Teaching Composition: Theory and Practice

Introduction
For the last 150 years, no course has been so pervasive, so fundamentally wanted by college faculty and staff and so fundamentally hated by first-year college students, and yet so absolutley remembered by college graduates, as the ubiquitous first-year composition course, often known as "English 101" or "Freshman Comp." The course, as we know it, began in the mid-1800s at Harvard (as most historians tell us) as a direct response to the perception some faculty had that students entering college could not write, even though they had gone to elite private schools and had been extensively trained for entering college. Interestingly, although we have taught college composition as a required course at almost every college or univeristy, and despite the fact that we've done so for over a century, we continue to hear one constain refrain: college students can't write. Ask any professor on campus and you're likely to hear that.

So why do we keep teaching this course? Do we have some desire to see ourselves as martyrs for an abstract (and seemingly hopeless) cause? Do we really think we're teaching students to be better writers (even if they don't always produce better writing in every situation)? Certainly, the university and the community invest in this course, as does an entire discipline of scholars and researchers. There are a host of different reasons and rationales for teaching composition, many of which we'll explore during the semester through readings, class visits, and discussions.

This course exists to help graduate students in English Studies to understand the complexities surrounding the teaching of writing so that they might offer their future students the most pedagogically sound and rewarding experience with writing that they can.

Goals of English 6625
Upon completing English 6625, graduate students should be able to

• understand a history of how composition instruction became part of the university and what that history means to how we have taught and continue to teach writing;
• recognize and articulate the primary epistemologies at work in various methods of teaching writing at the college level;
• differentiate between "rhetoric" and "composition" and recognize the role each concept plays in a first-year writing class;
• demonstrate a working knowledge of the primary issues facing the composition instructor (assessment and evaluation, the "grammar debate," critical thinking, rhetoric, language acquisition, cultural issues in teaching, the role of gender in teaching, etc.) and begin to develop methods for addressing these issues in their future courses;
• understand their own biases and prejudices regarding language, literacy, and writing, and thus begin to develop methods for working in, around, and through them to be better writing instructors;
• and develop an understanding of the roles various computer technologies play both in the act(s) of writing or composing and in the teaching of writing in a digital age.

To meet these goals, graduate students will generally read between 80 and 100 pages per week, take part in online discussion boards, post responses to readings on individual student blogs, and engage in other projects listed below.

Texts

• Dickson, Marcia. It's Not Like That Here: Teaching Academic Writing and Reading to Novice Writers. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1995. ISBN: 086709351X
• Selected Readings Based on Inquiry Questions (primarily, these will be PDFs available from links on the course schedule and/or assignments links; other times, they will be available on CD or as photocopies)
• Internet-based websites/articles as listed on the course schedule

Other Required Materials

• A Daybook (black-and-white "cow-position" book)
• A pair of scissors for cutting items for your daybook, a glue stick for adding items to your Daybook, and several different types and colors of pen and pencil.

Instructor Expectations
Obviously, I expect a great deal of commitment from graduate students. By choosing to tackle graduate school, you have plunged yourselves further into the world of the "scholar." I hope you will enjoy that work and take advantage of this time to read, write, and think about issues and ideas you haven't considered before, or to go further than you have in the past. "Reading" in graduate school, especially for doctoral students, is an exhausting activity. While I expect graduate students to "read" everything I assign/we choose to read, I hope that you will learn quickly how to "skim and save." Do NOT try to read all these texts like you would poems or novels, pouring over each sentence looking for nuances of meaning. Try to get the big picture, isolate the key arguments/points of the text, and keep it archived for future reference. Some texts, I expect you to devour; others may not hold your interest. That's normal. Regardless, I expect you always to have a passing acquaintance with ALL our readings and an engaged friendship with selected others. Obviously, I expect that we'll have tremendous fun as we work hard together this semester.

Projects
The following brief annotations will provide some context for the sort of projects that this course will require this semester. More thorough explanations, where necessary, will become available over the course of the semester through the "Schedule" and "Assignment" links that bookend this document. Most of the following items will be compiled into a Course Portfolio to be turned in at the end of the semester, along with your Daybook, for final evaluation:

• Daybooks •
  Students will purchase a "cow-position" book (those black-and-white composition books you see everywhere) and will use it as a "Daybook" (Brannon et al) during our course. We'll use these for a host of different activities throughout the semester, but essentially, this will be come your daily writing-thinking-observing space for keeping notes and reflections, for engaging readings and saving significant snippets, etc.
• Reading Responses •
  Students will divide into three groups and take turns writing responses to course readings. When one group writes responses to the readings and posts them on the course blog, the other groups will respond to their classmates' blogs, in effect creating an online conversation about the readings. These conversation are intended to further class discussions. I will announce the groups and when their individual responses will be due.
• Teaching Statement •
  Throughout the semester, students will do various heuristic assignments intended to help them develop a "philosophy of teaching." These teaching statements will involve synthesizing various in-class and out-of-class writings we'll do (e.g., Reading Responses).
• Course Syllabus •
  As the semester progresses, students will write and revise a syllabus and schedule for a section of first-year writing that would be appropriate for a college-level writing course.
• Assignment Sequences (Writing Project Units) •
  As the semester progresses, students will be responsible for preparing and sharing three assignment sequences: one for a unit from the common 1100 syllabus, one for the first assignment from the common 1200 syllabus, and one for the syllabus students desgined themselves.
• Essay Evaluations •
  Students will be given sample student-written essays from first-year composition courses and will practice writing different types of assessments and evaluations of the essays. Students will also participate in a "norming" session based on their evaluations.
• Class Observations •
  Students will be responsible for observing a two- to three-week unit/project in English 1100 or English 1200. The goal is to start class with a group of first-year students as they begin a new essay/project and continue each day until the paper is finished, thus giving the grad student a chance to see a typical writing project from start to finish in an English 11100 or 1200 course.
• 20 Questions: An Interview Project •
  Students will create collaboratively a set of 20 questions related to the teaching of writing and will then interview selected professors and graduate students in the English department. The questions will begin the first night of class and will be revised as the semester progresses. After midterm, students will contact their interviewees and arrange for a 30 minute interview. Results will be compiled and shared at the end of the semester.
• Digital Storytelling Project •
  Students will take part in a project appropriate for a first-year writing course. Using this project as an example, students will explore the roles that digital technologies now play in the "composing" process.
  

Most of these "texts" will become part of each student's Teaching Portfolio (Course Portfolio), a collection of artifacts that will count for the majority of the course grade (90%). Students will also complete a final exam during the last week of class (which will be part of the Portfolio) and will be held accountable for appropriate "studentship" in the course (10%). Studentship means attending class, participating in face-to-face and online discussions, and meeting assigned deadlines for projects.

Attendance
Graduate students by default should be at every class meeting. Emergencies and problems arise, so I can overlook your missing a couple of hours of class, especially since individual students can contribute significantly on the course blog the days they miss in order to "make up" for not being physically present. Missing more than six hours of class, however, will dramatically impact a student's course grade. Graduate classes rely on the students to be successful; as such, your absenses will jeopardize learning for others, which isn't acceptable. Because this course is required for those who wish to teach, I will be especially annoyed by absences; this class is simply too important for you to miss because each absence means that much more you'll not know before you start teaching, and that puts your future students' education in jeopardy!

Late Work
We all have very busy, trying lives, and as such, there come times when we have to complete some work late. Each student in this class is allowed an occasional late blog response or other short piece of writing. Neither major projects nor drafts of major projects may be turned in late, as turning the drafts in late would invalidate the reason for drafting in the first place and turning in final projects late would prevent me from reading and evaluating them in time to turn in grades at the end of the semester. Students may always turn projects in early.

Conferences
Students should schedule conferences with me when they do not understand comments I've made on their projects or when they become confused about the expectations of this course. Likewise, I may require a certain number of individual and/or group conferences during the semester. After midterm, I will schedule conferences to discuss major project proposals.

Academic Integrity
Students are expected to be honest about individual effort and responsible to peer/secondary source materials that are included in their projects. Both plagiarizing and turning in work written partially or completely by someone else are forms of academic dishonesty and carry serious penalties, the least serious of which is a grade of zero on the particular assignment (and thus a D, at best, in the course), but could also result in failure of the class and even expulsion from the university. Students who keep up with their work and consult with their peers and their professor have no reason or need to "cheat." Since this course is focused on research ethics, I expect that students will see me if they are unsure about how to cite or represent ideas/writing by others so that we can figure it out without ending up in a nasty plagiarism case.

Computers in the Classroom
Because we meet in a computer-mediated classroom, we will make frequent use of the machines.  However, certain computer-related behaviors will not be tolerated.  You may check your email or free-surf the web as you please before and after class, but after I announce the beginning of class by starting the roll, any student still using email, chat programs, or web browsers for non-class-related activities will loose points for participation or may even be considered absent from class for the day. **Likewise, students retain sole responsibility for keeping electronic copies of all their work.**  Lost or stolen disks, erased disks, home computer crashes, printer problems, etc. do NOT excuse you from turning in work or having copies of all your work on disk at the end of the semester.  Remember to make frequent back-up copies of files and keep copies on multiple disks.

Accommodations for Students with Special Needs
East Carolina University seeks to comply fully with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Students requesting accommodations based on a covered disability must go to the Department for Disability Services, located in Brewster A-114, to verify the disability before any accommodations can occur. The telephone number is 252-328-6799.