a certain commonality and relevance to keep class discussion (both in class and online) based on composition in a cohesive context.  In other words, composition instructors need to provide a united curriculum that is thematically focused on linguistics yet still provides students with opportunities to talk about their experiences.

Having read the work of 9 experienced composition instructors and being exposed to even more through their references, planning around a central theme related to language and linguistics seems the most crucial decision in the entire planning process.  Most instructors describe their starting point as an overarching theme or question.  No matter what they called it, they started at a concept broad enough to provide many decisions to students and focused enough to ensure resulting work would be similar and rooted in linguistics/composition.

In reflecting on my own college experience, I am most appreciative of my professors who adhered to this school of thought; by involving myself with the content of the course, I became a stakeholder in the course not only for a grade, but for my role in helping evolve the course/subject and providing my own content to help others learn (and likewise learning from the content created by other peers).  Having this realization and reflection, I plan to adapt this practice for my own instruction of Composition and likely any other aspects of writing instruction outside of my Composition course(s).

 

FOOD FOR THOUGHT:

• Mathieu offered a great framework/hierarchy for assignments.  I really appreciate her point about the relevance of what I keep referring to as a thematic focus – she says the writing in the course will improve grasp of thematic inquiry, and thematic inquiry will improve writing – that is a valuable point to realize to commit to such a thematic approach to planning this course.
• I really valued Redd’s discussion on Rubric Assessment. I find many teachers rely on rubrics for ease of commenting, but Redd makes many good points about grading consistently and providing clear expectations.
• Reid was great.  I honestly never understood his point about Actor-Networks and Assemblages (194-195) because it was a moment of serious text complexity, but he made great points about writing in the public domain (as we are for E688) and his grading process.  I also love his analogy of composition instruction as a fitness trainer developing a workout program that clients need to use appropriately to garner expected results.  And lastly, he makes an excellent point about problems in education as a result of developing education from the context of the 19th and 20th century industry and institution as opposed to the reasons for and the means of how the context of those times resulted.  That’s a really deep realization which could (should) turn the entire field of education upside down.
• I appreciate Shipka’s delineation of writing and composition.