Midterm

When thinking about teaching a first-year composition course, I believe it is important to first consider some fundamental questions about the purpose of education. I believe that students need a solid foundation in composition and rhetoric, especially in tertiary education; however, the meaning of both composition and rhetoric are in a state of volatility. Students need to question themselves, their culture, and various texts with which they are interacting in order to form personal opinions and develop new ideas. This means students need to efficiently access information, to think critically about that information, and to creatively and effectively communicate this information in a variety of genres using multiple modalities. Students should be learning a variety of tools that help them research, think critically, and express their ideas, in order to become contributors to the academic community.

Rhetoric plays a vital role in this process because composition is concerned with the dialectic. The traditional five canons of rhetoric: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery, offer students a valuable lens to view argumentation. Because arguments are being communicated in a growing number of diverse genres, the basic definition of composition needs to be expanded. Basically, first-year courses need to teach students two things: how to think critically and form personal opinions; and how to communicate these ideas in a variety of modes and genres.

I like a lot of Peter Elbow’s ideas for several reasons. For example, his advocacy for freedom and exploration in writing and his emphasis on voice are important in student discovery (Elbow, 15). However, I think that too much freedom leaves students without a vision, and therefore, encumbers students from expressing their voices. Elbow’s expressivist pedagogy succeeds in helping students to explore their personal ideas, but unfortunately falls short in setting students’ individual ideas in the context of a larger academic conversation. Expressive writing has its place, but in first-year composition courses there needs to be a greater focus on situating oneself in a greater academic discourse.

As Patricia Bizzell claims, Elbow and fellow theorist David Bartholomae are not quite as different as they would like to think (Bizzell, 174). Bartholomae also believes in acknowledging students as important contributors to academic discourse; however, he differs in that his focus seems to be more geared towards content rather than the student. Gerald Graff takes this notion one step further in explicitly declaring the main focus of composition to be argumentation (Graff and Birkenstein, ix). The college environment is a place where ideas should be continually posited and challenged which necessitates a group of scholars (students included) that think critically about these ideas and formulate new ones. Graff’s work has helped to restore the role of rhetoric in the academy which, in turn, has also had major implications in composition courses. The claim that we should focus on the conflict itself and the realization that no solution will be resolved perpetuates an open culture of diverse ideas. This is the type of culture we should preparing first-year student to participate in.

Furthermore, Bartholomae notes the necessity of students positioning themselves individually within their larger cultures. Patricia Bizzell comes in perfectly here because her holistic approach not only bridges the gap between Elbow and Bartholomae (Bizzell, 174), but also focuses on students understanding their specific social and cultural positions, so that they might better comprehend their place in the larger academic discourse. This self awareness allows students to better contextualize their arguments and to appreciate the diverse multiplicity of perspectives in this increasingly globalized world. I also like Bizzell because she discusses the importance of teaching students the writing structures and styles that will be effective in expressing these ideas. This ideally combines critical thinking and communication.

Finally, Walter Ong supports my pedagogical vision of first-year composition courses in that he acknowledges the momentous affects that shifting modes of communication have on education. Ong is known for his consideration of oral culture and the paradigmatic changes that took place with the advent of the alphabet and furthermore with the printing press. In addition, Ong posits an idea of secondary orality in which, due to the influence of technology, our society is transforming into one that foregrounds the digital word (Ong, 134). This idea has helped me understand that the very nature of communication is transforming, namely due to the internet and the various tools available through the net. Therefore, education should be changing too, otherwise it will be left in the dust (which is already beginning to happen, at least in secondary education). It is essential not just to use technology as a tool, but to use inquiry to explore the outcomes of utilizing various modes and genres in communication. The bottom line is that students should have many opportunities to use technology in first-year composition courses; however, students must also spend time thinking critically about the various social, political, and cultural implication of using technology as a tool.

In short, first-year composition courses should be about learning to formulate and articulate ideas in the academic community. This means taking into account one’s social, cultural, and political situation when forming ideas as a part of the wider discourse. Students should be able to articulate their ideas in a number of modes and should be especially adept in doing so digitally.

Works Cited

Bartholomae, David. “Writing with Teachers: A Conversation with Peter Elbow.” College Composition and Communication. 46 (1995): 62-71.

Bizzell, Patricia. “On the Possibility of a Unified Theory of Composition and Literature.” Rhetoric Review. 4 (1986): 174-180.

Elbow, Peter. Writing without Teachers. 25th Anniv. Ed. Cambridge: Oxford UP, 1998.

Graff, Gerald and Cathy Birkenstein. They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. New York: Norton, 2006.

Ong, Walter. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. 1982. London: Routledge, 2002.