Teaching

Written Fall 2023

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“Don’t just teach your [students] to read… Teach them to question what they read. Teach them to question everything.” - George Carlin

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            Taking my classes back to the basics is very important to me. Defining the terms of the course is of the utmost importance. How can students be expected to meet the outcomes and objectives of a rhetoric and composition course when they do not know what rhetoric and composition are (see “WPA Outcomes”)? At the end of the semester, I even ask my students to define these terms for themselves. In this same way, I approach every project, assignment, and topic through the eyes of the students; students who do not yet know the jargon of my field.

            Just as I take it back to the basics at the beginning of the course, I do the same by the end. I ask students throughout my courses to reflect on their work, new and old concepts, and, at the end of the course, how their ideas about the topics, outcomes, and objectives have changed. Self-assessment and reflection are necessary skills for successful individuals in all fields, but it is especially necessary in the teaching of writing (Clark 28). Asking the students to self-assess how well their writing processes went or how well they have meet course outcomes and objectives asks them to consider how much work they put into the course if this work contributed to a positive or negative result. According to Jennifer Sheppard, it also allows them to “improve future performance” (402). For example, after every major writing assignment, I ask my students to turn in a Writer’s Memo, which asks them to reflect on their writing process, what went good/bad, what could have gone better, and how they will plan accordingly to improve the writing process of their next assignment. Also, at the end of the course, I ask them to consider the skills they have developed throughout the course, which helps them realize what skills they are gaining as they go through my course and college and can add to their resumes and CVs (see Clark, Sheppard, Leahy).

            Similar to fostering the marketable skill of reflection, I base my courses around multimodal activities. Writing and composition go beyond the essay (see Lutkewitte). While many of my students will write essays in their future courses, they will likely not be asked to write essays in their future careers. Instead, they will be asked to communicate in new diverse ways and cultivate this communication in groups. Therefore, I often ask students to collaborate to create in-class presentations to foster their composing skills outside of writing paragraphs, theses, and topic sentences. Multimodal activities allow them to compose for different audiences using different media, different rhetoric, and, ultimately, different composing strategies.

            Because of my interest in multimodality, technology, film/television, social media, and pop culture, I incorporate these into my courses. I build projects and activities around these not only to help develop the skills the course objectives and outcomes asks my students to master, but also to make what the students learn relevant and useful to their everyday lives. Asking students to analyze, critically think, dissect, and discuss social media posts, movie trailers, or cultural artifacts allows them to go into their real world and see things differently. For instance, one classroom activity that students particularly like is looking at the rhetorical situation of social media posts before I ask them to make their own and then discuss the role rhetorical situation plays in their posts. While I teach my students the importance of critically reading print-texts, I also stress the necessity of critically reading, questioning, and analyzing everything as a text.

            Thus, my approach to teaching is the same approach students possess when they walk into my classroom: to acquire skills and knowledge for their future careers, not just their future classes. While many students view English as something they just have to check off their general education to-do list, the skills they develop in my class—including but not limited to writing, composing outside of the essay, collaborating in groups, self-assessment and reflection, and critically reading and analyzing—will make them better students and better humans.

 

 

Works Cited

Clark, Irene L. “Process: Approaches and Issues.” Concepts in Composition: Theory and Practices

      in the Teaching of Writing, 3rd ed., Routledge, 2019, pp. 1-51.

Sheppard, Jennifer. “Issues in Digital and Multimodal Writing: Composition Instruction for the

      21st Century.” Concepts in Composition: Theory and Practices in the Teaching of Writing, 

      3rd ed., Routledge, 2019, pp. 379-409.

 

Bibliography

Leahy, Anne. “Rubrics Save Time and Make Grading Criteria Visible.” Bad Ideas About Writing,

      edited by Cheryl E. Ball and Drew M. Loewe, West Virginal University, Libraries, 2017, pp.

      259-263.

Lutkewitte, Claire. Multimodal Composition: A Critical Sourcebook. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2014.

“WPA Outcomes Statement for First-Year Composition.” Council of Writing Program

       Administrators, version 3.0, 18 July 2019,        https://wpacouncil.org/aws/CWPA/pt/sd/news_article/243055/_PARENT/layout_details/f alse.