Study in Composition

My personal experience in a composition course is represented by the handwritten draft at the center of my collage. This is actually a scanned image of an essay I wrote my junior year of high school for AP Language and Composition.  My teacher at the time, now colleague, left her feedback in black marker; she still uses the essay as sample in her class today. When I think back to what I learned in her class, I find similarities with what Crowley describes as the composition’s historical goals: “ to develop taste, to improve...grasp of formal and mechanical correctness...to become critical thinkers, to establish personal voices, to master the composing process” (6).  But at that time, I did not think of learning in terms of those goals; I simply played school and performed well enough on the exam so that I wasn’t required to enroll in freshman composition in college. In many ways, I know look back and realize this AP class was when I was beginning my inculcation into the academic community and learning the “discursive behaviors and traits of character that qualify...to join the community” (9). Now that I’m a teacher of writing, I find these explicit and implicit goals problematic, and I wonder how I can continue to develop my teaching and not simply perpetuate through exclusive practice.

My experience teaching composition is represented by Ricardo Ponce’s painting “El Carnaval de Saturno” in the lower right hand corner.  I chose this to represent my teaching because I use this image early in the school year to show my ninth and tenth graders that each one of them is capable of thinking creatively  which is needed when composing. I ask them what they see, think, and wonder about the painting, and then I ask them to tell the story behind it and give it a title. While this is still what Crowley would describe as a “highly artificial writing situation,” as most in the English classroom are, I am attempting to surprise students into writing with a prompt that’s out of the ordinary.  

As I continued reading this week, I found many connections between my work and the current debates within the field of composition. Another example connects to the debate of how to best “engage students in repeated rehearsals of the discursive acts that occur in specific disciplines”  (Crowley 9 citing Lindemann 1993).  Even in English class at the early high school level, we attempt to practice beyond the scope of literary analysis by reading more nonfiction texts, as the Common Core dictates. However, similarly to how Crowley describes the departmental riffs between English and other disciplines, even in high school English teachers are held responsible for students’ written correctness and fluency.  Teachers of composition are not the targeters, we are the targets.

Teachers of composition are “undervalued, overworked, and underpaid,” said no teacher ever (Crowley 5). The hours spent planning, reading student work, responding, conferencing, and evaluating is incredible. Part of this problem is due to what Bartholomae describes as “distinguishing between the various material practices, institutional pressures, habits, and conventions that govern writing and schooling” (335).  Instead of truly fostering students’ acts of creation and unique voice, most of the writing instruction that goes on in high schools and freshmen-year composition courses is the process method that demands the “perfect final draft.” This demand is not only damaging to students, but also teachers. Instead, teachers of writing should “accept student writing as a starting point, as the primary text for a course of instruction, and to work with it carefully, aware of its and the course’s role in a larger cultural project” (338).  But if we are to shift this paradigm, we must value work that is ambitious, incomplete, and uncertain.

Tackling those “Thorny” questions in the field. Alan Benson’s review helped me understand more about the arguments for and against multimodality within composition. For example, in reviewing Jason Palmeri’s Remixing Composition: A History of Multimodal Writing Pedagogy, Benson begins by introducing the “thorny question--what specialized disciplinary knowledge can compositionists bring to multimodal composition?” (166).  Benson summarizes Palmeri’s claim that multimodality is in our history in composition; we simply aren’t very conscious of it. (Wasn’t even prehistoric cave art multimodal?)  I agree with this point, and I am always wary when “new technology” is blamed various human behaviors and shortcomings.  When teaching high school students, I consider how picture books can engage. Picture books include both text and pictures (some even have extra-sensory pages like Pat the Bunny). I’ve used picture books when introducing concepts from critical literacy, such as “Whose voice is heard, and whose is left out? How would this story be different if the main character were of a different race/gender/class/sexual orientation?” Students are already familiar with picture books, so the leap of writing one of their own that is critically aware is an awesome project in composition. Some thorns are necessary in causing us to re-examine missed opportunities in our instruction.

The role of composition in the English department is represented by The Royal Tenenbaums movie poster because we are one big, happy, dysfunctional family. Bartholomae makes the point that composition’s conflicts with those outside of the field are not so much about the differences in disciplines, but “the lines of interest [that] separate...those committed to basic instruction...from those interested in ‘advanced work’” (335). I believe that all those hired to teach should value learning enough to expect to teach at least some introductory-level course work regularly; however, there are always members in any family that feel they deserve special treatment. Also, to me it makes logical sense why composition has been house within the English department, but something I am curious about is if any other fields ever take ownership of teaching Composition 101 for Engineers, for example? Or Composition 101 for the Sciences?

The role of composition in the academy is represented by Plato’s Academy.  I believe all teachers are teachers of literacy, so I find the problem of specialization dangerous to the practice of good teaching at the introductory level.  Crowley describes how directors of composition programs must employ instructors “they did not hire and who may or may not know enough or care enough about the work they do in order to perform it well” (6).  My question is why doesn’t academia value learning enough to ensure quality teaching, especially at the freshmen level?  Crowley goes on to describe the serendipitous victory of such programs, which isn’t by plan but mere chance. I, too, think more tenured faculty should teach, and want to teach these courses, out of the love of learning.

Multimodality in Composition is represented by this collage itself. I made this collage by using an app called BeFunky that my students showed me as we were working on our American Dream collages before reading Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men about two weeks ago.  The app is free and has excellent editing features, but how you can share your creation takes up about just as much space on the screen as the cool editing tools. Thus,I find multimodality is best defined by its authentic social qualities rather than its extra-sensory flashiness. Yancey would agree with me, as she states, “if we believe writing is social, should the system of circulation--the paths that the writing takes--extend beyond and around the single path from student to teacher?” (807).  I’m not sure how many of my stduents shared their collages through social media, but we also have them on display in the classroom. As I continue to teach composition, I hope to include more of Yancey’s guiding points:

• “consider the issue of intertextual circulation: how what they are composing relates or compares to “real world” genres;
• consider what the best medium and the best delivery for such a communication might be and then create and share those different communication pieces in those different media, to different audiences;
• think explicitly about what they might “transfer” from one medium to the next; what moves forward, what gets left out, what gets added--and what they have learned about composing in this transfer process;
• consider how to transfer what they have learned in one site and how that could or could not transfer to another, be that site on campus or off;
• think about how these practices help prepare them to become members of a writing public” (807).  

Composing for Authentic Audiences and Circulation is represented by the image of a literal concert audience. Yancey continues to make great points about moving to “a new model of composing where students are explicitly asked to engage in these consideration, to engage in these activities, to develop as members of a writing public” (808). I’m interested in teaching writers, not writing, as I’ve stated earlier, and I have done a lot of work trying different portfolio assessments in my classroom. Over this past summer, I began feeling discouraged because after trying two years of different methods, I came to the conclusion my students were simply not writing well enough to be able to see or describe their growth.  Now, after reading Yancey’s text, I want to try portfolios with a new, multi-genre approach.  Yancey suggests,  “as [the students] move from medium to medium, they consider what they move forward, what they leave out, what they add, and for each of these write a reflection in which they consider how the medium itself shapes what they create” (812).  On a higher level, Yancey describes the culminating project where students “write a reflective theory about what writing is and how it is influenced or shaped or determined by media and technology” and I would argue society, self, and the list goes on and on (812).

The role of composition in the community is represented by the photo of the confluence of Eau Claire’s rivers because while beautiful, communities often come into contention over change, just as Eau Claire has over the building project.  While we want to preserve best practices and traditions, we also need to listen to all voices to enact and support purposeful change. I found Bartholomae’s description of the “critical purchase” on a text fascinating when the chemistry teacher read the English paper and found it appropriately flowery despite the paper’s massive shortcomings according to the English teacher. This discussion of viewing someone else to match your perception of them also reminded me of our discussion on The Heavenly Twins and how problematic this can be!  Bartholomae points out that this problem is caused by “our inability to talk with each other about writing, about the student text and what it represents” (331).  Thus, something is broken within our community and the solution is better communication about composition, ironically.

Composition as Learning and Practical Criticism is represented by the drawing in the center which is titled “Self-deception” by an anonymous artist because more honest self-reflection is needed in composition courses for students to become and see themselves as effective writers. What also comes to mind now is one of Yancey’s chosen side-quotes from Marshall McLuhan, “we look at the present through a rearview mirror. We march backwards into the future” (811). Our very own classrooms are burning to the ground while we spend hours each night scrawling red pen across students supposed “final” drafts.  A more hopeful future is what Bartholomae describes with writing that is authentic but maybe messy and unfinished.  I am fascinated with this idea not only because I’m already bored teaching about comma splices and topic sentences, but because I want to “teach students to question the text by reworking it, perhaps attending to detail in one week, perhaps breaking or experimenting with the narrative structure the next, perhaps writing alternative opens or ending, perhaps writing alternative scenes of confrontation, perhaps adding text that does not fit, perhaps adding different voices or points of view, perhaps writing several version of who the writer...might be” (342). Writing is an action and writing is thinking and writing is learning, so more work should be expected in the present tense.