When looking through the table of contents, the selection that caught my eye was “Anyone can teach an Online Writing Course” by Beth Hewett. I’ve read a book by Hewett before, so I was curious to think about Online Writing Instruction (OWI) in relation to the teaching of an online class instead of my experiences in synchronous and asynchronous online tutoring spaces (which is also what I’ve read most about). For the most part, this essay focused on the need for additional training of teachers who teach online because the classes, regardless of the discipline, end up being more writing intensive for both the instructor and students because text is the typical mode of communication for these classes. The teacher then needs to pay more attention to how they’re communicating online and modeling the use of language in an online space. The teacher also probably needs to be more articulate in how they communicate and more knowledgeable in. The article lined up pretty well with what I learned about and in online classes in the past. I wondered or wished it spoke more to the demographic of students who oftentimes participate in online classes and how that may different from those who choose traditional education options.

The other article I read was di Gennaro’s “SAT Scores are Useful for Placing Students in Writing Courses,” which was much less a deconstruction of the SAT in general and much more about the discrepancies of using it as a placement because of the requirements and sometimes lack of standardization in the test itself. It only briefly touched on the issues of validity in an SAT trying to place students into writing classes, and instead tried to come up with solutions to how the SAT could be used for these things (when I don’t believe in the SAT or any standardized tests for higher education at all… probably because I’ve never been good at them). Di Gennaro suggests more localized placement options, but I don’t know how feasible those are for placement either. Di Gennaro comes up on the side that the SAT isn’t good nor bad (something I think is more complex than this dichotomy). I left the article questioning what the real purpose for it could be. I know many educators in higher education think it’s a silly measure, so I’m trying to figure out what the upsides to it could be to still using it as a measurement of any sorts.

Both of these bring me back to the readings that we were required to do. One of the questions that arose was: what FYC is for? I’m specifically thinking about the way that grammar was brought up in Branson’s article. As much as I relate to the narrative of becoming “that English person” people know who knows about writing or how to write or what have you, I’ve spent the past two years haunted by conversations about who is supposed to teach grammar to students in university systems and I hate that it’s become a game of chicken where we pass it off on each other. FYC doesn’t really teach grammar (probably because so many of us are more descriptivists than prescriptivists when it comes to thinking about grammar… especially when we’re wanting to get stellar ideas out of our students), but writing centers (at least in my experience) have also been spaces for developing ideas and understanding of writing outside of nitty-gritty details (except when dealing with contexts that are higher stakes…. among many other things). So who is supposed to teach grammar and how to write “academically” if students are prepared for it coming into college and if FYC doesn’t focus on it. I’m not saying that it should be FYC’s job to do this, but whose job is it? Who is responsible? And why is that? For me, I learned most of what I knew about grammar from reading fiction books (specifically when thinking about dialogue… something I’m only ever conscious of when the student is not following the “rules” the way I knew them). This is one of the benefits I see to OWI. Even though it’s very work intensive, for both the instructor and the students, it also forces a consciousness of writing, and teaching by modeling—grammar (on the punctuation, super specific level) being something I can’t necessarily model when speaking in the class. I think it’s important to think about in what ways different modes of teaching might be more beneficial than others. I agree that the heart of FYC isn’t supposed to be mechanical, but should some emphasis be put on the mechanical?

Wardle’s piece, though reasonable, doesn’t seem to frame the issue I see reflected in these articles as much as I wish it did. The idea of writing “in general” when I go to think of it is what I assume the learning goals of these students are coming into this class. Many of my students want to know what skills they can learn here and take into their future writing endeavors (much of this is based in an idea of “good writing” which I wish my class had more time to discuss/deconstruct together). I think that part of what can help give students the tools to move forward after this class—to figure out writing “in general” (except for in a different way than Wardle describes it)—is equipping the students with an understanding of context, audience, purpose, yadda-yadda rhetoric that Wardle encourages. And in my experience as a writer and a student, these concepts became so much more powerful when we gave them a name and called them “rhetoric” and started to deconstruct what that means (something I think might be introduced more in this Friday’s class).