For your first short-form blog post, I’d like you to think back to your expectations for what it would mean to teach first-year composition. Perhaps you had ideas about your role in the classroom, of what it would be like to be The Teacher. Or perhaps you had ideas about the subject, and how you could draw together your various interests in one curriculum. Or perhaps you had a pile of discordant ideas, all fighting for attention as you tried to picture just what it is you were getting yourself into.
Goal 1: I would like you to reflect on what you expected it would mean to teach first-year writing. What did you believe that work would entail, and how did you think it would affect you?
As with all of these short-form posts, I don’t want you to spend a large amount of time on this. The longest part will probably be hunting for your Bean and Murray passages. When you’re ready to write, try to treat this like a freewrite, moving fast and coming back to tidy up at the end.
Please use 3 keyword tags with your post. These should reflect the content of your post, things like “classroom” “gender” “authority” etc.
My students came into English 101 with preconceived notions of what the course would focus on, what projects they would be asked to complete, and that they were not “good writers.” I think they were surprised to discover that the course is designed to not only strengthen their writing and critical thinking skills, but that they are also receiving instruction on how to adapt those skills to be used for their own personal passions. I think this fundamental focus of the course really helped the students become comfortable in the work I am asking them to complete and with their positive attitudes surrounding the class itself. I was also surprised; required English courses never seem to sit well with the students who believe that their time is better spent elsewhere. However, my students’ eager participation in class activities and optimistic attitude towards the grading contract have greatly impressed me, and according to Murray in his article “Writing and Teaching for Surprise,”
“…there first must be the possibility of surprise. That is the starting point for the effective writer and the effective teacher.” (3)
I also greatly appreciate the focus of this class on how we can help students write well, instead of working on making them “good writers.” Because this class is so focused on adaptation of learned skills and application of those skills outside of the classroom, it is important that we’re teaching fundamentals, not guidelines:
“Research in genre theory suggests that this developmental process can be facilitated by greater genre awareness. Both students and instructors need to understand that the criteria for good writing are contextualized within genres—an insight that runs counter to the common belief that ‘good writing is good writing.’” (60)
I think this further focus on “writing well” and writing for things students are passionate about is really helping them to engage in the course. It has been a refreshing change of course to have the opportunity to show students that skilled writing, critical reading, and essentially the “Humanities” in its entirety are all not only important, but are essential to becoming successful in other fields of study.