The Political ' S pa ce ' of Self-Reflective Teaching: Or, a Space for Self-Reflective Teachers

As a writing teacher, I find myself pulled in several directions: the study of writing; the study of how to teach writing; the study of teaching... It is with this last constituent of being a writing teacher that I would like to make some space for comment this week.

Admittedly, not everyone that teaches first-year writing is vested in composition (and rhetorical) studies. This is not a judgment on teachers from other fields of interest, but, rather, a reality I am interested in understanding insofar as I believe it creates very real "differences" in writing teaching methodologies that teachers from all corners of the Writing Program can benefit from. *(If nothing else, scholars like Anzaldua and Bakhtin write to open up perceptions about polyphony, hybridity and heteroglossia to help us understand the power that synergy and collaboration, rather than exclusion and individualism, bring to bear on teaching, in this case, writing).

That said, even those writing teachers who don't study rhet-comp per se, still have to teach, and for many of them the course is first-year composition (at UofA it is divided into 101 (Fall) and 102 (Spring)). And, at the end of the semester, writing teachers are accountable to both their respective writing programs and their students for qualifying that teaching through quantitative means: assigning grades. Often, I think, teachers can feel pulled by grading; after all, as Richard Straub has eloquently written about here and there, teacher's comments and grades on the page are a reflection of our teaching persona and our success as teachers as much as a reflection of the success of the student's we teach. This is no little statement.


With this in mind, this week I would like to focus on the following questions:
1. Do you consider yourself a good writing teacher?
a. Why or why not?
b. What makes a good writing teacher?

2. Do you make time or space for self-reflection on how, what, and why you teach composition?
a. If yes, what activities encompass this self-reflexivity?
b. If yes, how do you see your personal method of reflection benefiting your teaching praxis?
c. Benefiting your students?

3. Does the writing teacher's job end at the end of the semester?
a. Do you feel convinced you have reached the goals of your class by the 16 wk deadline?
b. What do you do at the end of the semester when you feel you haven't reached those goals with your students?

I think these questions say a lot about who we are as teachers. I know I ask myself these questions repeatedly every semester; my answers aren't always consistent either. But I think it is important that I do ask them, for me anyway, because I feel the critical self-reflectivity keeps me honest and helps me close the gap that may occur between praxis and theory; between my teaching philosophy and what I really teach. It, in other words, constantly puts the "old" me in dialog with the "new" me in ways that I find productive in continuing to shape a space for me as a writing teacher.

What do you think we should teach in first-year writing courses?

First, I want to thank everyone who has openly embraced this collaborative journey. The dialog so far has been quite interesting. I am hoping that, as the weeks continue, more participants will jump on board.

*Those of you following this blog may be interested to know that there have been other responses from writing instructors. These instructors have contributed to the project but asked that I not post their comments here for a variety of reasons; so, as we can see, the participation is deeper and more complicated, and perhaps more political, than it appears even here.

For this week, keeping last week's questions and responses in mind, I would like to shift gears a bit from one's (awareness of their) writing pedagogy to one's personal philosophy regarding the "purpose" of first-year writing courses. Currently, this question is still debated among scholars in the field: from content, and/or more Cultural Studies' based models of writing classrooms (see Bartholomae, hooks, Bizzell, among others) to content-less classrooms where student writing and rhetoric take precedence (see Elbow, Murray, Hairston, and Ede, among others), scholars remain divided as to what purpose first-year writing courses should serve. Even the course's name has been problematic: from English to Basic Writing to Freshman Comp to First-Year Composition, each name implies a whole set of (un)spoken pedagogical and theoretical implications about the reason(s) for writing courses, the way(s) to teach it, and the content such a course should or should not contain. Of course, some writing pedagogies are more flexible than others.

With this in mind, this week I would like participants to focus on their own beliefs as to the "purpose" and "content" of college-level first-year (required) writing courses. So doing, I believe the dialog generated will hint at just how complicated it is to design a curriculum for required writing courses, particularly because, as a course taught by instructors from varying research interests and backgrounds, different things are valued in different ways by different instructors, causing contact zones within our department as to the structuring and standardizing of courses like first-year writing.

As you respond, please consider the following:

1. What purpose do you see required first-year writing courses serving; in other words, why are they required?

2. Do you believe a required first-year writing course should be content based, or content-less? Why? If the former, "what" content?

3. Building off of question two, what do you think should be taught in first-year writing and how would you teach it?

4. What about your current institution's writing curriculum would you like to see changed and why? What would you, of course, replace it with? Why?

How do you teach freshman composition?

In an effort to better understand academic writing pedagogy, and my own space within it as a freshman comp instructor, I am creating this blog as a means of making a discursive space for fellows GATs/Adjuncts/Professors/Instructors from college English departments to voice their views on the ways in which one's discipline informs their approach to the teaching of academic writing (and, of equal importance, their assessment of academic writing).

I want to better understand the dialog emerging from what I call, and what others before me have called, the "4 Corners" of English: Rhet-Comp/Literature/Creative Writing/English Language and Linguistics; Second Language Acquisition Theory. As someone who sees themselves at the crossroads of this polyphonic chaos, I am hoping to use the dialog created here to glean insight into possible caveats of teaching writing that emerge from one's discipline and the way those caveats compete/complement/conflict with other teachers' approaches. I am also interested in the way such approaches are received by our students.

Specifically, I'd like to use this blog as a space for instructors to reflect on their pedagogical approaches to the teaching of freshman composition.

I will post weekly sets of questions and hope to respond to any posts generated throughout the week by participants.

I hope you enjoy this project as much as I believe I will, and that, together, we can learn a little something about our own teaching methodologies, and teaching freshman composition more generally.

The main questions I'd like to focus on this week are:

What are you doing in your first-year writing courses?

How are you doing it?

Why are you doing it that way?

As you post, please make sure and identify your discipline: RCTE/Lit/ELL;SLAT/CW within your respective English department.

Thank you all,

Cassie Wright

1st year PhD student, RCTE

Graduate Associate in Teaching

University of Arizona