Open Post

During the beginning of this class, I was concerned that I might feel rather constricted by the discourse that the syllabus indicated we would engage in. As the course progressed, I began to realize, in light of the 1301 curriculum at Texas Tech, that the assignments and strategies for teaching first-year composition actually have more flexibility in them than I expected.  I discovered the value that, after producing a first draft of my article-length essay, creative writing, a craft that I hold dear to myself, can have within the composition classroom.  I have discovered that rhetoric might be best taught by having students first engage in writing as they have been taught to do prior to first-year composition; by having students engage in writing of their own choosing and that has less restrictions or expectations for a final product, I have discovered that it might be easier to teach students composition by illustrating to them that they already possess the necessary skills to communicate and to argue certain viewpoints.  I believe that teaching students from their own strengths and weaknesses greatly enhances all that they glean from the class, and I feel as if this is the best approach to teaching students rhetoric and how to translate their voices into different genres.

After critically engaging with a number of texts that discuss the theories and pedagogical practices of composition, I feel as if there is much more room for creative writing within the composition classroom.  I believe that it is imperative to first empower students by allowing them to realize the authority that they can give their words in mediums that are less critically or discursively motivated and then to illustrate to them how these skills can be applied within a variety of media.  This class has allowed me to understand the practicality of being able to recognize rhetorical situations, and I feel as if I am much better equipped to enter into the classroom for the first time. 

Thesis and Sources for my Article

What is the thesis to your article for this course? What support will you cite to help you make your case?

My thesis to the article this course focuses upon examining how teaching composition through creative writing is more effective for teaching audience awareness than teaching composition through rhetorical analysis. My thesis is, in its roughest stages: “Despite the contradicting views over the best methodology for teaching audience awareness in the composition classroom, utilizing methods that have their roots in teaching creative writing is more effective than teaching audience through how to construct a rhetorical analysis.” I believe that students are more likely to best understand how to appeal to a certain audience by engaging in creative writing than they are through writing an analysis of what rhetorical devices a particular author uses.

To support my claim, I will draw upon Will Hochman’s analysis of Richard Hugo’s performance in the composition classroom. Hugo’s pedagogy revolves around his ideas focused around teaching creative writing as a means of teaching students composition. Hochman’s review of Hugo’s performance in the composition classroom gives an in-depth account of specific techniques and strategies used by Hugo to teach his students all that they are expected to learn from engaging in composition. 

I will also use, to represent the alternative side of the argument, Bedford’s article, titled “A Brief History of Rhetoric and Composition” to indicate the method through which audience is taught through rhetoric. I also think that examining Ede and Lunsford’s “Audience Addressed/Audience Invoked: The Role of Audience in Composition Theory and Pedagogy” will be useful for indicating the importance that identifying audience in this classroom setting holds. In order to establish the importance of considering audience during the process of composition, I will use Ede and Lunsford’s article, and I will then make my argument by redirecting my focus around the best way to teach this to first-year students.  I think that this will be an excellent starting point for my essay, and that these article will give me solid ground upon which to begin my research and engagement with the topic that I’ve chosen.

Week 11: A Translated Learning Objective

Review the learning objectives for this course. What's one thing you've learned that connects to an objective and to your future job?

After taking into consideration the objectives for this course, I find that the objective titled “Audience Awareness” is most important to consider for my future job. I ultimately desire to write for a living, which is wonderfully idealistic and highly improbable; therefore, I wish to teach creative writing and literature courses to students while pursuing my own interests at a University somewhere (anywhere). With teaching college students as my professional goal, I think that maintaining an awareness of their age, learning methods, current skills, and knowledge of the world is of utmost importance when attempting to communicate with them. This means that I place a high value on the ability to understand the group of people to which I present information and on the ability to manipulate information in ways to appeal to different audiences. I find this consideration important within the classroom, and, even though I have written several posts regarding andragogy (which places a main emphasis upon the type of audience being taught), I think that it is one of the most important styles of teaching to consider when engaged in a college classroom. 

By being aware of the audience that we, as instructors, are given to teach, we allow ourselves to consider how to best present information and how to best go about teaching these students.  By being able to analyze the demographic composition of the audience, it is much easier to select contact zones through which this audience will learn.  Being aware of our audience within the classroom allows us to select topics that are most relevantly linked with the students, which will further allow us to best teach the topics required of us by the curriculum.  Without a thorough understanding of the audience and the issue that most closely relate to them, it is nearly impossible to engage in successfully teaching a class.

            The ideas supporting andragogy are grounded in the conception of the audience as group of adults. By taking this into careful consideration when approaching lesson plans and activities for my classes, I will try to make the purpose of the assignments clear and concise, and I will try to provide multiple options/prompts to which students can respond.  I believe that, without knowing the type of people within the audience to which texts are addressed or to which lesson plans are directed, neither teaching nor writing can be executed effectively. This is one of our learning objectives that I value and appreciate, allowing me to understand both the importance of applying it and the importance of teaching it as well.

Week 10: Expected Area of Weakness in an Assignment

Identify where you think students may fail in an assignment in your syllabus, and how you will use that as a teachable moment by design. 

I think that students are most likely to struggle with the group composition project, specifically in reaching a consensus of the most relevant sections and the most important devices at work within these sections. Although I will be actively mediating online discussion, I think that students will struggle with accepting others’ ideas as potentially better than their own. I hope to illustrate to students that collaboration is not always an easy process, and I hope to illustrate to them the most appropriate methods for going about refuting another’s idea.

I will stress the importance of maintaining an open mind and of providing an ample amount of evidence to back one’s claims.  I hope to teach students that clear communication and concise presentation of their thoughts is vital for reaching an agreement of this nature, and I wish to illustrate to them that an argument is not entirely valid until backed with substantial claims.  I expect there to be some difficulty among students in reaching an agreement and in supporting the claims that they make with solid evidence and appropriate sources.  I wish to use this assignment not only as a project through which to introduce the benefits and difficulties of collaboration, but also to show students how they should go about arguing.  I want them to understand, in the end, that arguing is a healthy, necessary part of academic discussion, and I want them to able to engage in this type of discussion appropriately and with the proper end goals in mind.