Teaching
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Teaching Philosophy
I concur with John Trimburs thinking in that writing, and especially the writing that happens in the 101 classroom, is not an solely internal, self-centric process, but instead a process of coming to terms (or negotiating, as Trimbur puts it) with the polyphony of external voices that comprise a writer’s inner psyche (Trimbur 219-220). Therefore the writing classroom, which presents opportunities for engaging with many voices, when coupled with constructive reflective processes, will challenge and enrich student writing and communication, making the classroom an instrumental and beneficial space for the development of writing skills. I envision the Writing 101 class as something that is a collaborative space, that prioritizes a representation of a plurality of voices, and emphasizes reflective process.
Having a wide range of representation in terms of race, gender, sexuality, class, and ability with no particular voice being more prioritized or seen as ‘standard,’ is essential in destabilizing systems that elevate certain discourses and their communities over others, as well as making sure students see their own identities reflected in the academy, so that they feel that they belong there. I look to scholars such as June Jordan, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Min-zhan Lu’s arguments for evidence for a more multilingual approach to learning that bolsters the voices and discourse communities that students bring to the classroom. I feel that it is critical to present students with texts that display a diversity of authorship. As students get in touch with their own voices and ideas, my goal as the instructor is to destabilize assumptions of standard or nonstandard English/writing, instead encouraging students to explore their own dialects and experiences on the page. This needs to be coupled with understanding of rhetorical situations and audience, so that students can make informed decisions about what ways they want to write depending on genre, and what conventions they may choose to utilize or intentionally ignore. Allowing students experimentation in this process and being curious about their ways of doing things and their reasons behind those strategies is essential. Glynda Hull and Mike Rose’s essay “‘The Wooden Shack Place’: The Logic of an Unconventional Reading,” illustrates the importance of understanding student thinking before assuming something is an error. Student’s complex reasoning or particular backgrounds may lead them to certain conclusions or writing choices. As the instructor, understanding that reasoning can allow for better guidance as students select what they want to include in their writing. It is of utmost importance to preserve student choice and autonomy in their writing, as it is this choice that creates a writing voice.
Instead of seeing the classroom as a hierarchical space in which the teacher assigns work and students complete said work individually, I envision the classroom as a fluid and dynamic space which can accommodate a variety of interactions, including teacher lecturing, group discussion, and collaborative student-led learning. I implement the concept of the Writing Studio, which functions like an art studio in that it is a collaborative, hands-on, creative space that prioritizes processes. I draw inspiration for this idea from Felicia Rose Chavez, who describes in her book The Antiracist Writing Workshop her own classroom space as one that references her graduate experiences in studio art classes (75). Besides merely encouraging students to think like artists, the Writing Studio equalizes the space and promotes a community focused learning environment. Chavez describes the workshop she creates as something that can create ‘dynamic scholarship (75). In dynamic scholarship, students take an active role in their own education, which mirrors exactly the intentions of Writing 101: writing in active ways to make an argument and take an approach. I again look to Trimbur, this time to his article “Critiquing Collaborative Learning,” and his ideas of the collaborative classroom. In the Writing Studio and in the classroom environment as a whole, agreement and disagreement can be placed as equals, as both are ultimately collaborative and engaging in Trimbur’s new definition of consensus: “the desire of humans to live and work together with differences” (615). Dynamic scholarship and this new consensus go hand in hand; students take active roles in their own thinking and differentiation while at the same time working with their classmates and the texts to build writing projects. Each student's individual success is buttressed by a collaborative, supportive, and diverse class system that both challenges and encourages each student’s writing. This can be enacted through socratic-seminar style class discussions, partner or group projects, and peer review. In this way, student work may engage with any number of disparate topics while still promoting collaborative work and a plurality of voices.
Essential to writing is, of course, process. Drafting/generation, peer-review, and revision are the pillars of the writing process that all writing students must leave the class with a sound understanding of. However, the writing classroom must not only teach students the writing process, but also go a step further by justifying it to them, so that they continue to use it outside of the class. The best way to justify, I feel, is by using meta-cognition, and encouraging students to reflect on what worked for them through reflective practices such as group discussion, independent journaling and the addition of reflective write-ups after an essay or project. Rafaella Negretti’s study, “Metacognition in Student Academic Writing: A Longitudinal Study of Metacognitive Awareness and Its Relation to Task Perception, Self-Regulation, and Evaluation of Performance,” illustrates that “qualitative changes in task perception and metacognitive awareness seem to encourage students to take more initiative in writing and to self-regulate their writing by developing a personal writing process” (171). As students practice metacognition through reflective practices, their ability to not only comprehend the reasoning behind the writing process but also adapt the process to create unique, sustainable processes that are individual to themselves simultaneously develops. I feel that one of the greatest advantages the writing classroom can give students is the ability to see how they can make writing into a series of tasks or steps that can be fine-tuned to themselves and their needs. It is in this way that writing becomes sustainable, and the process becomes more than something that is just taught, but instead a tool that student writers can continue to use throughout their writing lives.
As the instructor in the classroom, I position myself not as a rigid authority figure, but as a participant in conversation, like my students. Only one of the polyphony of voices that feed their writing. It is important to me that students not view my thoughts or opinions on any particular topic as rule, but instead feel that their own thoughts matter just as much as mine. Of course, there is a contract that both instructor and student become a part of when entering into a classroom space. As the instructor, it is my responsibility to be present for my students, to comment on and grade their work in a way that doesn’t punish process but instead rewards effort. I also have a responsibility to protect minority and underrepresented students within the classroom from any hate-speech or demeaning behavior, and I would always have a zero-tolerance policy for such actions or comments. Above all, I want my students to see me as a supportive and encouraging figure, whose main goal in teaching writing is to help students learn to use their own voices to communicate effectively.
References
Anzaldúa, Gloria. “How to Tame a Wild Tongue and La Conciencia De La Mestiza: Towards a New Consciousness.” Bordlerlands: La Frontera, 2nd ed., Aunt Lute Books, San Francisco, CA, 1999, pp. 75–217.
Chavez, Felicia Rose. The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: Decolonizing the CreativeClassroom.Haymarket Books, 2021.
Hull, Glynda and Rose, Mike. “‘This Wooden Shack Place: The Logic of an Unconventional Reading.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 41, no. 3, 1990, pp. 287-298.
Jordan, June. “Nobody Mean More to Me than You and the Future Life of Willie Jordan.” Harvard Educational Review, vol. 3, no. 58, 1988, pp. 363-374.
Lu, Min-zhan. “From Silence to Words: Writing as Struggle.” College English, vol. 49, no. 4, 1987, pp. 437-448.
Negretti, Rafaella. “Metacognition in Student Academic Writing: A Longitudinal Study of Metacognitive Awareness and Its Relation to Task Perception, Self Regulation, and Evaluation of Performance.” Written Communication, vol. 29, no. 2, 2012, pp. 142-179.
Trimbur, John. “Beyond Cognition: The Voices in Inner Speech.” Rhetoric Review, vol. 5, no. 2, 1987, pp. 211-221.
Trimbur, John. “Consensus and Difference in Collaborative Learning.” College English, vol. 51, no. 6, 1989, pp. 602-616.
WR101: Intro to College Composition
Emerson College, 2023
Course Description:
Our goals in this course are as follows:
To study the genre of the essay, and consider what its varied forms can do and why we might make specific, strategic rhetorical choices as writers. We will explore the essay as a flexible, adaptive mode of writing capable of addressing diverse audiences and rhetorical purposes, building connections between academic essays and broader traditions of lyrical, personal, and public essays.
To foster student implementations of writing processes that treat writing not as an solitary finite act, but as an ongoing collaborative process that involves drafting, peer review, revision, and reflection.