As a writing teacher, I believe inherently in each student’s ability to be a writer – and by “ability to be a writer” I mean someone who can access writing as a means of communication and apply the skill of writing to achieve related goals.

My personal philosophy as a writing teacher is that writing is a powerful means of communication and expression and therefore a necessary tool in terms of both personal development and in terms of access to survival.

I am challenged by perhaps a central assumption that every student will find the task of writing meaningful, especially in the context of academic assignments and in the context of my broadening understanding of the term literacy to be inclusive of non-writing mediums. I am still in the process of fully understanding how valuing literacy is different than valuing writing.

Recent readings on pedagogy have encouraged me to think about valuing the writing process as a means of discovery, of risk-taking, of innovation and inquiry. This valuing of process over product has challenged me to think about what dominant ideologies related to writing I have internalized over time and come to the classroom with. As we have been discussing adaptability as a central component of our current curriculum, I am challenged to think about writing as a life-skill; a skill of contextual reasoning.

This relates to Peter Elbow’s “Being a Writer vs. Being an Academic: A Conflict in Goals.” Personally, as someone who more strongly identifies as a writer and believes in the value and transformative power of writing workshops as a vehicle and structure for developing one’s voice in a particular genre, I am still parsing out what it means to teach a first-year composition class where it seems I am charged with supporting academic goals beyond the scope of what I could understand to be the goals of a writing workshop.

This leads me to wonder whether I am currently a writing teacher or a rhetoric and composition teacher. I would venture my current task is to teach composition which feels inherently academic to me. If I return to my personal philosophy mentioned above, it is clear I am biased towards valuing writing as a means of expression and like Peter Elbow, I would like my students to say, “I feel like I am a writer. I get a deep sense of satisfaction from discovering meanings by writing – figuring out what I think and feel through putting down words … writing is an important part of my life.”