Blog 1/ 8/24/2017 

What Composition Means to Me!

What do you already know about teaching? What experience do you have? How much do you feel like you know about Composition as a field?

         I used to teach as a lecturer in Saudi Arabia, at King Said University, which is one of the very first prestigious universities in the country. I have seven years of teaching experience to non-native speakers of English. I taught many introduction to literature courses, as well as translation and writing about literature. While I did teach some writing courses, most of the focus was not on Rhetoric, or how to use rhetorical strategies, such as pathos and ethos, and the rhetorical triangle.My English department highlighted the fact that they want students to write neat five paragraph essays, with clear topic sentences and thesis statements. They focused on grammar, vocabulary and spelling. It was only later that I realized that this whole system of a neat five paragraph essay, is not something that we should be teaching to college level students. Student in college need to learn more than a "neat" five paragraph essay. I think the most important thing that students need to learn is how to make an effective convincing argument using the different rhetorical strategies and focusing on audience. As an English department, we do not have a rhetoric and composition field in Saudi Arabia, not that I know of. When I go back to Saudi Arabia, the first thing I would do is introduce them to this great field and try to establish it as a field in our English department. I'm so lucky to have been introduced to this field by Dr. Grouling in the ENG 605 Teaching in English Studies course last semester. I got to know important composition scholars like Andrea Lunsford and Lisa Ede and their idea about the role of the audience in composition, as well as Cynthia Selfe and her argument that composition scholars should pay closer attention to technologies. All these scholars broadened my perspective of what a composition teacher should pay attention to class and as a scholar. 

What are your primary concerns and questions at this point about teaching? What are your primary questions about the field of composition?

As I become more acquainted with the field, and moving forward with a study that I did in the Eng 605 course, my major concern at this moment is finding a way that we can all relate in the class as a community, as humans, and dealing with everyday life as big part of what we do in the composition classroom. I would love to base my teaching class on the concept of empathic teaching, where empathy is promoted above all else in the classroom. 

In "Are We Teaching Composition All Wrong," Joseph Teller starts his essay with this statement, "My students can't write a clear sentence to save their lives, and I've had it." In answer to this situation Teller asks that composition teachers to revert back to "traditional" modes of teaching composition, where he sets a manifesto to do just that. He admits that it students might think that the strategies in the manifesto would turn the class to a hard work boring class, but at least students, as he claims, are learning to write properly. Some points he emphasizes in the manifesto are that students need to write essays and receive feedback on them, with a major concentration on form rather than hard content; students need to read each others writings and respond to it; that the writing process is a means to an end; and if an essay doesn't work out then students can start over. The most striking point Teller states is that teaching students to "love justice, be passionate about politics, and think deeply about the future of humanity are not legitimate outcomes of a writing course. This statement sound like Stanley Fish's argument in his book Save the World on Your Own Time, where fish is against teaching students about politics in the class. Fish believes that a teacher's only job is to teach students to use sources and research, but not to teach them to be good citizens or that their vote makes a lot of difference in America. 

Looking back at Teller's and Fish's arguments, my main question in relation to the field of composition then is that if this manifesto works for Teller, then does it work for other composition teachers, who have different ambitions in teaching composition? I totally agree with Doug Hesse that if the teachers wanted to see better student writing, then simply fixing sentences is not going to achieve that end, and that what students really need help in regarding composition is "deploying" their ideas and matching their writings with the expectations of various disciplines. 

Some Ideas that I Found Interesting From the Other Readings: 

• In "Why You've made the Right Choice" Brock Dethier states that new composition teachers should get used to borrowing from other teachers. This idea by itself is very comforting to know because it is nice to know that new composition teachers are not alone, and can relate to each others fears in this experience of teaching. Because I taught for seven years, I think that a major survival tactic is borrowing ideas, assignments, and painting it afresh with my own colors, as I would like to think of it. This usually opens up some aspects of creativity, as Dethier argues that teaching composition requires the same creativity for writing a short story. in that creative process, composition teachers are not just teaching others, they are also learning about thing around them.

• In their explanations of "key moments" in composition during the last half of the twentieth century, Deborah Coxwell-Teague and Ronald Lunsford, pick out a very important moment in 1974 that "reinforces the critical role that linguistic research played in the formation of writing as a discipline in the twentieth century" (xvi). The membership of the Conference on College Composition and Communication passed a resolution that would reinforce the student's right to their own language. I think this moment is particularly important in the field of composition because it is built on the concept of respect for diversity, especially in a nation that is built in different cultural heritages. Audre Lorde argues agains the "mythical norm" in feminist theory and asks that writers not be afraid to use their own voice, code switch and be proud of their roots. Lorde defines the "mythical norm"as “white, thin, male, young, heterosexual, Christian, and financially secure” (116). I think that allowing students to have some authority over their own language is important as part of a way of resisting this notion of the "mythical norm".

Works Cited 

Coxwell-Teague, Deborah, and Ronald F Lunsford, Ed.First-Year Composition : From Theory to Practice. Anderson, South Carolina, Parlor Press, 2014.

Dethier, Brock. First Time Up : An Insider's Guide for New Composition Instructors. Logan, Utah State University Press, 2008.

Fish, Stanley Eugene. Save the World on Your Own Time. Oxford England, Oxford University Press, 2008.

Hesse, Doug . “We Know What Works in Teaching Composition.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, 3 Jan. 2017, www.chronicle.com/article/We-Know-What-Works-in-Teaching/238792. Accessed 23 Aug. 2017.

Teller, Joseph R. “Are We Teaching Composition All Wrong?” The Chronicle of Higher Education, 3 Oct. 2016, www.chronicle.com/article/Are-We-Teaching-Composition/237969. Accessed 23 Aug. 2017.

Lorde, Audre.“Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference”. in Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Freedom, CA: Crossing Press, 1984. p. 114-123.

--. “The Masters Tools Will Never Dismantle the Masters House”. in Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Freedom, CA: Crossing Press, 1984. p. 111-113.